Visit with Old Friend

Oak Mountain State Park, Pelham, Alabama
11-29-2007
Today was a little sight seeing, visiting with old friend John and golf practice. This mornings roaming include just about all of the park. First off I happened upon the dam that forms one of the lakes and the lake downstream from the dam was very pretty. The campers here tell me that two weeks ago the leaves were at the peak color. They are pretty nice now. This is a very popular place for bike riders to ride after work. It seemed like there was 50 or so riders today including one fool out after dark without lights.
A bit further along a one lane road was Peavine Falls. The trail to the falls was very nice and wide, with mostly a gentle grade to it until right at the falls. It is an older trail as the sign will tell you. The walk was extremely pleasant and refreshing.
The falls itself was in severe need of some water. Old friend John says they have near no rain in several months. He lives a couple of miles from here. In this picture, taken from above, the falls are on the right of the picture hidden by shrubbery. It is only a small amount of water falling. It was not enough to be able to get the falls to show in a picture.
From this pleasant experience we go to the golf practice area to create laughter by trying to hit golf balls well. Even the birds were giggling at me. The earthworms were definitely not looking up out of their holes for fear for their lives. The practice facility even leaves lights on at night so you can practice after dark. By then it is too chilly for me.
Then after dark I went to friend John’s house to visit with the family. I was able to get one picture of John and Gail and grandchild Lily. We had a fabulous visit and Gail served up a delicious supper of which I ate so much I did not have room for the cherry pie later. We talked over some old times and some new times. John has had a lot of medical troubles, but seems to be doing well now. At this moment we are even going to try to play golf tomorrow. They will have a landscape crew on site early Saturday to repair the damage from our efforts.

Have tooooo much fun, TheOFM

All Around The Mountain

Oak Mountain State Park, Pelham, Alabama
This morning was very crisp (34) so I was lazy getting started. Laundry was on order for the day. An hour or two tour of the area did not yield a Laundromat. The state park had some worn our equipment that ended up being my only choice. It did work adequately, but like the rest of this place it was worn out years ago.
A fellow stopped me to ask for help, because he had gotten his truck stuck in a ditch while unloading firewood. Twernt no problem for the old Chevy to yank him out. Turns out he and his significant other have been living in the park since mid summer 2007 in a tent. His working partner in the firewood business has been living here for about three months also. Nice enough guys who just seem to be a little down on their luck lately. Been there, done that, is not fun. After all that excitement and lunch I went over to the golf course here in the park. It looks like a nice layout and is scenic. They use regular Bermuda grass on the greens and leave it about twice as long as a good course should have it. The prices are right . Old friend John finally got me on the cell phone and we will get together tomorrow night and maybe golf Friday.
Speaking of cell phones, my Sprint cell phone does not get proper signal until I drive 6 miles back out of the park. However my Sprint aircard gets excellent connection if I just go up the side of the mountain to the laundry facilities. I sat in an open air “room” next to the laundry and had 5 bars of high speed service to use while the laundry washed and dried. Back down here in the gully, it gets extra cost roaming signals. Those of us without income do not do that unessential extra cost stuff. The aircard has frequently gotten good signal when my cell phone could not get any thing close to a useable signal. My trailer antenna has really surprised me by the number of channels it has gotten each place I have stopped. Here I have about 10 analog and 6 digital channels to choose from. I need to get the clothing put away and the bed made so I will leave it to my readers to get out and have tooooo much fun, TheOFM

On The Mountain

Pelham, Alabama
I made it just at dark to Oak Mountain State Park, my home for the next four days. The highways were ok except through Montgomery. I-65 through town is rough and bouncy. I guess I needed to rearrange the inside of the trailer anyway. I do not like to set up in the dark but a wrong turn added 45 minutes to the commute. As wandrin.com Lloyd says. if you are afraid or consider getting lost a big deal, you probably will not be a good RVer. The little unexpected side adventures are part of the experience. Many of my fantastic adventures have been in places I did not intend to go, but oops into.
On top of it all the weather is COLD. I left Washington for sunshine and 70 degrees. Not 34 Degrees. As soon as I get finished visiting the nice folks up here I am headed for the Texas coast around Corpus Christi and some sun. Tomorrow I need to get truck oil changed and some laundry done. After that I get to try to have tooooo much fun, TheOFM

Have To?!?!

During my short time traveling I have already run into some weird ideas about campgrounds. The first one was in Mathis Texas. The campground was little grass plots between narrow gravel parking strips. The manager was very happy that the owner supplied the tools for me to cut the grass, trim the weeds and prune the trees around my campsite. I was puzzled. They expect me to pay them for the privilege of doing their yard work?????????? Too many businesses think that I have to use their service just cause they opened a business and pay them to do what they want. They found the wrong Old Fat Man. In a couple of Blogs I was reading, there were some silly restrictions in some campgrounds in Arizona. One in particular REQUIRED you to wear their name badge when you are outside your RV. Wrong again. Sam Walton got it right. Lure folks to spend money, not shove your business down their throat. Folks will argue on the price of a loaf of bread, but pay any price for things they want. I figure that if a business wants my money they will provide the service that I want in the manner I want. The great thing about the USA is there is someone down the road who will do what you want for your money. With my wheels, going on down the road is the primary idea anyway. Go out and have tooooo much fun, TheOFM

