Joe Wheeler Camping Trip - July 26, 2014 - Homeward Bound

The last day of camping sucks, for not only is it the last day of the vacation (a bummer in itself), but we have to get the camper ready to roll.

This means washing up the dishes, cleaning the counters, sweeping the floors, and putting away everything that might shift when the camper moves.  It means emptying stinky plumbing tanks, storing the lawn chairs, sweeping and folding and putting away the exterior rugs.  It means retracting awnings and hoses and cords, folding up steps, hitching up the truck, and attaching sway bars and such.

Both The Husband and I are always tired, grumpy, and sopping wet with sweat by the time we're finished.  We pulled out about 10 this morning. and, thankfully, had an uneventful drive home.  The drive took almost 5 hours, with only one quick stop for a potty break. 

And then, once we got home, we had to unhitch the camper, set it back up in its usual spot, and haul everything into the house - dirty laundry, clean laundry, food items, and electronic toys - and put it all away again.  Since I took my sewing machine and a bag of sewing projects, we had even more lugging to do this trip. 

But we have about got this thing down to a science.  In less than thirty minutes after we began backing the camper into the driveway, we'd emptied the camper and were inside the house, resting under the air conditioning.  The washing machine is running with the first load of laundry.  As soon as the sheets and towels come out of the dryer, we'll take them out to the camper, make up the bed, put away the towels, and our rolling motel will be ready to roll again.

One more thing:

I finally got a picture of the "shoe tree."  This tree is on the north side of Hwy. 72, just inside the Alabama state line, around mile marker 4 or 5.  You might not be able to see them very well in this picture (they're more visible when the leaves fall), but the tree is full of shoes.  When I see things like this, I always wonder how they got started.  Who flung the first pair of shoes in that tree, and why?  It's a mystery.  But one of these days, I'm going to try my best to hurl an old pair of my tennis shoes up in that tree when we go by.  ;)

Joe Wheeler Camping Trip - 7-25-14 - Sheffield





 



On our first night at Joe Wheeler, as we were going to dinner at the lodge, we picked up a handful of local attraction brochures, one of which was a schedule of events for W.C. Handy Week.  Handy was born in the Shoals area (Florence, I think), and there were music events, all day, every day, all week, somewhere in the Shoals.  We nearly wore out that brochure trying to decide what to do.  On taps for Friday was a concert on the lawn at the City Hall in Sheffield from 12 to 1:30.  A band called "Doctors, Lawyers, and Such" was playing, and we wanted to see them, so after a leisurely breakfast, we headed to Sheffield.

Let me take a moment to talk about the towns of Florence, Muscle Shoals, Tuscumbia, and Sheffield.  I suppose that in "olden days," these towns may have been far apart, but these days urban spread has made them virtually one big ol' town.  But for city limits signs, you'd hardly know when you'd left one town and entered another. 

We got to Sheffield a little early, and for about 30 minutes listened to the band's sound check.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  A little after noon, they took up their instruments and started playing.  They were an absolute delight.  Talk about variety!  They eased out cowboy songs ("Drifting Along With The Tumblin' Tumbleweeds"), show tunes ("Summertime (and the Living is Easy)"), Eagles songs, Kansas songs, a Pure Prairie League song, and a bluegrass song called "Moonshine."  We loved it. 

It was almost 2 p.m. when they quit, and we were hungry.  We walked down the street a bit so that I could take a picture of a statue I'd seen from the City Hall lawn.  On the way there, we spotted a restaurant called "Brimstone."  Their sign said they were open until 2.  We sneaked in just under the wire.  They call the place "Brimstone" because many of the menu items are spicy.  There was a bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce on every table.  They serve wraps, burgers, hot wings, etc.  The Husband had the A-1 Onion Burger.  I had the Cajun Burger.  Both were delicious!   There were also three burgers on the menu that I was scared to try - I believe they called them Hellfire I, Hellfire II, and Hellfire III, because they came with habanero, ghost, and (some other insanely hot) pepper, respectively. 

After lunch, we moseyed on back to the camp site.  A Tina Turner impersonator was scheduled to perform on the patio at the lodge that evening.  We intended to go see her, but after lounging around a bit, we were too lazy to get out again, so we spent the rest of the evening fooling with our electronic toys (the campground has Wi-Fi).  Since we ate lunch so late, we just snacked on left-over cheese dip and chips, and called it a night.

Going home tomorrow.

