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Mother Nature’s Fury
We left Betty’s and continued heading east along I-10. The game plan was to drop down and follow the
coastal rout across Mississippi
but some of the bridges are still out due to hurricane Katrina. We dropped south to spend the night in Biloxi,
Mississippi and were totally awestruck at
the devastation incurred by the hurricane.
Most of the debris has been removed, but the reconstruction will be a
long time coming. We didn’t even think
to take any pictures but you have all seen them on the evening news. Pictures just can’t even come close to
revealing the extent of the destruction – it is unbelievable what force Mother
Nature can unleash.
A Pleasant Surprise
Awaits
After spending the night in Biloxi
we headed for Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale,
Alabama, another Escapees
Park. While checking in Judy said, “That looks like
Norm and Linda Payne’s car!” and to our surprise it was. They had decided to head south rather than
east to Knoxville since the weather
in that area had turned cold. It was
good to see them and spend some more time with them.
While in Alabama
we just had to wade in the water so we headed to Gulf
Shores to spend the day. Being the end of October we practically had
the whole beach to ourselves since most of the tourists had gone home for the
winter. Ah, how great to spend the day
in shorts and sandals; to us northerners the water was nice and warm. We drove out the peninsula toward Fort
Morgan. The peninsula is pretty much a sandbar and it
is amazing to see all of the rebuilding that is taking place after hurricane
Ivan swept through here in September of 2004.
We can’t believe that people would build houses on the sand even if they
are putting them up on stilts, it just seems crazy to us.
We only spent two days in Alabama’s
coastal area but will definitely return to spend more time. Rainbow Plantation
is a nicely laid out campground designed with the fulltimer in mind. They have reasonable rates and would make a
nice “home base” campground for us in the future.
 
The Red Neck
Campground
Another change to our plans was to travel onto Georgia
rather than heading directly back to Nashville
so we drove to Montgomery, Alabama
and then headed east toward Atlanta. We stayed over night in a Passport America
campground in Alabama just along
the Alabama / Georgia
border. As we drove into this
campground the only thing that we could think of is, “You gotta be kidding
me”!!!
This was definitely a “Red Neck” campground with junk
tractors parked out front by the entrance and junk grills stacked all around
the office/store which in itself was pretty run down. They did have level full hook-up sites with
cable TV (WIFI was available on the picnic table in front of the run down
facilities). Our site was in a gravel
pit and we had a lovely view of two more junk tractors from our living room
window. However, the owners were very
nice people (if you could understand their backwoods southern accent) and this
turned out to be a very pleasant experience; it just goes to show you that you
can’t judge a book by its cover. We are
slowly learning to get over our “snobbish” ways which is allowing us to become
more open to different cultures and lifestyles.
After all, this is what memories are made of; we will never forget our
“Red Neck Campground” experience.
A Mountain Top Experience
One of life’s pleasures when we lived in Cartersville,
Georgia was our daily
walks on Red Top
Mountain. When we returned to Michigan
in September of 2004 we thought we would never walk those hiking trails
again. We had two reasons for wanting to
return to the peach state. One was to meet
up with some old friends and the other was to “walk the mountain”.
It was wonderful to walk on our old hiking trails once
again. The weather had turned a little
cooler but the trail had remained exactly the same as we remember. We spent an hour hiking through the woods
while holding hands and sipping our water along the way. We only walked the three mile trail; however,
being on the side of a mountain the trail keeps going up and down hill
(Remember Judy, the hills are your friend) and it took a little more than an
hour (we used to walk it in fifty minutes.
That evening we went out to dinner at the Appalachian Grill with
our friends, Jay and Ann Camp; this is our favorite restaurant in Cartersville. It was fun seeing them again and we had a
great meal together. We look forward to
returning to that area many more times as we travel (gotta hike our ol’ friend the
mountain again – we miss him (or her)).
We said good bye to our old stomping grounds and headed for Nashville,
Tennessee where will begin workamping on
November 6th.
 
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