The Tow Vehicle

My TV is a Chevy 2500HD, diesel, 4 wheel drive, with all the trailering options GM put on trucks in 2004. A special fear I have is of starting up the grade with a trailer and not having enough power to climb the grade. This truck was actually purchased with my 30 foot 9000# AF in mind. I have watched lots of folks rave and rant about the different diesel trucks, Ford, GM, Dodge and for me they all seem to do the job well. So I bought GM because it was available on the used vehicle lot and in very good shape when I had decided to get a TV. Four wheel drive was not my first choice, but up in Washington 3/4 ton and up only comes in four wheel drive. The snow and mountains make two wheel drive and towing off the interstates in winter very undesirable. The truck has added about 17000 miles during my ownership, gets 21+ mpg running empty and 14 mpg towing the trailer. This is my towing average on the trip from Washington to Alabama. I have had a couple of different types of equalizing hitches in my life and they all were ok. This hitch is an Equalizer brand and it took about 5 miles to realize that this was much better than the other name brands using chain link adjustments that I have had. In Washington I always told folks to size their by taking the trailer dry weight , add 1000 pounds for water, food and folks then multiply by 1.3 to determine the capacity the TV needs to have in the rockies , tetons, bitteroots etc. Some folks have told me that is excessive, however those who used that formula have expressed the thank yous for getting them to set up that way many times. Pulling a 6% grade at 30 mph is not towing properly. If you cannot hold 55 mph then you are undersized for tow capacity. One fellow thought I was full of fertilizer and believed the Toyota Sequoia salesmans and his sea level flat ground tow rating. One trip back to his home in the Montana rockies and he traded in for a proper size truck using my formula. My skeptic friend stopped by my desk first thing Monday morning after he tried the new combo to thank me for not backing down. It seems they hit a little bad weather and he had to stop on LOLO Pass and then go again. He thought his first vehicle would have had a hard time, but the truck with diesel forgot to notice they were on a steep grade trying to get going again. And that is how it is in TheOFM world.

My Trailer and Why

Gulf State Park, Alabama
My reasons for this trailer are varied and different from those most folks used to choose their RV. First I am a single man traveling alone. Second, I have been using Rvs of one sort or another since the late 70’s. For the last 3 years I lived in a 30 foot Arctic Fox (AF) that was never moved from the campsite in Richland Washington. It proved to be an excellent trailer. Back in 1999/2000 while in Houston Texas I lived in a 30 foot Mobile Scout trailer. Once while out of work I took it out for a spin in west Texas and New Mexico. During that trip I decided that I wanted to be able to visit, in depth, locations with my home in tow. One trip out with the 30 foot AF and I knew that it would not do the job for wild places due to its size. With the experience with 5 other Rvs under my belt and the way the AF is built, I knew what I NEEDED was a considerably smaller AF. The 22H happened to fit my lifestyle very well. All AF trailers are built for offroad use and thermally setup for very cold or hot environments. Just drive through the Bitteroot Mountains of northern Idaho and you will see AF trailers in there as weekend cabins for the winter sports. Already on my trip from Washington to sunshine and 70 degrees, this combination has proven its versatility in tight quarters. A couple of times my rig size has allowed me to fit into a corner of an otherwise full campground. A couple of more times it has been tucked into a slot between obstructions that stopped units very much large from even thinking about it. Now I will tell you that it is very compact and things do need to be kept in their place. Storage is more than I even use. I have empty cardboard boxes in cabinets just to occupy space to keep items in place. For me at this time in my life this unit is just about perfect. I would rather be able to easily fit into the area I am exploring than fit outside the area in another commercial campground and drive in every day. With the two batteries and large holding tanks typical of an AF, I have spent four nights boon docking without running out of electricity or tank space. How long can I go?? I have no idea. Solar systems have been worked out a few times, but it seems that if I get to needing more electric storage capacity I will buy another battery, carry it in the back of the truck when I am roaming and let the truck charge it. Usually while I am out away from folks, I start to get lonesome by the fifth day anyway. So I can tow in to a park dump, recharge batteries, grocery resupply etc for a day or two then head out again. One of my “mentors” on this has been Lloyd at wandrin.com. He has been at it for years.

Back To Work

Gulf Shores, Alabama
This morning started in with gray wet windy and has only gotten worse weather wise. As I write this major thunderstorms with strong lightening are putting on a show. After I got everyone hugged and off on a safe journey home, I went back home and had some lunch then a little later watched Fred Couples nearly win another Skins Game. Tomorrow I start my travels up to Pelham, Alabama to visit a day or so with an old friend from the earlier times in Washington on the WTP project. We had some good hikes back then, especially since old friend is on his third set of hip replacements. Tonight I ordered a few Christmas gifts for special folks. I have had to rethink the way to do Christmas gifts since I am a moving target and shipping to me could delay things to much to get them to the right places in time for Christmas.

