Alabama, gentille Alabama
Alabama, je te plumera
For reasons I don’t fully understand, I sing this Alouette song all the time here in Alabama. I guess they both start with “A” and have the same number of syllables. Who knows. Or maybe I’m just a weirdo. Jury’s out.
As always, this may arrive truncated in your email. Just click the title and read it in the browser. That way you won’t miss anything. Cheers!
Gulf Shores State Park
Oh yeah, we worked our way south to the Gulf of America (update your maps!). We ended upon in Gulf Shores State Park in/near Gulf Shores, AL.
It’s slightly inland from the ocean, but pretty darn close. We started the week with 5 days lake-side, which I particularly love. Sunrises over the lake are divine!
And the sunsets aren’t too bad either
Walks & Crocs
This campground is jam packed with trails!
We ended up walking about every possible combination between the campground loops and the various trails through and around it. We circled all the lakes: Lake Shelby, Middle Lake and Little lake. We wandered out and back and around and back, averaging over 5 miles each day most days.
We were happy to discover one of the park celebrities: Lefty the Alligator (so technically not a crocodile!)
Lefty is a momma gator that, over the years, has had plenty of baby gators. At some point, she lost her right foot (thus, “Lefty”), but apparently that doesn’t slow down a gator… or maybe it does, but how would you know? They just lie there in the water.
A New Grill
One day, these two very southern gents showed up, working for the State Park, and proceeded to replace the grill at our campsite. They were full of great stories, chatting away and offering Penny all kinds of treats.
The most fun of it all was that their means of removing the old grill was to back up the truck+trailer until it smacked into the old grill, then back up some more until it knocked it down and ripped it out of the ground. I guess that’s one way to do it.
We never did use that new grill, in spite of the men suggesting/hoping that we would. Ahh well.
Worry Free RV to the Rescue!
Since we had two full weeks to kill, I contacted Brinkley again to talk about the Water Leak. Remember how I talked about the leak in a previous substack?
Well, we got Chris from Worry Free RV to come out and check things out. He showed up right on time, and got right into it. We pulled the fridge out and yup, the water line was just sitting there, very much not connected to the fridge! Chris noticed that the clamp wasn’t tight enough… only one side had been tightened.
He was able to reattach the line, add two clamps and clamp them down extra tight, and get it all working again!
He then helped me in three other very important ways:
He talked me through my Water Pressure issues and helped me realize that it was simply that I should be changing my filters more frequently. He sold me a replacement filter and put it in place of the now-pretty-dirty filter. He also had me remove the in-line filter on the hose, mostly because it’s a low-flow filter and that may affect the pressure.
That’s not the color of a clean filter He verified and confirmed that it’s ok to have a slide that’s not fully snug when fully retracted. The more important thing is that it lines up correctly when extended out, which it now does.
He also looked at the slide topper and noticed that the piece was just not fully square. It’s like Brinkley installed it from a bad, throw-away piece. He offered to correct it if Brinkley could get him the replacement piece soon enough.
in the end, Chris got the important things squared away and now we have a fully working fridge again. Thanks Chris!
Airin’ Up Clifford!
After some frustration with trying to figure out which type of rubber bump stoppers I should put in place of the the airbags on Clifford, I decided to call a local truck shop: Gulf Trucks.
Turns out the original owner of Clifford must have installed an all-in-one air compressor + train horn where the spare tire would go. But when he sold the truck to the guy I bought it from, he kept that all-in-one hardware, but didn’t want to remove the airbags so he just clipped the lines.
So Clifford has airbags (inflatable suspension support) but they don’t work.
A couple of visits to Gulf Trucks and we are back in business! Clifford is ready to rock-n-roll with new schrader valves and working airbags… makes towing Brinkley even smoother! Woo hoo!
I also bought a battery-powered digital air compressor. I picked out this one after buying 4 and spending too much time trying them all. I’m weird that way.
Ft Morgan Historic Military Site
Gulf Shores State Park is near the beach, but if you keep heading west, you get to the end of the peninsula and there you find Ft. Morgan Historic Site
It was pretty cool to explore this historic site. It has been in use off and on over the years, from being built after the War of 1812, to being used in the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. It was also used in WWI and WWII as a training camp and staging camp. It was eventually decommissioned in the 40s and given to the state of Alabama to be made into a historic site.
It was nice to be able to walk around and explore, especially as dogs were allowed. That’s a big thing for us as we like to have Penny with us whenever we can.
Adventurous Walks
We really upped our game these two weeks, averaging 4-5 miles a day. There were just so many wonderful trails all around, easy to walk on (watch out for bike riders!) and super scenic!
One day, we were walking around Shelby Lakes (the big one on the map) and we discovered that a recent fire had taken out part of the boardwalk:
Did that stop us?
Heck No! We’re Crazy Fun, right?
Give Thanks!
The final bit of adventure in Gulf Shores, AL was that we were there during Thanksgiving! This was our very first thanksgiving without any family around… just the two of us! It was different for sure, but we made the best of it.
And by “we” I mostly mean “Melissa”. That woman! Wowee! She decided to just make “all the things” and do a right, proper Thanksgiving Feast!
The only concession I could see was that she opted to do a 5lb bone-in, skin-on turkey breast instead of a full turkey, just in case it wouldn’t fit in our oven. But that one fit, along with a full pan of stuffing.
And all the extras: mashed potatoes, stuffing, homemade gravy (from the drippings), roasted veggies, creamed onions (my fave!), roasted brussel sprouts (also my fave!), homemade cranberry sauce (NOT can-shaped!) and well-paired wine to boot.
She even made a whole pecan pie (my fave!) which I shared with everyone. Just kidding. I ate it all, over the next few days. Ha! (YUM!)
All in all, a great success all around.
Wrapping It Up
As the two weeks drew to a close, we got ready to pack up and head to the next destination (Texas, here we come!). But first, out of the blue, Chris from Worry Free RV called. Turns out that not only did Brinkley fully pay him for all the work, but they also sent a replacement slide topper awning! Woah! He was able to pop by on Saturday, the day before we left, and get it installed.
A Final Sunset
As a final treat, our last evening walk was one of the best sunsets yet! I don’t think my photo caught it at the peak time, but it was amazing!
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
~ 1 Cor 10:31 (ESV)
Love, Dan & Melissa… and Penny and Clifford and Brinkley
