Sunday, December 21, 2008

FloridaFinally

Sunday, 12/21. Got to Florida today -- staying the night in a KOA in Starke. We stayed here just over a year ago and found it to be one of the nicest and best-run RV parks we've been to. Still is.


Pretty uneventful trip from Red Bay, thank goodness. Friday morning I visited the Tiffin Service manager. Found out that the warranty on Tuzi's fiberglass was for five years. Found out that first owner bought her in July 2003 -- do the math. I wasn't really expecting much sympathy, but this pretty well closed any appeal options. Here's a picture of the Tiffin campground, from our visit in fall 2006 - a sunnier, busier time.



Got the new windshield installed in early afternoon, and could have left, but by then we'd already decided to stay the night in Red Bay. Another chilly, drizzly day. We thought a half-day of semi-rest would be good for us.


Got a hair cut from a young goodoleboy. He said there wasn't much to do in Red Bay. I said, Yeah, last time we were here we saw the Coon Dog Cemetery and the Tammy Wynette Museum, so we don't need to do that again. That led him to wax rhapsodic about coon-hunting. If it's not deer or turkey season, he goes coon huntin' and had done so recently. Here's a cemetery picture from 2006.


We did find a barbecue place we hadn't been to. Nice lady in the Tiffin campground office said don't be discouraged if there aren't any cars parked outside. It does big takeout business. Well, that's how it turned out. Dark side street, no cars out front, but OPEN sign on, so we went in. Two nice ladies there -- had the feel of a church kitchen. While we were studying the menu, young man came in for takout. Susie says, What are you having? Pig Spud was the enthusiastic answer. We had pig spuds -- very large baked potatoes soaked in butter and covered with pulled pork barbecue. We each ate about half and I had two more meals out of the remains. Susie swore off pork or barbecue or both.

Saturday we left early and transected the state from NW to SE, ending up in Dothan, AL. Drizzly again for first 2-3 hours, then gradually dried up and warmed up. Dothan was downright balmy -- we actually ran A/C a while. Only tense moment en route was when we pulled into a Cracker Barrel near Birmingham in order to drop off a couple of recorded books. This turned out to be a CB with no RV parking and a very full parking lot. However, we circumnavigated the place with no problem and continued what seemed like another five miles to the next Cracker Barrel. Dropped books, had lunch, checked out two more recorded books.


Book Report Section. In Abilene I picked out two Florida-themed recorded books. One was Flush, by Carl Hiaasen. He's written several humorous novels about Florida despoilers - developers, criminals and the like - and assorted noble but flawed characters who generally bring them to justice. In this case the bad guy owned a floating casino and was dumping the boat's holding tanks into the ocean, fouling a nearby beach that was a nesting place for giant tortoises. Two kids, a brother and sister, clean up (flush) that operation.


Second book was Santa Cruise, by Mary Higgins Clark and her daughter, Carol Higgins Clark, a "beloved mother-daughter duo," it says here. They always have books on the best sellers shelves, but this was my first encounter. Don Imus has them on his radio program occasionally and tells them he would never read one of their books, but he has fun talking to them. Anyhow, this is about a Christmas cruise, like we're taking, but this one is spiced up by a couple of escaped cons who are heading for a Caribbean Island from which they cannot be extradited. The Miss Marple on board is Alvira, a former cleaning lady who won a huge lottery and subsequently became "a pretty good sleuth." Makes sense to me. The cons disguise themselves as Santa Clauses - there were 10 Santas on board - but two suits were stolen by the guy who sneaks the cons on board so you can imagine the confusion that causes.

Next, we picked a book by Fanny Flagg. After about 15 minutes, we said, Nah, we can't take this. Next we listened to Cover Up, by John Feinstein. Feinstein is an occasional sports columnist for the Washington Post and has written several books on sports. This one is a novel, concerning an upcoming Super Bowl game in which one team has had its offensive line test positive for banned steroids, but the evil owner has conspired to cover this up so they won't be kept out of the game. I didn't read the whole cover blurb, but this turned out to be another in a series of Feinstein's teen-age-focused books in which two 14-yr. old reporters (a boy and a girl in young love) uncover various nefarious conspiracies pert. to sporting events. I was worried that the book might be too juvenile, but after the week we've had, no problem. It was entertaining.

Feinstein uses this forum to skewer some of his favorite targets: TV sports people, Redskin owner Danny Snyder (the owner in the book owns an expansion team, and is credited with taking over the title of most disgusting owner from Snyder - they're both short, too), Jeff George (a real backup quarterback who "must be 100 years old" and does nothing but fumble and throw interceptions), and the drug culture of big-time sports. In addition to the kids, the hero of the piece is an honest, noble, hard-working sports columnist (hmm, wonder who Feinstein has in mind here).

Saturday evening in Dothan was warm, but the cold, drizzly weather moved in overnight. We parked for the night next to an Allegro Bay motorhome that had also come down from Red Bay on Saturday. The owners had come there from Chicago and were heading for St. Augustine. We had a good visit Saturday pm.


We don't have too far to go now, so we spent Sunday morning in Dothan. Attended a local Methodist Church. Good sermon: God revealed Jesus via common people, Mary and Joseph, rather than a rich and powerful person. And that still applies to us common people.

You try to focus on the positive, but we couldn't help remarking that the organist played way too loudly. Church had an elaborate pipe organ, with a couple ranks of pipes that pointed out over the sanctuary like guns on a battleship. We attended a service that didn't have a choir and the congregation didn't have a chance to be heard. Oh, yeah, the cellist who played a special number really picked a weird un-Christmaslike sounding piece. All in all, we left in good spirits.


We often stop at Flying J travel stops for gas. They have dedicated RV islands, good prices, and a discount card. But, they often, for some reason, have very slow pumps. Well, this afternoon we pulled into a Flying J that was the worst yet. The RV island was so near the station entrance that we could barely get off the road, to line up behind a couple of rigs at the pumps, and subsequent cars turning in could barely get around the motorhomes in line. Susie helped direct me in safely; she talked to guy ahead of us who said the pump is terribly slow. We waited a long time for him to finish, then we just drove through and out to buy gas elsewhere. Lots of congestion, still, at the entrance, but we finally escaped. Found a nice, new, Mobile travel center a few miles later and gassed up with no hassle.


Late afternoon, but it was only 86 miles to Starke, so that's where we headed for the night. Last half-hour was in the dark on a two-lane highway. No problem. KOA hosts still as friendly and helpful as ever. Free waffles tomorrow. Nice to be here. Turned on a weathercast: record warmth yesterday, cold and drizzle coming tonight. Nice, though, by Christmas. We're ready!

We're not scheduled into our Cocoa RV park until Tuesday, but we'll drive there tomorrow, assuming they have space available, and have a couple of days to get ready for the kids and grandkids arrivals.


Cheers,


Susie and Rob

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