I will be glad to get away from all this dripping wet and gray back to the desert. It is funny, I was raised on the south side of Houston, Texas in this kind of climate, but I am definitely a desert rat. The dry climate is a lot more hospitable to me than this mold and mildew climate. Maybe in a day or so things will dry out enough to safely do some outdoor activities. That will certainly help me to fight off some of the calories from all the eating during his last weekend.
Have tooooo much fun, TheOFM

Ft. Morgan Adventure

Gulf Shores, Alabama
This morning dawned grrray, windy and shivering. Clogged sinuses and congestion did not help matters. BUT I am still breathing regular so everything is good. When you are an old fat man you understand that breathing regular makes a lot of other bothers be insignificant. So after grocery shopping and chores, it was off to see the family again . Amazing how I manage to show up about meal time isn’t it. He he he. Lunch was left over excellent gumbo by super cheftess BIG MAMA, who is reality is a smaller size very nice lady.
Just for kicks my son, I and his wife went to look over the campgrounds near to the house they rent each year. The pickings are slim and not very good on the western end of Gulf Shores barrier island. It looks like I will continue to stay in the Gulf State Park. It is about $23 a day and excessively well maintained. The two places near Ft. Morgan were not well maintained and more expensive with less services. Now that decision is finished.
A little more being lazy and a check on tomorrows weather made me decide to see Ft. Morgan Civil War fort today. His wife was not feeling very good, so my son and I went down to view the Historic Site. This fort and Ft. Gaines across the bay were supposed to stop unwanted shipping from entering Mobile Bay. This fort is much larger than Fort Gaines and spreads out over a pretty good size chunk of territory. The chill and the wind about cut us to shreds. As an old infantryman from the Viet Nam time, I could imagine how it would have been to serve this post in the summer or winter without OFF or screen windows to defend against the mosquitoes. This first pic is the front entrance to the main battery of 12” guns.

The next pic is inside the main fort looking toward the main gun batteries.

There were several batteries of smaller weapons around the outside of the fort than must have had some particular job to do. Here is a pic of one of them.

Inside the structures were occasional guns that fired from special openings in the wall. My guess is that they were defense weapons against ground attacks by the enemy.

Scattered all over the place were these alcoves that were used to house supplies and maintenance equipment. This particular picture is of an Ordnance Room. Pay special attention to the iron cannon balls for the smooth bore guns that were still being used at that time to some extent. We were frozen by the time we had done this much walking and went back to the beach house to warm up. The rest of the group was watching a mouse movie about a mouse who knows how to cook. It was funny, but the cold and wind had done my sinus cavities in and I had to come home to get some legal dope and recover in time to go tell everyone goodbye tomorrow as they head out for home and work on Monday. I sure wish I had to run home so I could go to work Monday (yea right). I am resting tonight so I can go out tomorrow and have tooooo much fun. TheOFM

The Day After

Gulf Shores, Alabama

After hooking up with the party crowd again today, we had lots and lots and lots of good food. I did not get back to my trailer tonight until I was about two bites past popping. We had shrimp and crab gumbo with hush puppies and rice for lunch. After that giant oink we messed around and me, my son and DIL went to see my little castle. Long ago I made certain that any where I lived had the name of COMFORT CASTLE, because if it isn't comfortable I do not want to live there. A friend of my sister's painted this for me as a present several years ago and it is still serving me very well.

After an extensive tour of my castle that took about 3 minutes we were tired and sat and visited for a good while. They now have the last of the family mementos I have been clearing from my previous stix and brix. Congratulations to me and them. Then back to the beach house for some serious vegetating and conversation. This bunch is a lot of fun and it is special that they invite the "outlaw" over for Thanksgiving.

Several folks have asked for details about the why I chose what I have for my travels and it is forth coming right after the family time ends Sunday morning as they all head back inland to work and I have a significant relearning of being by myself again. I have started the composition but it needs tuning before publishing.

My chariot is turning into a pumpkin and the grand steeds are wilting into mice so I must go. Have toooo much fun, TheOFM

Thanksgiving Day

Gulf Shores, Alabama

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERYONE

Today started with a pain in the head called a migraine headache and the usual aura and blindness that goes with it. By the time I was to go meet my son, his wife and her family I had recovered enough to drive safely thank goodness. My arrival was about half an hour before the GOBBLE TIL YOU WOBBLE event. It was great fun to see lots of folks I had not seen for a whole year. WOW does time fly by fast when you are an old fat man. There were a few new faces, a new doggie and a new cat. It was amazing how well the three animals played together. The food was fantastic. My DIL made a butternut squash pie that was my first ever and I hope will become a staple at gatherings because it was excellent. Every one seemed in good spirits. Getting pictures was a problem with so many folks moving around all the time. Here is one of my son and their dog Fezzick.
And most importantly here is the picture of the worlds greatest butternut squash pie cheftess. She is a remarkably pleasant person to be around and I really enjoy her company.

