RAIN, RAIN GO AWAY!!

Now I sound like the snowbirds who came south saying the same thing about the snow!  Well we got our due last night.  There were hours when the lightning came in just waves, yes continuous!  And times when the rain was so heavy that I wondered if we would get washed off the blacktop.  I could not see the actual water line when looking out the windows and I sure was not going out with the lightning. 
By time I looked out this morning to take some pictures, I could tell it had receded some, but not sure how much.  We sat around until after lunch today and then decided that we should try the roads with the Jeep since we are to move the motorhome in to Pensacola in the morning.  At least we can turn the Jeep around on the roads.  We had a couple errands to run in Pensacola anyway, one which was to pick up our mail.  Well, the mail never got picked up as the road that we use to get there was closed because part of it was washed away.  In another day or two we will have to try to get in there from the north and west.  Hm-m-m
TV stations varied in reporting the amount of rain fall.  But hearing it come down, I am in awe!
Pensacola is said to have had 17 inches and then someone said 22 inches.  Maybe it differed at different locations across town.  Then Foley Alabama is said to have had 16 inches.  Their most serious problem was a river that overflowed.
Just thought you might like to see the pictures that I did take.  I missed one great pic of a compact car that had literally been buried in that Red dirt!  It had been a hillside above the road that had washed away, coming down to bury what was in it's path.  They had used some heavy equipment to clear the road, but were hand digging out the little car off to the side.
Pearl, I heard later that some of Scenic Highway was washed away along with two trucks that dropped forty feet.  It was south from Claude's street, closer to Cervantes.  I am sure that you can picture it as you traveled it many times, as did I.  Blue Angel Parkway had a lake across it down near Sorrento, but we could not get near enough to take a picture.  We had to turn the corner and go a different way as directed by the police. 
Check out the pictures, but I missed the best when we were driving through the road that was covered.  Had a smart alleck in front of us who started through facing us when we were half way through already.  He made sure that he stayed right on the left edge, moving back to our left sharply just as he got to us!!  Gr-r-r-r   And we were almost at the end of the stretch!

In front of the motorhome on the entry side.

Behind the motorhome on our entry side.

Looking out the passenger window near the door.

Across the street in the park
from where our motorhome is parked.
It is a busy corner, but this slowed most of the drivers!

 

Parking lot at the Gulf Beach pavilion.

Same parking lot, different direction.

 

Beach Hwy in Orange Beach
Water had been clear across the highway earlier.

Beach Hwy in Orange Beach
Water had been clear across the highway earlier.

A street off of Chemstrand Road north of Nine Mile.

A street off of Chemstrand Road north of Nine Mile.

I forgot to move the cursor down the page before uploading pictures.  So now I am paying for that neglect as I can not seem to get in at the bottom to add a few lines.  I will try one more thing - -

Along Sorrento Road







Ah-h-h, finally got it.  Always trial and error with me!! 

We got a phone call from our Canadian friend, Ted, checking to see if everything was okay with us.
Then an e-mail from Teri, a scrapbooking friend who moved from Pensacola to Orlando this past year.  And a text from other Canadian friends, Judy and Jeff.  Seems they are all seeing things on the news and asking if we are okay.  And my dear sister!  Yes, we are okay and feel better about it now that we have been out and about a little.  Also got a couple calls from Sunday School friends checking up on us.  I guess one of the class teachers got flooded out and the church sanctuary also!!  I am sure that the carpet cleaners will be making the money this month!

I just got this picture which had been put on facebook of the sanctuary of Olive Baptist church where we attend.  And it was brand new carpet!

Flooded sanctuary of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola.

We will still move the motorhome tomorrow in to Pensacola, but not in a hurry and no need to start early.  Gary needs to get the motorhome windshield fixed. But after talking with the window business, he put it off until Monday.  We will just pull it out of the park and go down the road a few blocks then.   We just won't get elaborate in setting up, probably leaving the living slide in for a few days.

ANOTHER WEEK IN SOUTHERN ALABAMA AND FLORIDA PANHANDLE

After the boys left on Saturday, it was finally sunny enough to sit out and enjoy!!  Of course, a good book helps.