Joe Wheeler Park - July 24, 2014

Genealogy research is one of my hobbies.  I've been searching for some of my mother's maternal ancestors for years, and my best guess is that this family lived in Franklin County, Alabama during the Civil War.  Unfortunately, the Franklin County courthouse burned - and all the official records with it - in 1890, and I have been unable to locate more than a smidgeon of information online about this family.  Since we are camping in an area that adjoins Franklin County, today's mission was to peruse the Franklin County Archive in the hope that someone had donated some information about my family.

It was about an hour's drive down to Russellville, where the Archive is located.  We arrived at 11 a.m., fully aware that the lone volunteer, Miss Chris, would be closing for lunch from 12 to 1.  She pulled out a couple of books and a folder, and we had time to thumb through them before noon.  As the lunch hour approached, we asked her to recommend a good place to eat that was not a chain restaurant.  She recommended "Too Fat Sisters" on Hwy. 43.  We'd seen the delightful sign on our way in, and knew just where it was.

The parking lot was full of cars when we arrived - always a good sign.  The lunch special was a meat and three vegetable sides - things like meatloaf, country fried steak, grilled chicken, white beans, fried okra, turnip greens, and macaroni and cheese.  (Are you hungry yet?)   Everything was delicious, and the wait staff was friendly and attentive.  We left there so full that we could barely move, all for $15.

Back at the Archives, we quickly realized that we were out of luck in finding any more family information.  As we were preparing to leave, Miss Chris asked if we liked fried pies.  Of course, we said, "Yes!"  She went back to her office and returned with a brown paper bag that held several fried peach pies, and she handed them to us, explaining that a friend had brought them to her, but that she was diabetic and could not eat them.  We gratefully took them off her hands.  As soon as we got in the truck, The Husband pinched off a piece of one of the pies and shared it with me.  Mmmmm!  Heaven!

Our next stop was the Coon Dog Cemetery.  (Cross one entry off my bucket list!)    This cemetery is located about 12 miles down Hwy. 247 (from Hwy. 72), and then about 5 more miles down another country road.  We were surprised at how many graves were there, and how neatly kept it was.  We were also surprised when we looked at the guest register and discovered that nearly 300 people had visited the cemetery in the month of July alone. 

Only first-class, A-1, top coon dogs are accepted for burial there.  It's a very exclusive club!

Wonderful epitaphs on the stones.  This one said, "If he treed in a mailbox you'd better open it and look."

After leaving the Coon Dog Cemetery, and following Miss Chris's suggestion, we went to the Colbert County Courthouse in Tuscumbia to search for my long-lost ancestors among that county's records.  Colbert County was formed in 1867 and had originally been part of Franklin County, so it was possible that the records we wanted were in Colbert, rather than Franklin.  We struck out again.  After that, we hurried to the public library in Florence, Alabama, where Miss Chris said there were old newspapers on microfilm and a professional genealogist on staff to help us find records.  Strike three.  Either the family tree chart entries for these people will remain blank, or I will have to make up something to put in the blanks.

We probably would not have made the trip to Florence except that this week is W.C. Handy Week in the Shoals - there's music all day, every day this week, somewhere in the vicinity - and we wanted to hear a choir that was to perform at a church in Florence at 6 p.m.  We had just enough time after the library visit to walk the downtown area a little bit and have a drink at a local pub before the choir performed.  Downtown Florence is very pretty and trendy, and the choir - the Quad Cities Mass Choir - was AWESOME.  We were glad we'd made that detour.

It was almost dark by the time we made it back to the camper.  We were tired and hot, but we had a fun day. 

The Husband suggested that we "rest" tomorrow in preparation for our trip home.  However, before the evening was over, he discovered that a group called, "Doctors, Lawyers, and Such" will be performing in Sheffield, Alabama at noon tomorrow, and we may have to go see them.  Tomorrow night, there will be music here in the park and we will definitely see that.

Until tomorrow!

Joe Wheeler Park Camping Trip - July 23, 2014 - Huntsville Day Trip

Not long after breakfast this morning, we set out on a day trip to Huntsville, Alabama, about 50 miles away. 

Our first stop was Monte Sano Park.  We almost took the camper there instead of Joe Wheeler, but opted for Joe Wheeler because it was closer and has more full hook-up sites.  A note for would-be Monte Sano campers:  don't try to tow a camper through the "northern" route that your GPS or phone map app will show.  This route goes right through residential neighborhoods with narrow streets and hairpin curves.  Instead, go the "southern" route, down highway 231/431/Governer's Blvd, and up Monte Sano Road.  It's a much straighter, less congested route.

"Monte Sano" means "mountain of health," so named because of the mineral springs in the area. 