As the day moved on the temperature started dropping and was 51 when I left just before sundown. The wind had picked up a lot wind was too strong for comfort outside. This next shot was of the beach on the ocean side of the house they are renting for Thanksgiving. Can you believe how white the sand is in this area. A lot of homes have been rebuilt since the hurricanes two years ago. As soon as I figure out more about this blogging software, I will add special parts on my rolling gear and why I chose what I have and what I will change in the future. A few folks have asked for this information, but I want it to be in a redeemable location on the blog not in just the daily log. For the short answer, I have an Arctic Fox 22H and a Chevy 2500HD diesel truck. Towing mileage is 14 and running empty is 21. The small trailer is for getting into smaller places in the backcountry that I want to explore in comfort. Keep it rubber side down and have toooo much fun, TheOFM.

Gulf State Park

Gulf Shores, Alabama

After being a lazy bum this morning and then visiting with a neighbor that is brand new to RVing, I got out of Rainbow Plantation about 11:45 am. That neighbor had not done a lot of homework on fulltiming and was having some disappointments because of it. After about 2 hours of talk he seemed to see what his options were. When I left him he was going to go back inside and write up a new travel plan. He was a very nice fellow from Tennessee. The short drive to Gulf State Park went very well including one wrong turn and backtrack. The campground essentials are in good shape and functioning properly. The area around the campground is showing the effects of the hurricanes.

There is still a large amount of dead trees standing and laying around near the campground. The underbrush is coming back very well. The campground is very large. A bike ride along the main road only yielded a round trip of 5.75 miles. Since I have lived in the cold desert country for the last 5 years, my body was hot and sweating well in this 74 degree heat and high humidity. Along the way a person can see a lot of new construction going on on the beach area. It looks like build with no fear for hurricanes.

I have been in several hurricanes and never again will be too soon for me. If I ever move into a stix and bricks again, it will be way out of the way of hurricanes.

I heard from my son and plans for tomorrows GOBBLE UNTIL YOU WOBBLE festival is on track. There is a big rain storm coming through now and since I do not see as well as I used to at night, I decided to wait until tomorrow when conditions will be a lot better to drive the 30 minutes to see him.

Maybe tomorrow I can have toooooo much fun, TheOFM

Foley Alabama Railroad Mueseum

Summerdale Alabama

Today was a very interesting day. The adventure destination was the Railroad Museum in Foley, Alabama. Thanks to being able to go during the week the traffic was light and the attendance just right. The park where the museum is located in directly on the main highway 59 that goes through town. The park is very relaxing and fairly beautiful. Some folks were enjoying the benches, coffee and their newspapers in one of the gardens areas on this fine cool but sunny day. Since my arrival was earlier than the museum opened I strolled about the park to satisfy my inquisitive mind. Many trees and a few small gardens had bronze metal signs dedicating the tree or garden to a loved one. This was a wonderful thing to do in memory of someone.

The main railroad museum is the first building you come to as you enter the park. It is very attractive and extremely well designed to fit into the theme of the museum. The model railroad that I mainly came to see is in a rear building. As you walk up to the entrance of the museum you see a train at the siding.

It is set up so you can walk all around and into a lot of it. The Caboose is what you come to first and the doors are locked but the windows are unblocked so you can see inside through the glass. The living conditions seem a little primitive to me.

As I wandered along the track past the cars I arrived at the ENGINE. This is an early diesel engine, but it is still HUGE. The little house for the engineer and fireman is open and you can go inside. It was so small that I was unable to get the camera to focus at the close range. Upon examination of the control systems it was obvious the OSHA had not come into governing work environments when this engine was built. The engineers chair was very cramped with all kind of protrusions that could cut or pinch during ordinary operations. I tried sitting in the seat to get a feel of what an engineer could see. I doubt that he could see the tracks closer to the engine than a few hundred yards out in front. The visibility was terrible. A neat side line on this is the hotel across the street was being decorated for Christmas and you can see it in the background of the shot of the engine.

After all that excitement, I meandered over to the model railroad building hoping it would be fairly nice. Little did I understand the dedication of these folks. It was an eye popper to see. According to the men in charge, it was originally the work of one man and had SEVEN levels of tracks. They had to cut it back to fit into the building that the club could fit it into. It is full of lots of cute items like a still in the trees with a reveenoer climbing a tree to get away from a bear. Many of the building scenes in the layout have activities of their own. The fire house can come to life go into action. A diner does a good business while the car wash is washing cars. A fire event in one of the buildings has fire engines and police cars and all kinds of things going on. “Toy Trains” have come a long way since my trains that are stored at my sisters house. There were 14 tracks running and the controllers used hand held remote control do hickeys that looked like television remote controls to control all the train activity. It appeared that there did exist a panic button to shut it all down at once if needed. The video of this original setup showed the original owner and all the steps that went into the original. You had to have some real money to do what was done. It was impressive.
By the time I left the model area it was lunch time so I headed home. After lunch I decided the bugs had been on the truck and my home long enough so I started in cleaning them off the rig. After 2 ½ hours I called it quits until my bum shoulder s could recover and quit hurting. Since I have been so good at not spending a bunch on diesel these last few days I was going to treat myself to the restaurant of fame in Foley. Lamberts, Home of the Throwed roll. The line must have been 30 yards long and no place is good enough for me to wait an hour or so to get into to eat. On the way home, A Chinese Buffet caught my attention with their ONE YEAR IN BUSINESS sale. Turns out the owner is the cook (chef) and the food was very good. I had 5 different types of shrimp and other wondrous delicacies.
The other good news is I am now signed up with Adsense for this blog so hopefully this Sprint Aircard for Internet service can start earning its own way with the income from ad sense. For those that do not know about this, when someone clicks and add on my blog, I will get a few pennies of income. Most active blogs with ad sense get under $50 a month but ever little bit can help. Tomorrow I move to Gulf State Park at the beach, but my Internet connection is an unknown at this time. I will try to get stuff posted one way or another.
Time to get busy and have toooo much fun, TheOFM

