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.



Road trip to Selma Alabama

I am not sure how exactly our interest in the civil rights movement got started but today we added another chapter to the book.  It seems when you travel in the south  you are confronted with so much history that pertains to the civil rights movement that it is difficult not to be caught up in the history of it.  Both Janet and I had good friends who were black at a very young ages.  I went to both a Junior High in Muncie, Indiana and Muncie Central High School in the late 60's and early 70's where racial problems were a frequent occurrence.  I even got a week out of high school for  a confrontation with some black classmates but for me race had nothing to do with it.  Some of my best friends in high school who I had known for years were black.   I wasn't expelled but just ask not to return for a week for my own safety.  They said get on your motorcycle (at the time I had a 1967 650 Triumph Bonneville)  and get away from the school for the next week.  My parents didn't believe that I wasn't expelled until they called the school for themselves.  Getting back to Selma.  It is a small town of about 20,000 people.  Registering to vote if you were black in the early 60's in Selma, Alabama was almost impossible and if you were able to register, actually voting as a black person was even harder.  Before voting you might be asked to tell the voting poll worker how many jelly beans were in a jar, or how many cotton balls were in a jar, or how many soap bubbles were in a jar of soap and water before you could vote.  Since no guessed the correct number of jelly beans, cotton balls, or soap bubbles no one got to vote.  Just think this is in a community where over half of the residents were black.  In 1961 only 156 of the over 15,000 African Americans in Dallas county were register to vote.  An event in February of 1965 that got people upset was the shooting of a young black man who later died who was trying to protect his mother and grandmother from a rioting crowd of people. What actually brought the racial conflict to the national stage was the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama on March 7, 1965.  Many people were severely beaten on the Edmund Pettus bridge which is six blocks from where the march started at the Brown Chapel.   While the march wasn't completed on March 7th some two weeks later 3,000 people started the 34 mile march again and 25,000 finished it a few days later.  The history is very interesting and it's hard to imagine that people were treated like that in this country less than 50 years ago.  Here are the pictures.  Hope you enjoy them.

 



If I could vacuum up all of the cotton from the side of the road on our trip today I could supply Warsaw with cotton balls for a decade.

This is the historic bridge where the Bloody Sunday confrontation took place that made national headlines.

 

 

 

The March started at the Brown Chapel which is about six blocks away from the Edmund Pettus bridge.

 

 

What would be your odds on being able to vote?

This is a neat little church we saw on the way back to Gulf Shores.

 

 

The primary business in this part of Alabama seems to be logging.

 





Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge

Today we didn't do a whole lot.  Got up and took the dogs for their morning walk and then we drove out toward Fort Morgan to the Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge to go for a walk.  We didn't see any thing unusual or too out of the ordinary today.  Yesterday while walking in the park we came across a snake but didn't have the camera.  Janet took a picture of it with her phone but I haven't seen how well it came out. 

Tomorrow it is supposed to rain so we are going for another road trip.  We are headed about four hours north to Selma, Alabama or the center of the civil rights movement of the 1960's.  Selma is a town of around 20,000 people but while not large was still considered the home of the civil rights movement due to the unfair practices that were in place as it pertained to voter registration and voting in general for minorities.  We are looking forward to the trip.  Hope to post some good pictures of the Edmund Pettus Bridge where the March 7, 1965 Bloody Sunday march took place which was from Salem to Montgomery to protest voting inequalities.  This march was pivotal to drawing national attention to the voting issues of the south and was key to the Voting Rights Act.  While the town is about 80% black in the early 60's 99% of the registered voters in Selma were white.

A tea cup yorkie that would almost fit in a tea cup.

 

 



Christmas Decorations

Well since we are going to be in Gulf Shores over the Christmas Holidays we thought we should put up a few decorations to celebrate the holidays.  Since we don't have much space to store decorations after the holidays we were looking for something either very compact so it could be stored easily or very cheap so it could be discarded or given away after the holiday season was over.  Today we went north of Foley, Alabama to a store where we scored the inexpensive discard or give away type decorations.  They had a one day sale on Black Friday that resulted in us buying our Christmas decorations for 70% off.  Our entire decorations cost us 90 cents for the star for the front of the 5th wheel, $1.50 for the snowman that is in front of the screened room, and another $1.50 for a holly arrangement for the window of the 5th wheel.   Three dollars and 90 cents and we are good to go and in the running for best decorations in the park.  Not!! but at least people do know we celebrate the birth of Christ.  Below are the pictures of our new decorations. 

Tonight we played a new card game called Pass the Trash with five other couples at our next door neighbor Bob and Gail's place.  We had a great time although we lost $4.00 which was more than the cost of our Christmas decorations. 

Here is a picture of the snowman without the flash

Here is the star we put on the front of the 5th wheel.

The poinsettia and holly arrangement doesn't show up well in this picture but it looks good during the day.

My Thanksgiving dinner.  Just think this tray is just like the ones I ate off of in elementary, junior high, and high school.  Kind of nostalgic Isn't eBay great.