 

The camp sites at Monte Sano were very nice.  Most of them were level and clean, and a number of them had full hook-ups.  The park has a planetarium and observatory, which is open only on Saturdays.  The park was built in the 1930s as a part of the Civilian Conservation Corps.  At the overlook there is a tiny "hut" that serves as a CCC museum.  It is not normally open on Wednesdays (the day we were there), but a park volunteer was working on an outdoor classroom for elementary students, and he was kind enough to let us in the museum.

 

This park is somewhat strange, as it is right smack in the middle of Huntsville.  Near the park is the Burritt Living Museum, which we did not visit but is apparently a sort of village that shows how things were done in days gone by.  

The overlook at Monte Sano

 

We did not stop at Burritt because we had another destination on our list, the Constitution Village.  This, too, was right in the middle of Huntsville, nestled between the courthouse and the hospital complex, in the actual location where 44 delegates from the 22 Alabama counties in existence in 1819.  The buildings are reproductions but were built from plans of the original buildings that were on file.  If you go, opt for the guided tour, which will give you far more details/knowledge than you'd get just touring the place on your own.  There is a cabinet shop (the building in which the delegates met), a post office/law office/surveyor's office, a blacksmith shop, a print shop, and a family residence.  Unfortunately for us, a thunderstorm came up during the middle of our tour, and the village manager came out and said that they could not allow their tour guide to be out walking around during a storm.  She passed out umbrellas and said that we were welcome to tour the remaining buildings on our own. 

It was almost 2 p.m. by the time we finished our Constitution Village tour.  We were hungry but wanted to get out of downtown Huntsville to eat, so we headed back in the direction from whence we had come.  Finding some place to eat was difficult because of our self-imposed travel rule:  we don't eat at chain restaurants when we're traveling.  This is kind of tough when you're driving down major highways.  We drove all the way back to Rogersville (where Joe Wheeler park is located) without finding some place we wanted to eat.  We ended up stopping at a grocery store for food to eat back at the camp site.

I'm not sure what's on the agenda for tomorrow, maybe the much longed-for visit to the Coon Dog Cemetery near Russellville, Alabama.  ;)

Hernando Point at Arkabutla Lake, Hernando, MS - July 18-22, 2014

Our son and daughter-in-law invited us to join them and our grandchildren on a weekend camping trip to Hernando Point campground at Arkabutla Lake in Hernando, Mississippi.  It was an easy 2-hour drive from our house.  We stayed in campsite 18, which was very level and had a view of the lake.  The only drawback was that none of the campsites had full hookups - we had water and electricity, but no sewer. 

After setting up camp Friday evening, our kids fed us our supper, so I didn't even have to cook that night.  Bonus!  It was extraordinarily cool for the middle of July.  Evidently, however, some Alaskan mosquitoes flew down to join the party.  They nearly ate us up all weekend.

On Saturday, some of our daughter-in-law's friends and relatives joined us.  It seems like we ate all day.  Hot dogs.  Corn on the cob.  S'mores.  The kids fished, played Uno and checkers, rode bicycles, caught baby frogs (of which there was an abundance).  My son brought his guitar and serenaded us by the campfire that night.

Sunday, everyone left, except us.  We grilled steaks and had a leisurely afternoon and evening.

Monday, The Husband had to go to work, but I didn't, and both of us had the remainder of the week off.  Our plan was to stay at Hernando Point until Tuesday morning, then hitch up and move to Joe Wheeler park in north-central Alabama.  So, Monday morning, I kissed The Husband goodbye and settled in for a long day by myself - no car, no internet, no fishing gear, no bike....  What's a gal to do in a little camper all day by herself?  Fortunately, I'd thought to bring along my sewing machine and some fabric for a sewing project that I started a couple of weeks ago but had not had time to finish.  While The Husband was at work, I sat at the "kitchen table" sewing, stopping only for stretching and bathroom breaks.  I was still sewing - but about to get tired of it - when he came "home" later that night. 

This morning, we cooked breakfast, packed up the camper, and drove to Joe Wheeler park.  This park has over 100 camp sites, most of which have full hook-ups.  Some of the camp sites are short and fairly close together, but most of them are shady and fairly level.  We checked out all of the camp sites and chose site #12.  It is plenty long for our 31-foot camper AND our truck.   

Tomorrow, we'll be out and about, checking out things to do in the area.  Huntsville, Alabama is about 50 miles from here, and there is plenty to do there.  We also want to check out Monte Sano park, which is just outside Huntsville, for a future trip. 

We've been to Alabama several times this year, to camp and do genealogy research.  In Franklin county, there is a Coon Dog Cemetery (no kidding), and every time we pass the signs, I say, "We've GOT to go there."  And, dang it, this trip, we WILL.