Enjoying Living

Summerdale, Alabama

A beautiful day it has been today. This morning started very gently and the whole day eased by very comfortably. Most of the day was spent conserving money and reading another book from the library. This one was not as good as yesterdays. Getting dark by 5:30 pm is still not a good thing to me. First thing this morning I realized I had been very negligent in my travel preparations. The trailer did not come with a lug wrench it seems, so I was running without the ability to change a flat. After checking my truck lug wrench to find it was way to big of a socket, I pulled out a deep socket set to find out what size the lug nuts are....13/16". So now I needed a proper lug wrench and groceries. In this little town Walmart has the best grocery by far and they carry lug wrenches. So off to the store I went. Turns out Walmart had several different types of lug wrenches. It was nice to have options. I really like options and choices. The grocery section in this store was laid out by a drunk monkey and does not seem to have rhyme or reason to it. So after several trips around in circles I had everything on my list and headed for the cash registers. After standing in line for about 8 minutes the floor manager jumped in to help check out folks. The last thing I handed him was the shiny lug wrench and said that they are a chore to cook, but are really healthy since they are loaded with iron. I thought he was going to laugh out of his shoes. On the way home I stopped to check a WinDixie store and they were considerably higher on the things I know the price of than the WalMart. So while I am down here I guess it is WalMart for me. Back in Richland Washington we had a grocery called Winco that put all the others to shame on cheaper pricing. One good thing in that area of Washington is all the produce grown in the area. For 5 years I got used to having "fresh roadkill" vegetables. The field trucks would lose some from the trucks and I was not bashful in stopping to pick up the onions, corn, potatoes and other freshly harvested vegetables. Since a major portion of the asparagus grown in the USA came from that area, we got very fresh asparagus that steamed to ultimate perfection.
It turned out to be a great day GOD gave me and I appreciated it to the fullest, The OFM

Your Own Life

Summerdale, Alabama
Today was a wonderfully beautiful day of sun, gentle breezes and just cool enough temperatures. Last night I was reading the second of two books I got from the campground library until 1 am. They were extremely interesting. Kay Peterson has written several books for the Escapees club that she and her husband started. The books are supposedly about the fulltime RV lifestyle. However she is really writing about how many options a person has that most do not think about because they are brainwashed into what their local society thinks they should do. During the course of the writings she has a very gentle way of putting lives into a better perspective and allowing you to see many other options for living than just the one you have grown up with. Overall she allows for folks to consider a much larger range of possibilities than most people can imagine. What is really important in your life is the real basis of her writing. She does advocate the RV lifestyle, but at the same time she does not push it. In fact her son is very adamant that he is not a fulltimer candidate. It was impossible to put the book down until finished. I would rank her input right up there with many of the personal growth books by Schuller, Carnegie, Dwyer and many other great authors that have helped me on my life journey.

Since I was soooo late going to sleep I did not wake in time for the bagels at the meeting hall this morning. In fact I was so late getting up and around I just went ahead over to the laundry and did my clothes washing. Just to prove how small this world can be, I met a man who lived in the next neighborhood from the one I grew up in in Pasadena Texas. And yes we had some mutual acquaintences even though he was about 8 years older than me. You never know who you will meet on the road.

Tonight was a performance of "The McPhersons" here at the meeting hall. I checked their website, listened to the music clips and decided I did not want to go to it. It seemed to be well attended, but the style of the music did not suit my mood right now.

The campground is filling slowly and according to the manager it is expected to fill for the weekend and empty out mostly on Sunday morning as the snowbirds scatter into the wind. Tomorrow I hope to go to the train museum in Foley then down the street to a grocery store.
I am really excited about the upcoming visit with my son, his wife and her extended family. Moving down to the Gulf State Park where they have lots of bike paths to ride safely will be a big bonus but a bit more expensive. Oh well, with my family history who knows how long I will live and if I live long enough to run out of money. Then I will go back to work doing something for feeding myself. Get out and have tooooo much fun, The OFM

Widgets for the Idiot

Summerdale, Alabama

First thing out his morning it was a trip to Walmart for some widgets that I used to have but some idiot (TOFM) put them away so well that they may never be found again. Back home with a 30 amp to 15 amp converter plug made me wonder where to store it so it could be found again. The outside stick on levels for getting the trailer set so the refrigerator works well were installed with some trouble. That tape on the levels sticks very well even if you did not mean to put it in that spot quite yet. They are in the correct place now. That should take a lot of time out of the setup procedure. Some of the styrofoam insulation I have added is very glaring in the natural white, so I purchased some acrylic dark gray paint to tone the white glare a good bit. That work is drying as I type (keyboard?) After the first coat I went for a bike ride to take a few pics of the park. At the entrance is a nice highly visible sign to announce your arrival.





