blame it on me

Well I guess I'll take the blame, looks like I was dragging some cold weather along with me on the drive down from Indiana. We had one "decent" day of temps on New Years Day when the thermometer reached the low 70's. Rudee and I took advantage and was able to to take a nice ride in the morning before the rains moved in.

Wednesday was cold and windy so we decided to drive over and visit Fort Morgan on Mobile Bay. The fort was built in 1833 and it's guns guarded the entrance to the bay through several wars. The Civil War brought fighting and bloodshed right to it's doorstep and it was the last major port captured by the Union forces. Perhaps you are familiar with the phrase "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" well that order was given as the Union Navy attacked this fort. Torpedoes in those days were actually floating mines placed in the harbor, quite a bit different than the ones we are familiar with in modern times.
We paid our $7 each to enter the park and our first stop was the visitor center. Getting out of the Dakota we were met with this sight

yep, those are the Blue Angels practicing their air show routine. Cool!
We toured the displays they had inside and then walked into the Fort itself. The wind sure was blowing hard and it made it feel twice as cold as it actually was so we didn't dilly dally much but did get to visit the interesting areas inside.

Wednesday we had planned on moving down the road a little bit but when we woke up to rain showers our plans changed. Tomorrow is supposed to be a nicer day for traveling so we will take advantage and change our view a little bit.

We got some exceptional news today. The surgeon says Lexy will be keeping her fingers! The circulation has improved significantly and they are starting to talk about letting her go home soon. We are so relieved, I know she still has a lot of work ahead of her with additional therapy to help her gain movement and flexibility but she is one tough young lady! Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers! I'll keep you posted.

beating the storm

Monday morning I called Grumpy who owns the shop where our bike is stored. The shop was not open but we made plans to meet for lunch and then could go to the shop so we could pick up the bike.
We met at the local Dairy Queen and enjoyed swapping stories while we ate. Dairy Queen probably has the best fast food (my opinion of course) but for some reason we don't stop there as often as we do some of the others, not sure why.
Once we got to the shop Grumpy showed me the newest thing in motorcycle covers. These covers are made to be left on the bike while it is being transported/towed. Grumpy hauls his bike on his Freightliner same as we did and he started using one of these and has sold them to several of our friends who also haul their bikes in/on their trucks.
I decided to give it a try and he cut us a great deal on it as well as "no charge" for storing our bike the last couple of months. Thanks Grumpy!
I bundled up and headed out on the bike ...... 33* and the roads were wet! Yikes :-o
Rudee followed me in the Dakota and captured the moment for posterity. Yes, that is snow on the sides of the road!

 

Once we got back to the motorhome we loaded the bike onto the lift and tied it down. This took a little extra time to get the tie downs positioned like I wanted them and then we had to unpack and figure out how to position the new cover. I know most bike owners are cringing at the thought of covering a bike while it is being towed down the road. I was the same way but this new cover has tie downs to snug it in critical areas and once we had it on and "buckled down" I really liked it.

We spent Christmas morning at our daughter and son in law's home. We enjoyed watching the grand kids open their presents and Santa even dropped off a new RV GPS for me. :-)
My kids snuck around and got me a really neat gift:

Yep that guy in the Smokey Bear hat is me. :-) The badges were from my days with the Plainfield Fire Department and my first badge issued when I joined the Boone County Sheriffs Dept. I was really surprised and absolutely love it! Thanks guys.

We left the party shortly after 1pm for the short drive back to the campground. We hooked up the Dakota and headed South. We ended up driving to Bowling Green, Kentucky stopping at the Camping World store where we boondocked in their parking lot for the night. The rain started about 10 minutes after we arrived so it was good timing on our part :-). We ended up running the generator all night since the temperature dropped quite a bit and we needed the extra power to keep warm.

Wednesday we woke up to more rain and the threat of snow showers. We had a quick breakfast of microwave oatmeal and headed out into the rain. I kept a close eye on the thermometer which varied from 34-38 degrees. The rain changed over to snow after only a few miles and we both were a little nervous. The radar showed that the showers ended south of Nashville so we pressed on. Turns out the radar was correct and the showers quit but the radar didn't warn us about the cross winds which started blowing after the rain/snow stopped :-o.
Fighting the 30-40 mph winds hitting you broadside in a large vehicle wears you out and by 1pm we were ready to call it a day and started considering campgrounds to stop at. My original plan was to get at least as far as Birmingham if not Montgomery. Instead, thanks to the "breeze", we pulled into Cullman Campground shortly after 2pm, we didn't travel as far as we had planned but at least we are safe and sound. Tomorrow they are promising some sunshine, no wind and thankfully warmer temperatures. I'll keep you posted.

a little more history

Monday was pretty cool with the temperatures only rising into the lower 50's so we decided to park the bikes for today.

We hung around the campground for a while just relaxing and enjoying a slower start to the day. Our campground is part of McFarland Park ran by the city of Florence. They offer full hook up sites (no cable or Wifi) for a very reasonable price and if you are 62 or over you get an even better deal.

