March 5, 2006

March 5, 2006

RainBOw Plantation, Summerdale, Alabama

YEAR 2 DAY 261

 

Today was another beautiful "June 18" day. Sunny and warm ... again !

Joanne has been catching up on reading my journal entries. She wants me to mention that when we were at one on the Mardi Gras parades, she got a "ringer", like in horseshoes. As she was standing there, a thrown strand of beads landed on her head, and slid down around her neck. HA HA HA ! A "ringer" !

This morning I printed and reconciled the February bank statements I downloaded yesterday. I made an error in selecting the date range when downloading the bank statements, and will have to do it again. Next time I have access to Wi-Fi, I guess. Joanne took Bo for an obedience training session. We've decided that we will each take him for a short obedience training session on a daily basis, until he improves back to the point where he was a couple of weeks ago. I don't understand why he would regress like this. We have 2 theories. One reason might be because we left him alone in the trailer on a daily basis, for 5 days while we were in the Lafayette area celebrating Mardi Gras. The other thing is he seems to be suffering some manner of insecurity here at Rainbow Plantation. When we were driving down Hwy. 28 on our way here, he was looking outside and appearing worried, with his ears pulled back. Today when we were returning from a ride to Gulf Shores, the same thing happened. Is it possible that he recognizes this area as his previous home, and he's somehow worried that we're going to abandon him here ? The last time he was here, he was lost / abandoned. That's when we adopted him 15 months ago.

I disassembled the bedroom wall lamps to clean them. We had lunch. We went for a "drivey" to Gulf Shores to see how much improvement / reconstruction there has been since we were here 15 months ago, 2 months after Hurricane Ivan. We drove south to the Gulf Coast down the back roads from Rainbow Plantation, exploring as we went. Found a very nice small airport at Foley. < sniffle > I miss flying. I watched a Cessna 172 do a couple of touch and goes. The magnolias are all in bloom. Very lovely. At Gulf Shores we drove for a couple of miles along the beach front road. Reconstruction seems about 95 % complete. A big change from the mess we saw 15 months ago. We stopped at an empty lot that was for sale, I kicked off my shoes, and walked with Boto the water's edge. Beautiful, soft, white sand. Cold water ! The lot was 50 feet wide, and 350 to 400 feet deep, beach from the road to the water. The price for a 50 foot wide beach lot is ... wait for it ... $1.4 million ! ! !

On the way back to Rainbow Plantation we stopped for some groceries at Winn Dixie. A few of the items we bought were on sale, with the Winn Dixie affinity card. I went to customer service, and filled out yet another form to obtain another grocery chain affinity card. Joanne's wallet is packed with grocery chain affinity cards. All these different chains have the same policy. The "sale" items are only on sale upon presentation of the chain's affinity card. A few of them have a temporary card available for use by travellers, but most of them make us fill out a form, and obtain their card. We also refilled a couple of water jugs.

Once back at Rainbow Plantation it was my turn to take Bo for an obedience session. We cleaned, took down, and put away Teddy's tent, in anticipation of leaving tomorrow. We went to the clubhouse, for the first of 3 back to back social activities this afternoon. At 4:00 P.M. a four piece band was playing music. WOW ... great drummer, especially since he looked to be in his early seventies. At 5:00 P.M. was the Plantation Magnolias chapter of the Red Hat Society fund raiser, a Soup Cook-off. Fourteen women each prepared a large pot of soup. For $2, one could have a cup of as many of the soups as one wanted to try. Joanne had 8 cups of soup. I had ten. What a great supper ! And a very effective fund raiser. Attendance was 125 people at $2 each. Immediately after eating 8 and 10 cups of soup, we had a big bowl of ice cream at the regular Sunday evening ice cream social. We chatted with our table mates during the soup "cook-off", and with others afterwards, while eating ice cream, then socializing. It was a pleasant afternoon and evening. It's always interesting to socialize in an Escapees park. While we were standing looking at a large wall map, planning our route north back to Canada, we were joined by a couple from upstate New York, just south of Ottawa. They are 85 years old, and have been RV travelling for about 35 years. They can't quite remember how old they were when they started, but it was somewhere around our age. They don't travel as much as they used to, they claim. But I still find it amazing that an 85 year old couple are making the trek down from upstate New York to the Gulf Coast in southern Alabama, and back, in a big motorhome, on a yearly basis. And they still sometimes drive out to California to see one of their children.

We returned to the trailer, took care of the animals, then watched TV for a couple of hours. I did today's accounting, and journal entry.

DSK