Bye bye Gulf Shores!

Our winter in Gulf Shores has ended.  We have been here for five and a half months and enjoyed all the winter activities and friends.  Some have already left and the others are getting ready to depart. We were pretty much packed and set to leave yesterday and were up at 7am getting cleaned up and finished tearing down.  We said final good byes to several winter friends and pulled out at 8:45.  It was a pretty easy 303 miles and six hours to St Martinville, LA for some sightseeing, waiting for Ron & Roberta to catch up from FL and head toward TX for a rally.  We are staying 3 nights at Catfish Heaven RV Park, as you can see the catfish have more room that unpacked in like a sardine.  It is very peaceful and quiet here compared to Gulf Shores.  It was good to see that everything worked fine and we hadn't forgotten how to move.

Flowery Branch trip

                              Before we get to Flowery Branch we have to go through Atlanta.....................

We spent the weekend with Jody, Renato, Brianna and Dustin before we leave Gulf Shores.  Happy Granny below........

We have another soccer player in the family now................

Brianna wants to play goalie most of the time, check out her face!

The happy family.

Bill & Judy Teetz were headed home to Virginia from the RGV and also stopped for a couple days.  Here we are with Mike & Debra and Steve & Susy at happy hour.  Steve & Susy are headed to Texas from Florida.

And we all have lunch every Friday at Mikees.

Foley train museum

Mike & Terry Hilty are passing through headed to Texas and stopped in Gulf Shores for a week to check it out.  The ladies went shopping and we (Mike Dave and I) went to the watch the trains.......

After that we made a stop and Camping World and then had lunch at LA BBQ.

Here's waht the ladies were up to

Debra

Susy

Ruth

Jami

When they returned it was time for happy hour........

Pensacola

We made a trip to Pensacola to have the leather seat back on the F350's driver side replaced.  After that we went to the Naval Air Museum to see a couple Imax movies... D Day and Rocky Mountain Express.  The movie on building the railroad through the Canadian Rockies was excellent.

After the movies we spent some time in the museum and then had lunch there.

Hello February

This past month we have been doing our normal activities here in Gulf Shores.  Judy leads water aerobics 4 to 6 mornings a week and has added a new more vigorous program.  She also co-manages the Tuesday afternoon euchre games at the senior center,  Wednesday evenings she plays euchre at the Legion and sometimes plays big bucks bingo in Elberta Friday nights.  She also organized the ladies Friday poker games in the pavilion.  Judy also organizes the monthly casino bus trips to Biloxi.  She's happiest when she's active or cleaning something.  I play poker 4 afternoons a week with the guys and do not try to keep up with her.  Together we run the Tuesday night euchre here at the park and also play Sunday nights.  
I entered the Texas Holdem Tournament and came in 6th to get my $20 back, much better than I usually do weekdays.
Every Friday at 11 am we meet up with 8 or 10 friends at Mikee's for lunch.  We seem to eat out more that eating in.  The senior breakfast at Krystals has been our favorite meal and we go there at least twice a week.

We did have some excitement this week, Judy called Wednesday afternoon while I was playing poker and said the truck died a horrible death with fluid all over.  I had Mike give me a ride to Orange Beach and we found a wide trail of diesel down the road into a parking lot ending under our F350.  We called Good Sam Emergency Road Service for a tow and while waiting spotted a fuel line clamp on the engine fuel filter loose.  Problem identified.  I went inside the government office belonging to the parking lot and talked with them, they had the fire department respond as diesel is a hazardous material and there was a nice sized spill.  Two firemen in a pickup responded with oil dry to clean up the mess at no charge.

I called the Ford dealer in Pensacola were we purchased the truck and they had changed the oil and fuel filters earlier this month.  I politely informed them they screwed up and I was not a happy RVer and was on my way there on a tow truck.

 The dealer knew they screwed up as the mechanic that performed  the routine maintenance was from ITT Tech and had been at World Ford only 3 days.  They paid the extra $80 tow to come to Pensacola (I had the closer Ford dealer in Gulf Shores screw up a turbo hose in 2008 and wasn't going back there) and kept the truck 2 days to go over the work the new tech did and clean up the engine compartment.  The fuel pressure on these new diesels is over 20,000 psi so you can imagine diesel going everywhere, it came out the grill, headlights, hood, fenders and of course ended up under the engine.  It was funny when the 4 mechanics standing in front of the truck with me with the hood was up and the service writer turned the ignition on to get the mileage......we had a 5 foot diesel fountain until the mechanics yelled at him.  We had a loaner minivan  and picked up the truck Friday afternoon and enjoyed the diesel aroma on the way home.  

The weather has been very good this winter compared to last year. We had one record setting night when the temp got down to 24 or 26 degrees.  Other than that it;s been in the 60s and very sunny.....although today it's 65 and raining at noon. 

  

Home, home at last!

The two week road trip is over and I'm exhausted and sick with the crud.  We both had a great time and really enjoyed the time with the kids and grand kids!

20.3 mpg on the final 396 mile leg home.  WOW.