You can see that the sites are well scattered and well maintained. There is a large abundance of acorns this year. Every where you walk you are announced well ahead of time by the CRUNCH, CRUNCH of your steps. A very nice item in this park is a shed/barn for one to use for vehicle repairs or maintenance. It has a concrete floor, a workbench and compressed air available. This is a wonderful asset for the park.

Thankfully I am not needed that type of service at this time. While riding the bike around, I stopped to visit with a fellow who was very industriously working on some handcraft. Marty and Kim have been fulltiming for several years and sometimes do some serious boondocking. This year they are planning on being here for the winter. Turns out we are both VietNam veterans although he was there about 8 years ahead of me. We talked for some time on many subjects of common interest. He was hand crafting a pipe from pipestone. Apparently this rock has great historical importance to native americans. Upon a Google search I learned about this small quarry of rock that is used by Indians to make pipes. You can never tell what you will run into in a campground. There are lots of interesting folks in this lifestyle.

The fresh paint seems dry so off to work I go. Have fun out there, The OFM

Chilly Morning

Summerdale Alabama
Today was an easy going day of looking around town and trying to do a little improving on my home. The Home Depot and Lowes stores here carry a lot more limited line of products than I was used too having around. The Styrofoam I was wanting to buy was not available in either store to my surprise. However I did find a small halogen light that I hope will solve my “not enough light for reading in bed” problem. I have it mounted but have not tried it out yet. I need to get to the clubhouse and find a book or two to occupy me. One surprise today was a Coleman Outdoors discount store. The store had everything I have ever heard of from Coleman. Even some antiques from the early Coleman days were on display. Mr. Coleman was extremely inventive for his time. Even though I saw many neat toys, I was able to walk away without doing any recreational buying. Rving and no income will teach you to do recreational shopping without buying. On a wild whim because I missed a turn, I went on to the beach at Gulf Shores. Of course I was without my camera since I was only going to Home Depot. I reviewed where I am moving to on Wednesday of next week and stopped to see the golf course in the state park. The beach here is a pretty white sand with nice wild grasses growing scattered in it. The camp ground looks very nice and the golf course looks even better. The downed and/or dead trees from the hurricanes is still very evident. It may take a long time for this area to grow in again. The roads all seem to be in good shape. The west end of the island will have to wait until I head that way to visit my son and his wife and her extended family at Thanksgiving. Those folks put on a feed that can ruin a years dieting and good behavior on my part. This morning was 38 degrees and I was lazy about getting out until it got warmer. If I wanted to be cold I could have stayed in Washington. Tomorrow promises to be nice and sunny so I may try to get over to the Gardens. I have to watch out for my running around. My budget for diesel is very overrun, but there is so much to see and do. It is easy to see why many RVers get into money trouble since you cannot run out of things to see or do, but your money can run out. It looks like I may need to set a spell back in the west in December and January to let my funding catch its breath. Hopefully the stock market will get back on its feet soon so I can breathe easier. The decision to travel before my 62 birthday to be better able to make a judgment about starting Social Security then or waiting is proving to be a very wise decision. These next few months until mid summer 2008 will be very telling on my future plans. Of course the primary goal is to try to have TOOOOOO MUCH FUN. So go out and play. The OFM.

Lazy Bumming Along

Summerdale, Alabama

Yesterday was a fairly easy day of travel. Hit the road about 10 am and had an uneventful trip into the Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale Alabama. This is a very pretty Escapees park with a lot of nice folks. Yesterday while crossing Louisiana I attempted several shots from the truck while moving. One came out ok. This is the Henderson swamp somewhere around Baton Rouge.

There are several bridges of several miles each that one must cross. This crossing held true. About one out of three times I am caught on a bridge behind a wreck. At least this time I got there about 10 minutes before the wreck was cleared and we could move on. The rest of the trip in to the park was very uneventful. In the evening after arriving I began to feel not well and it has continued through today. This afternoon I did get out and go to the Walmart for some groceries. It is wierd that while sitting in one spot in Richland I could grocery shop once a week. Now while traveling it seems I run out of something every third or fourth day. The "bug" seems to be wearing off and I plan to do some tourist type things tomorrow. Since I am on the far east part of the time zone it gets dark early. It is now 5:15 pm and just about dark here. The first place I will visit during this week here in Summerdale is Belingrath Gardens. They were very nice many, many years ago when I visited then. People in the campground tell me they are even better. The other place is the Battleship Alabama display up by Mobile. Many folks have told me it is also very well done and I have never been there. The mosquitoes in this area are very mild compared to what I expected. Even the fire ants have been very subdued in thier activities. That is a wonderful thing. I hate those things.

