Thanksgiving

Spent few more days in the panhandle area of Florida, Seaside, Grayton Beach. Weather nice except the cold front that hit most of the US hit Florida too. Nights into the 40's. Did get in some golf at Santa Rosa Beach and Sandestin. Got some golf course advice for Canada from Andy and Julie, our playing partners at Santa Rosa who live in Toronto area, when we mentioned our plans for next summer's travel to northwest Canada.

About time to return to St. Louis for Thanksgiving with family and friends. Traveled to our favorite Alabama location, Athens, for return visit with Mike and Terri, Dave and Mary II. Then stashed the iRV at a very nice indoor facility nearby, thank you Mike, and headed to St. Louis to free load off more relatives, Carol and Rick.
Three great dinners with Rick's family, Mary's family, and my family. Visits with Dan and Suzanne, Bill and Sara. Round of golf with friends at Meadowbrook.
And Christmas party with the Lemmings.

Nice visit.

Gulf Shores and Oysterfest

Mary found us a really nice rv park, Bella Terra, about 5 miles from the beach, to spend a week. We have a nice view overlooking the lake. First night there was happy hour, free wine and snacks. Our kind of place. Afternoon weather about 75, very pleasant.
Saturday went to the "Hangout" at the beach for Oysterfest. A whole slew of booths for restaurants specializing in oysters provided a wide range of tastes, and chefs demonstrating how to prepare these things. Mary loved it.

I do not like oysters but the champagne, bloody mary, and beer booths worked for me.
They had many tv screens tuned to college football, mostly with the Auburn game. But found Mizzou and watched some of the romp over Kentucky.
Of course the big talk was the Alabama-LSU game that night. There were a large number of fans advertising both schools there. I had to get a photo with someone from each school so Mary found me a couple passionate supporters:



I had my eye on several other supporters that might have been fun to be photographed with but Mary insisted I not.






There was a large crowd there so it was interesting people watching. This time of year many winter residents are showing up, so there were people from all over.
So with live music, eating and drinking, and lots of people, it was a great way to spend an afternoon.

Birthplace of the Irv

Arrived at Tiffin in Red Bay, AL, the birthplace of our Irv, thinking we would spend a few days getting some work done. We knew they didn't take reservations anymore but were told this would be a good time to get the service done. Well dopy us. There were about 150 coaches in front of us and we were told it would be about 3 weeks before we could get serviced.
Luckily our most pressing issues were resolved when they referred us to a shop across the street that did repairs. They did the essential work we needed that day. We registered for service for the rest of our list and headed for a visit with Mary's brothers in Athens, AL, about 1-1/2 hours away.

Then it was time to continue our journey with the caveat that we needed to be ready to return to get the servicing done. So what does one do in Alabama for a few weeks? Well how about some golf on the Robert Trent Jones golf trail. Good idea Charlie!


Pretty flat swing there!

Started at Oxmoor Valley, the Ridge course, in Birmingham. Course has lots of hills so if you do not keep it in the middle of the fairway you can fall off the side and lose a ball. Hadn't played in a week or so. Enough excusses? Didn't score very well, but weather was ok. Next round at Ross Bridge, also outside Birmingham. We both played better so obviously had better opinion of the course. But it really was a much nicer course. And the facilities there were very nice too.
Next moved on to Prattville, AL just outside of Montgomery and played at Capital Hill, the Judge course. Similar conditions to Ridge course at Oxmoor. Not as nice as Ross Bridge. Weather cooler and windy, and the scoring was not as good either.
The weather was expecting to get cooler so decided to move further south towards Gulf Shores, AL.

On the Road Again

Well November is here and it was time to continue the adventure. First trip not too far to get reacquainted with the Irv, Memphis, TN. We stayed at Elvis' place, Graceland. Of course he has an RV park.

Spent a few hours touring the grounds. Quite a wardrobe. And you can buy one for about $2,000! Mary wanted me to get one but I didn't think it was me and I didn't want to pay extra for the shoes.

Spent couple of hours touring the home and other buildings. House is somewhat modest in size by today's celebrity standards. I'm sure he would be living in something much more exotic today.
Several museums there with variety of exhibits and memorabilia including collection of cars and a couple airplanes. He had plenty of $$ to buy stuff, and did.
Didn't fully realize how many records he made and sold back then. Got a lot accomplished in only 42 years!
It was fun seeing videos of some of his performances and hearing his records again. Yes I did listen to him as a youngster. Thank you....thank you very much.

Next stop Red Bay, Alabama, the birthplace of the Irv, for some fix-ups!