Greensboro, Georgia

Today was a short 185 mile run into Georgia. We are set for a weeks stay at a $2/night ROD membership park. The $2/night is for an upgrade to 50amp service. It took us quite awhile to set up home. The site is quite unlevel and we ended up putting 3" of wood under a rear Big Foot leveler pad, the tires on one side are now 3" off the ground but we are level! After we were level the sat dish lost the satellite but a push of a button & 3 minutes later the dish found the satellite again. We have both been on the Internet getting caught up because we had no signal the last 2 days in Opelika.

Spring Villa Park in Opelika, AL....& Penn Yonge

On our last day in Summerdale I had my new tooth cap installed, we checked out the beach, had shrimp at the Shrimp Basket, and made a Wal Mart stop for supplies.....oh, how can I forget, $200 for diesel at $4.05 gallon.

We left about 9am and made the 240 mile trip to Opelika, AL. Our plan was to check out the Tuskegee Airmen museum Thursday. We set up home in a small county park 8 miles off the xway that is based upon an old Gothic style house built in 1850 by plantation owner Penn Yonge. Seems that old Penn was not very kind to his slaves and a few years later one of them cornered him on the 13th step upstairs and cut old Penn's head off. Studies of the paranormal have been done in the house with mixed results. We slept well in the shadow of the old house without old Penn disturbing us. I did have to disconnect the power at night because the CG has rather high voltage, 133v, which caused our Electrical Management System to intermittently shut AC power off to the RV. No big deal, we ran on the 12v batteries.

We didn't make it to the airman's museum, their website told us it was very small and had a 4 minute video, I've seen much more on the History & Military channel. We did go to town & sat in a Wendy's parking lot where our cell hot spot got a decent signal so we did some basic Internet stuff done.

Our 2011 travels have begun, the first 100 miles

Sunday evening we started packing up, fine tuning tire air pressure, emptying the holding tanks and putting stuff away. Monday morning we were up bright & early at 8 or 9am, cleaned up then finished the departure routine. We hooked up & pulled out at 9:45 for the 100 mile trip to Summerdale, AL and the Escapees Plantation campground arriving before noon. We were set up 45 minutes later and cooling down, had lunch, relaxed under a shade tree in a nice breeze then made a quick run to Camping World for a couple items. The RV power receptacle in the truck bed broke (still works OK) & I wanted to be prepared with a replacement. Judy is making pork chops, dressing & a veggie for supper. Ruff day on the road! Patches spent an hour outside, she really likes it here! FLASH.....she's back outside now under the tree again. Bet she'll want to go back out after dark, her favorite time to go outside.

Happy birthday Devyn

Hey Devyn....can you see better with Gramp's glasses? We have all had a busy week with Randy & Devyn here. Randy has spent some time pulling cables and installing a couple TVs plus Internet and stereo stuff in Jody & Renato's home. The two northerners have spent time in the campground pool and at the beach a couple days. Randy flipped some steaks for all of us one evening for supper. We celebrated Devyn's twelfth birthday Friday night with red cake and we took them to New Orleans Saturday morning for a direct flight back to Michigan.

On Sunday Jody & Renato spent an hour or so on our HitchHikers roof applying a coat of 303 Protectant, THANKS! After that, and getting cleaned up...it was HOT up there, the four of us went to Newk's for a late lunch, our last visit at a favorite restaurant. THANK YOU LARISSA!

Here fishy fishy fishy

Saturday morning Renato was on our HitchHiker roof and washed it for us & dirty it was. Then we all washed the rest of our home. Randy & Devyn arrived in New Orleans Saturday afternoon and we all went over to pick them up. When we arrived back in Biloxi we all had dinner at a Japanese steak house. We were up early Sunday morning and at a marina at 7am for a days fishing. When we returned at 5pm we were all (at least me) done in. The captain made 3 or 4 stops in the Gulf at some of his fishing holes as far as 25 miles out. It was a beautiful day but a little bumpy on the 2 hour return. Judy & I thought of Clayton several times.....he likes big waves and bumping along on top of them. After returning the deck hand cleaned all the fish and I went to my Lazy Boy chair while the rest of the gang returned to Jody & Renato's for some grilled fish. I was told they were good but there's still 25 pounds left. Monday we just bummed around; Devyn and Judy were in the RV parks pool too. Today Randy & I went shopping for goodies to do some electrical, TV, Internet & music wiring for Jody & Renato. In the afternoon he was in the attic working in the installation. Randy also made chicken noodle soup in his spare time. All the ladies spent the day shopping.

We escaped!!! Free at last!!!

On Monday we escaped Gulf Shores. Saturday we ate shrimp at DeSotos with Don & Zola and Sunday we ate shrimp at the Shrimp Basket with Don & Zola. Shrimped out for awhile. Monday morning we pulled out for Biloxi, a short 107 mile drive. I think we surprised ourselves by packing up & towing like we never stopped for the winter, piece of cake. One itty bitty problem, as we crossed Mobile Bay I noticed the HitchHiker break away switch was blowing & flopping in the wind. If the pin pulled out the disk brakes on the HitchHiker would lock up. After passing through the Wallace Tunnel we pulled over in Mobile and duct taped it back up, I'll repair it when we get to Biloxi. Jody & Renato came over Monday evening to welcome us. On Tuesday we went to the kids house while they worked and did the laundry and washed the truck. In the evening we met them at Newk's for supper & then went to the $5 movies to see Paul, it was excellent but they could have had less swearing. Last night we had some niffty thunderstorms roll through all night long and we had LOTS of rain. Good to be travelling again!!

Fort Gains & the BIG Moon Pie

Last Monday we took the ferry from Ft Morgan across the Mobile Bay to Ft Gaines. These old forts were used to guard Mobile in the 17 & 18 hundreds. It was a beautiful day to take the half hour ride & get a close up of an oil derrick as we cruised by. We spent 2 or 3 hours at the fort. There was a blacksmith demonstrating his trade, when he was done we bought the finished product....happy birthday Randy. Lets see if you know what it is!

We returned home via downtown Mobile and some back roads. We stopped on the river so Paul & Dottie could see the Port of Mobile. The cruise ship was loaded and preparing to pull away while we were there. Judy spotted the big Moon Pie that Mobile drops on New Years Eve. OK Larissa....I updated the blog, your mom told us today that said you told her it was time I did this. FYI...they both had fried oysters at DeSoto's and tomorrow we are all going to the Shrimp Basket...let's see if they go for the oysters again, I bet they will have shrimp.

We have been busy the last couple weeks washing & then waxing the HitchHiker, the documentation tells us it 37' long but after waxing it I think it's 370' long. This is the first time we have done this ourselves. We are getting ready to hook up and move to Biloxi Monday.