Have fun everyone, The OFM

I-10 in Louisiana

Bay St. Louis, Mississippi

Today was a long difficult driving day. 320 miles and 13.7 mpg. The morning started with very heavy fog getting everything slippery and nasty. I finally got clear of the refueling and campground around 9:30 am. With the bad weather and since all the area is just one big dense forest, I chose to take the interstate to Lafayette then I-10 toward Alabama. All the worlds worst and most aggressive drivers stay on I-10 in Louisiana. To make things worse is that no one in La knows how to pour highway concrete without making it full of serious humps every few feet. Sometimes the humps were so bad that I had to slow to 45 mph to keep the oscillations under control. It really was throwing the rig all over the road. Nearly every rest area on both interstates I was on are closed down for rework. However just inside Mississippi is a world class rest area with service for my new Sprint aircard. So I got on the internet and looked for a spot for the night and found this campground that sounded nice. It turns out to be an old FEMA Trailer park of travel trailers. For the price of $15 I do have good water, electricity and sewer connections for the night. I will be able to get back on the I-10 for my next destination tomorrow in about 10 minutes. At least it is fairly clean. Best of all I am less than 3 hours from my Thanksgiving destination. This will give me a week for Christmas shopping and being a tourist bum before the BIG FEED. The weekend after that I am supposed to visit my old hiking buddy John Thomas and camp free in his driveway. Since I am here alive and hungry with food waiting to be cooked, I must be doing real good. Have fun, the OFM

Into Louisiana

Natchitoches La.
The end of two exciting days is ending peacefully. Yesterday I spent most of the day visiting with my sister and her family. I finally got to give my nephew his SCHWETTY golf balls. He was a little embarrassed at the connotations that went around about his new balls, but he recovered very well.



As usual my sister has to cook a bunch of stuff for everyone to eat. She is an excellent cheftess and particularly good at large quantity preparations. My assistance was minimal as she is so organized about cooking that I usually am just in the way. Her kitchen is equipped with just about every toy for cooking known in the world and has room to use them. The kitchen is so well done that five folks who know what they are doing are able to work at the same time.


Her husband is a very great fellow who can be extremely competent when nuts and bolts things need to be taken care of. Of course he knows how to properly appreciate the cooking done in the house and shows it with great vigor at mealtime.

It was a wonderful time of visiting and story telling and generally catching up after being apart for, I think, 4 years while I worked on the cleanup of the massive nuclear dump in Washington state.
Today I rolled out of Wylie mid morning headed for the standard RVer destination of “over that way”. The traffic was frequently populated by brainless drivers today. I had fools pull out in front of me twice and just piddle about getting up to speed. Thank goodness I keep my rig set up well. However the brainless drivers seemed to have it in for the tractor/trailer drivers all day. Twice I went part way on to the shoulder to give a large truck room to swing clear of an idiot trying to merge on I-20 at 30 mph or less. There was no relaxing driving on the highway today. I am making my way to Gulf Shores Alabama for a food tasting event with my son , his wife and her extended family. It is always a lot of fun and belt stretching to the max.
Have fun, The OFM

Party Day

Wylie, Texas

Today was the day of the big celebration of my nephew's 18th birthday. I picked him up at his home today and we played a great round of golf in Garland Texas. The first 9 holes of this Firewheel golf course were in bad need of some maintenance. The tee boxes were 1 to 2 inches high in grass and the greens were very fuzzy. With proper care it would be a very pleasant forgiving course. The back 9 was in better shape down the fairway, but the greens had a lot of bad spots in them. This is sad for a course that is charging $50 each to play it.
After we went back to his home where my sister(his mom) had a big feast in preparation. A Chinese lady, Elaine, and I spent a few hours cooking and comparing techniques to preparing various dishes. The education I received was worth a lot and I think some of my techniques may have been new and interesting to her also. Before I had to leave I think there was about twenty folks there helping eat all the food. My sister and Elaine as usual prepared enough delicious food to feed at least 50 folks and send leftovers home also. The bad part is that the COE park I am at locks the gates at 10 pm, so I had to leave early to be inside before the gates lock. I made it with 10 minutes to spare.
OK Tomorrow everyone get out and have fun, The OFM

The Kid is getting Older

Wylie, Texas
The last couple of days have been spent with my nephew who has just turned 18 years old. He is turning out to be a pretty good fellow. It has been about 4 years since I had had a chance to see him in person and it is no wonder the girls are chasing him. He and I are supposed to go play golf tomorrow, but I am iffy since I injured my left foot big toe yesterday goofing off. It is very difficult to walk well. On Saturday his mother is putting on a big celebration and hog trough event for a bunch of us. His parents got him a new fancy guitar for his birthday and he had a wonderful time showing off his musical abilities. He is pretty good with that git fiddle.

On the way I spent a night at Tyler State park where the trees are just now starting to change colors to some extent. This is the first time I have been in that park and it is very nice. Almost all the rv campsites are set so that you have some easy times to set up the rv. In a walk of the whole facilitiy, I only notice three sites where a board or two might be required under the wheels. In the next two pictures is a shot of some of the red foliage and then a shot of the campsites right on the lake. It is a small lake, but very pleasing to the eye. I feel that it would be a great place for a family to rent the paddle boats to go out for a ride.

After leaving Tyler and its very narrow badly signed roads, I hit some construction that tood 45 minutes to go 1/2 mile. They had the barriers very tight to the center line but the traffic was so congested it was not a problem to turn my mirrors down to see the trailer edges and creep along safely. However I was happy when I cleard the construction mess.

