RVs Aren't Plows

Before we left SC our son-in-law took the whole family out to a wonderful Chinese restaurant. Not much else to say about it other than it was great food and wonderful company.

Next we visited Jim's great niece, Ariel, in AL She's stationed at Fort Rucker learning how to fly helicopters. We visited her last year and Jim asked if there was anything we could do for her while we were there. So he volunteered me to install handles on her kitchen cabinets and patch a hole in her bathroom ceiling. RVing can get pretty boring so I was glad to have the opportunity to do something useful, and you all know how much I like carpentry projects. This year I gave the baseboards in her house a fresh coat of paint and Jim fixed a loose deck board.

Ariel says she has the coolest job in the world. I tend to agree.

I've said many times that RVing is a learning curve. The 1st winter was a steep curve with many bloopers and oopsies. Last year, our 2nd, was much better and we thought we had done about all the oopsies anyone could. However, we grossly underestimated how many oopsies a person can make. Apparently, we weren't done because Friday morning as we pulled out of Ariel's yard, Jim forgot to raise the tongue jack. Let's just say we could have followed behind and planted a crop in the long furrow it made. Since tongue jacks aren't made for plowing fields it bent backwards at a 45 degree angle as it plowed a deep furrow about 40' long. It wouldn't retract and obviously we couldn't travel with it still down, so Jim cut it off with a sawzall. He'll have to locate a replacement post but meanwhile he stopped at Walmart and bought a car jack so we can get it off the truck at our next stop over.

We traveled to our next stop near Mobile, AL. One great benefit of RV traveling is meeting great people. Our hosts, who's place we were parking our RV at, were not only extremely welcoming but invited us out to dinner with some friends. Panda Palace Buffet had a very interesting variety, including sushi, if you're into that, which I'm not. I did try the squid salad though. I didn't dislike it. I can say it was interesting. I think it's definitely an acquired taste and if I had enough time, like maybe a year, to acquire it I might actually learn to like it. They did have something I'd never tried before - crab casserole, which was crab meat in a cheese sauce. Excellent!

Our new friends in Mobile, AL.
Our hosts Travis and Kathy are on the back left.

The car jack that Jim had purchased to temporarily replace the tongue jack didn't work. Since we couldn't get the RV off the truck Kathy offered to give Jim a ride to Northern Tool to get a bottle jack. That did the trick. Then Kathy offered me a ride to Walmart to get groceries. RVers are really wonderful people who understand emergencies when you're in need of repairs. Travis and Kathy were no exception and were right there when we needed them. More lifelong friends to add to our ever-growing list.

Some other pictures from our visit in Mobile, AL, all taken right outside our RV:

Dock on the shore of the Dog River

Muscovy ducks

You can take me off the farm, but you can't take the farmer out of me.
Our hosts had about 10 chickens.

Jim relaxing on the dock with Sammy

We'll be here till Monday morning when we'll be off to Breaux Bridge, LA where we'll be overnighting at a place that offers swamp tours. I'll give you a report on it, that is if I don't get eaten by the alligators!

Forgot to show you the reindeer that Hobby Lobby was selling. I'll take good old Rudolph without the fur collar, thank you anyway.