Bellingrath Gardens Christmas in Lights Display

Today we went to Bellingrath Gardens southwest of Mobile to take a tour of the home and gardens at the 65 acre estate of Walter and Bessie Bellingrath.  The Coca Cola franchise that Walter Bellingrath purchased in the early 1900's that many thought would be just a fad turned out to be very profitable.  He purchased one of the first 10 Coca Cola franchises ever sold.  We saw silver commemorative awards Walter received for selling 500,000 gallons and one million gallons of Coke.  He later also bought a Mosaic tile company and a steamship company. 

We got to the home at about 3:00 pm so we could tour the house and see the gardens in the daylight and then later at dark with the Christmas lights on.  Our timing worked out perfectly and we are glad we were able to see the gardens during the daylight before seeing the lights at dark.  The home was very nice with many modern conveniences for a house built in 1936.  Since electricity wasn't available at the property an electric generation plant was built and electricity was supplied to the house.  The kitchen contained two dishwashers, two stoves, a refrigerator, and a separate freezer.  The Bellingraths had a porcelain collection that was incredible.  For years many people needed money due to the depression and had very nice porcelain vases etc. that the Bellingraths bought. The Bellingraths got the porcelain that Bessie enjoyed while at the same time helping someone needing money.  The furniture in the house was also amazing with most of it being very intricately carved wood pieces with kind of French Provincial design to it.  A little to ornate for my tastes but still truly amazing. The house contained three separate dining rooms and also had morning rooms, sitting rooms, china rooms.  It was a very nice house but the property it was built on is what took the prize.  We were unable to take pictures inside the house so we made up for it by taking 262 pictures of the rest of the 65 acres.

Since Walters death in 1955, and due to the fact they had no children, the estate has been in a trust and any profits from the admissions etc. that are charged to tour the property or use it for parties and weddings are spun off to charities and colleges.  Our tour of the house and to view the Christmas in Lights display in the gardens cost us $48 which we thought was well worth it.  Hope you like the pictures.

 



 



There are three million lights in the Christmas display.  They put their lights on a little different than I do.

The property was originally purchased to be used as a fishing camp.  It had a small house on it that was used a few years by Walter Bellingrath.  This is the Foul River.



 

You kind of lose the scale of how big these decorations are.  For example these flowers are probably 6 feet tall.

You knew they would have to get alligators in there somewhere

This train is probably over 100' long

 

 

 These candles line this entire walk and each one is about 6 feet tall

 
These snow flakes are up in tall trees on the other side of a big field

This is like a tunnel of lights with sea creatures every where.

And this made it all possible

5 foot tall ginger bread men line this walk



 





The Christmas tree is up.

We debated whether or not we would actually put up a Christmas tree this year in the 5th wheel with the space limitations and the fact that we are moving right after Christmas but we decided yesterday to get a small artificial one for one of  the end tables.  We put the lights and ornaments on it last night and it really adds to making it more festive in the 5'er.  On Thursday we plan on going to Mobile, Alabama to visit Bellingrath Gardens the home of the Magic Christmas in Light display.  The property where Bellingrath Gardens is located was purchased in 1917 by Walter Bellingrath who had the first Coca Cola bottling operation in Alabama.  The story goes he was turned down by every bank in Montgomery before finally putting together $1500 to buy what many thought was a fad franchise to bottle Coca Cola.  The 65 acre property was originally to be used as a fishing camp but in 1935 the family built a 10,500 square foot mansion here as their permanent residence after running out of room where is wife could grow more plants in their downtown Mobile city home. While the home is open to the public year round I have heard it is really fantastic around the holidays' with it over 3 million Christmas lights.  We will post pictures after our visit and let you be the judge.  In the meantime here are some pictures of our Charlie Brown Christmas tree.

This picture is without the flash

 

This picture gives you the perspective of how small the tree is but it works for us.





Still Alive and Kickin

About a week ago during a walk around the campground and after hearing about a major flu epidemic in Alabama I was thinking it has been several years since I had the flu.  Even though I haven't had a flu shot for many years I have been lucky not to have gotten the flu for a long time.  I was feeling pretty good about that.  That was until last Monday.  I had the flu from Monday night until Friday.  Wasn't real bad as flu goes but I don't want it again so I will be getting a flu shot in a couple of weeks so I don't get it again.

I have another trivia question for all of you trivia buffs.  What does Sikeston, Missouri and Foley, Alabama have in common?  Give up?  Both cities are home to the restaurant with the "throwed rolls" Lambert's.  If you have never been to Lambert's and you are ever near Sikeston or Foley you should stop.  Everyone should experience Lambert's once in their life.  Janet and I and the boys stopped at the Missouri location many years ago while Janet and I stopped at the Foley Lambert's last weekend.  Lucky for me Janet was in the catching position this time since I would have hated to have gotten another big butter stain on the clean shirt I was wearing this past Saturday.  The food is very good and they throw huge yeast rolls across the restaurant to anyone who wants them.  They go through over 500,000 pounds of butter that is served with these rolls in a year's time.  Anyway it's a very fun place especially for kids and the food is also good so you can't go wrong.

Here are a few pictures taken during the past week.

 

 

My new lava lamp purchase.  This kind of takes me back to the 60's and 70's.  This picture is without the use of the flash bulb.

This is Huli with her "I'm good face and ready for the big leagues".  They threw her four rolls from clear across the room as far as you could get and she caught all four of them (we ate one each there and took one each home) just thought I should explain that we didn't eat them all there although we probably could have.  I should add that Huli caught all cleanly.  In Missouri I missed one and it hit my shirt where it left a butter spot about 6 inches in diameter on my chest that I not so proudly had to display for the rest of the day. I think Huli and the boys caught theirs cleanly.

She must have felt like I needed a shower...

This is the biggest chicken leg we had ever seen. 

Huli and I are both dieting or we would have ordered something a little more fattening. ha ha

There was a motorcycle club from New Orleans there while we were there.



Chillin with my buddy Tanner

Yesterday the main objective was to get the dogs to the groomer.  We took them early in the morning but weren't able to pick them up until after 5 pm so they weren't too happy.  After picking the dogs up Huli and I played cards with four other couples and had a great time so today we just kind of chilled most of the day.  I took an hour or so motorcycle ride but didn't do a whole lot other than that.  While I was on the motorcycle Huli did some Christmas shopping on line,  My golf buddy Charlie stopped over and talked for an hour or so.  Charlie is a really neat guy who is still dealing with issues from Vietnam from the late 1960's.  Looking back that's the only lottery I have ever won in my life with my draft number being 268. Charlie got drafted but then ended up enlisting since they said he would get a better assignment but it didn't work out that way for him.  We are going golfing on Monday at the Gulf State Park course which is supposed to be a fairly nice course. They have a special for the month of December where it's two for one so we both get to play for $50.  Golf around here is a little more expensive than last year in Florida or back in Warsaw but it seems you can always find a course that is having a special. A course called Kiva Dunes that we played several years ago on one of our annual golf trips when we were in this area costs $80 to play.  Kiva Dunes is probably the nicest course in the Gulf Shores area.

 Tonight my buddy Tanner and I did some grillin out and watched the Alabama vs Georgia football game to see who would end up playing Notre Dame in the BCS championship game.  Down here all you see is "roll tide roll" banners and stickers on cars, trucks, rv's you name it.  I hope ND does the rolling when they play one another on January 7th.