Some good news is that I finally made up my mind that the free wifi at the campgrounds would not get the job done. After reading and emailing with Lloyd at wandrin.com and other research I plunked my hardearned cash down on a Sprint Aircard and the stupid 2 year contract. Three days with out internet, not finding a hotspot in Wylie and the lack of reliable and or quick service when I was in an expensive commercial campground made me bite the bullet. So far in the hour since I spent the 10 minutes to install it, the service has consistently far exceeded the best wifi I was able to recieve in my first month of full timing. Now I will be able to connect in lots of places I had no options before.

If you ever get to the Lavon Lake area outside of Wylie Texas you will find it to be a pretty lake with only about 50% of the shore houses. Most of the shore visable from here is fairly pretty. This morning it was very foggy and I did not get back home before dark so no pictures of this lake yet. I will try again tomorrow. Until then keep trying to have too much fun, the OFM.

Just Easing Along

Onalaska, Texas
The last couple of days have been filled with house cleaning, laundry and learning how to use the new MS Vista system. It apparently was written for programers who already know all about that type of stuff. It is not as intuitive as the old Windows by a bunch. With intermittent internet on the campground wifi system, I have missed any chance of a daily post. Monday evening was very pleasant and I was tired of sitting in front of the laptop so I took the bicycle to the state park for a few miles of light exercise. It proved to be a wonderful evening, including meeting an interesting fellow.

It seems that his job is overseeing casting of artwork done at foundries around the USA. He was camping in a tent and hoping to get his casting loaded and be off by Tuesday evening for somewhere in North Carolina. It was a bronze casting of some fellow. The casting was near life size and of course very heavy. I hope things went well for him as he was a very pleasant person to talk with.

The bike ride started near the marina in the woods. From this central point in the park you can make a loop of about 6 miles just by riding on the roads. If you go off road onto the trails you can add quite a bit of distance to your ride. All in all it is a very pleasant place to visit. At one point near the south end, a boat ramp and pier juts out into an inlet from the main body of the lake. There were a few folks with big expensive cameras trying to
catch the sunset in a composition that suited them. I just parked the bike and shot a pic of it on the pier and the inlet for the background. As you can see it was a very peaceful setting.











As I was talking with the fellow I mentioned above this scene was happening and we spent a few minutes just enjoying the view. About a half hour later we called it a night and he went to his tent and I loaded the bike and headed home to the Arctic Fox. Tomorrow I will be heading for Garland Texas to visit with my sister and her family. It has been about 4 year since I have seen them and my nephew is soon to be a high school graduate and head off to college. He has not made up his mind where yet, but I am certain he will do well. Until I get inter net again, have fun, OFM

Saturday morning ramble about

Saturday morning I was looking for some old fishing holes at Lake Livingston. Most of the area has built up heavily. I was about 10 am and I was talking to a nice young man at one of the State Park boat ramps. He opened his ice chest with the mornings catch that he needed to fillet. He told me he left the dock a little after 7 am that morning and had caught all the fish they needed for the next week. I think he was right. It is nice the old lake still produces nice catches.

Over at another part of the park is the "play area" as I used to call it. They have canoes and paddle boats and many other things for families to rent so they can get out and enjoy the outdoors. Here is a pic of one very nice family out for an exciting boat ride. The rock groins in the background keep this area of the lake fairly calm for the benefit of folks with young children.

As you can see I have found my 70 deg and sunshine at the Lake Livingston State Park Pier and Marina. Now if I can learn more about this blogging and get reliable internet service, I can report better. As an aside my main laptop cratered again and I am on the "new" laptop that uses Vista. It is a lot different to use than the old windows.

You folks have fun. My goal is still to try to have toooooo Much fun, bye

Finally a Texan again

Finally some time to post again. My location is Onalaska, Texas just outside Livingston right on Lake Livingston. The last couple of days have had me without any cell or internet again. WOW I am good at finding these remote places where communication with the outside world is difficult. The one night at Lake Somerville was interesting. I went down to the fishing pier about 6 pm and visited with a few folks. Just to pass the time I was also doing a little fishing. As usual for that lake I had my limit of five largemouth bass by 7:30 pm but had no luck at all with catching some crappie. Another couple that are park hosts from Angleton picked up one 15 inch fat bass and three really fat crappie. They went home happy. The spiders were spinning webs into the breeze and everywhere you went you were constantly clearing webs off your body. When I got ready to leave the next morning, the trailer was covered in them. Most blew off during the trip to Onalaska. I am in a commercial park that is very ok, but not super. At least the cell phone and internet works. Today was spent getting all registered as a TEXAN again, with an Escapees address. It only took allllllllllll dayyyyyyyyy and $1400 to get everything squared away. Tomorrow I will get the plates and stickers on both vehicles then I will be clear of all legal obstacles to rolling down the road again. This evening I was fishing (not catching) along the shore of this rv park and right after dusk the mosquitoes came lout. Living in the desert like I have for the last 5 years, I had forgotten how bad mosquitoes can be down here in Texas. They did not mind re-educating me that I am little more than a blood donor to the insect world.
Have fun out there, the OFM.