Reservations are accepted but they charge an additional $3.00 charge as a "reservation" fee plus you cannot reserve a certain site but it will guarantee a site available when you arrive.

The campground has a mix of angled back in sites and pull thru sites. A little heads up though, the back in sites are longer and the pull thrus are situated in the center aisle between the back in rows and look difficult to get into with a larger rig.

The park sits right on the Tennessee River. There is an access road you have to cross to get to the river but there is hardly any traffic here at all. They have a nice shower house, laundry centrally located in the camping loop. All said this is one of the better parks we have stayed at and the price makes it an even better deal!

We decided to head over to Shiloh National Military Park about 50 miles northwest in Tennessee. Rudee and I had been here before but had not been able to spend a lot of time exploring. We started at the visitors center watching a film explaining the battle. I will have to say it was one of the poorest documentaries I have seen. The film had to be at least 20-30 years old and was pretty cheesy.

We did purchase the auto CD driving tour since we were impressed with the one we did in Vicksburg. The park gives you a map with the tour stops marked but after you purchase the CD they give you another sheet of paper to follow because they have re-done the map and didn't change the CD so the tour stop numbers, roads and route do not correlate to each other. Needless to say we were disappointed with having to pay $14 for a tour CD and got lost several times trying to follow the poor directions given. We expected better.

One highlight to our visit was seeing this sight.

This is a male Bald Eagle and he is closely guarding the nest where his mate was sitting on an egg due to hatch any day. The park service has a TV monitor set up in the visitor center with a camera on the nest watching the excitement unfold. Look close and you can see the female looking over the edge of the nest.

We stopped for supper on the way back to the campground since it was getting late. Tuesday is supposed to be the start of warmer and sunnier weather. I'll keep you posted.

venturing out

Saturday was windy and cold but at least there was no threat of severe weather. We decided to all pile into the Dakota and do some exploring since it was going to be too cool for motorcycles.

I drove us all back to Hackleburg where we saw the devastation of the April 2011 tornadoes. Being in emergency services most of my life I have responded to damage caused by storms but nothing compared to this. There were very few trees left standing and most of the homes and buildings stood little chance. How terrifying this storm must have been :-o.

We stopped for lunch at a little out of the way place and enjoyed some "local flavor". The food was very good and reasonably priced.

On the way back to the 5th wheel we checked out a couple of motorcycle shops and did some "window shopping". I tried to talk Rob into buying a Harley Screamin' Eagle but the $36,000 price tag kept getting in the way :-).

We relaxed at the 5er Saturday evening with the girls making home made pizza and we all enjoyed some TV.

Sunday morning we decided to bundle up and take a motorcycle ride. We rode into Mississippi and hopped onto the Natchez Trace Parkway, This is a motorcycle road if there ever was one! Slow sweeping curves, rolling hills very little traffic and no stop signs!

We made a stop for a picnic lunch overlooking the Tennessee River. Here is Rob and Jany bundled up for the cool ride!

We also stopped at Tishomingo State Park and checked out the campground which is not big rig friendly although there were a couple of spots we could probably squeeze into. They do have a suspension bridge that we walked across. I'm not big on heights and coupled with the swinging of the bridge ...... well lets just say I was not a happy camper out on the bridge! :-)

We rode for a couple of hours and then headed back to the 5ers where Jany had a crock pot full of chili ready for us! Yummy good, especially on a cold day!

We ended the evening playing a couple of games of "Spinners" a domino type game. I ended up winning both games so luck was on my side but no $$ changed hands :-(

Our plans for Monday are written in Jello, still looks to be a little on the cool side so may do some more exploring in the Dakota. I'll keep you posted.

duckin' storms

Friday morning we kept track of Rob and Jany's progress and as they were getting close the weather just kept getting worse. A large storm popped up right in their path and we were pretty worried about them. They arrived around 10:30 and said it got kind of hairy for a few miles but they made it through OK. We found out a little later that the same storms produced a tornado that did some damage near Huntsville just east of where they went through :-O.

Once they were set up they came over and Rudee had lunch ready for them. Louisiana Bouidan and homemade clam chowder. We spent most of the afternoon just chilling out and catching up with each other.

The tornado sirens started going off around 3pm so we headed for the bath house. The skies were looking pretty bad and we could see a nasty storm approaching. A police car drove up as we were walking over and stopped to talk with us. He told us the storm was coming in from the south and headed our way fast, just then he got a call that there was damage on the east side of town and he had to leave. We watched as the storm skirted just to the east of us and all we had was some rain and a short spurt of small hail. Wow, we were lucky because this line of storms turned out to be pretty powerful.
Indiana also got hit pretty hard and we spent the evening making sure all our friends and family back home were all OK (they were).

The temperatures are on a downward trend the next couple of days but looks like the storms have passed. We have not made any plans for the week end yet but we are looking forward to venturing out and checking out the area. I'll keep you posted.