Audrey

We later met up with Canadian friends, Ted and Connie, to go to Pensacola to McGuire's Irish Pub again.  We enjoyed it even more the second time!  They made a stop for a week here in Gulf Shores, though not in our park, to meet up with several friends and to take a break in travel.

Gary with Connie and Ted

Ted, Connie, Audrey and Gary

Ted and Connie, it was a great visit and good to catch up.  We wish you a safe trip the rest of the way home!  We first met Ted and Connie at Thousand Island NY in 2008.  This is the second time of catching up with them on the road, though Gary checks in with Ted often via e-mail.

Easter Sunday was a quiet day for us.  Service was great, especially since we enjoy our pastor's messages so much.  The church was packed for both services, though this pictures was taken before it reached that point.  The full orchestra played while the full choir of at least 120 sang.  They are awesome!  There is a new choir director this year and he is good, but we miss Leo Day. There was probably at least 2000 at each service.  I do not know what the sanctuary will hold, but it was full.

View of just half of the sanctuary
at Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola.

Our next week began very slowly, which was probably good after all of the running while the boys were here.  Monday was doctor appointments, which took most of the day since it is an hour or more from the motorhome to Pensacola.  We also picked up the mail.  This led on into Tuesday with laundry and many phone calls to catch up. 

On Wednesday Gary took a bus trip to Biloxi MS to Imperial Casino while I went to GiGi's Scrapbooking here in Foley AL for the day.  Gary has been chomping at the bit to go, so I took advantage to get more work done.  GiGi's have many die-cuts and I sure made use of them!!  I am stocked up for a good long time.

Thursday ended up being another trip in to Pensacola, so we picked up mail again while there.  We had hoped to get our driver's licenses renewed, but we did not have enough ID with us.  So have to go back and we found that with an appointment we can bypass all those waiting in line.  Yahoo!!   I will make that appointment.  We also had my mammogram appointment to take care of, and they decided it warranted additional pictures.  So two hours later we went on to a quick lunch and then out to Ft. Pickens National Park to see friends from Ohio.
Going through Pensacola Beach area to get there, I could not bypass taking some wonderful pictures.

 

 

This is the campground where Wilson and Linda are, and they are just a stones throw from the beach.  I loved the drive out there as you can see water on both sides of the highway much of the time.

 

Ft. Pickens National State Park campground

Wilson and Linda  Baughman

We love it when we find people from back home all across the country.  We had a couple hours of visiting and reminiscing.  Great time!!  Thanks Linda and Wilson.  Linda was in Gary's graduating class and her sister was our neighbor on Goshen Rd back home.  And Wilson's father was a great Scout mentor to our youngest son, Ben.
On the way home we stopped at The Oar House, a neat little place at a marina on the Pensacola Bay.  We did not get our usual fish and chips, but shared a chicken quesadea and cheesecake.  Good thing that we shared, as it was still enough damage that way!

The Oar House in Pensacola

Audrey and Gary at The Oar House

Gary and his friend

Audrey and the local Pelican

 

On Friday we kicked back for a while and then in the afternoon we drove through Foley AL to go to Camping World.  Not sure that it was worth the long drive, but it broke up the day.  And Gary got some new wax for the motorhome.  Seems that the old stuff was not doing enough to keep us shining.

Karen and Audrey

Then on Saturday we met up with a friend from Ohio who also was a former renter of ours from years back.  We met her at Walmart's lot as she had restaurants to suggest that we did not know the location of.  We had dinner at the Undertow (a local bar with Cajun boil).  Very good, Karen.  But it did not end there!!  She took us on to Orange Beach to a Cheesecake specialty shop.  We never knew that there could be so many different cheesecakes! Yum-yum!  Karen, you sure topped our week!!
It was great to visit and catch up on family and friends.  Tell Dennis that we missed him. 



Our Sunday was a quiet one and a good thing, because of my cold.  I sure hope that it leaves just as quickly as it arrived.  It is not something that I enjoy in this climate. 
You all take care and will be back soon.

OUR COMPANY LEFT THIS MORNING

BOO-HOO!! 
They pulled out this morning about ten minutes before they planned.  They are taking two days on the road, so not pushing as hard as they did coming down here.

So many odds and ends of pictures that I failed to take.  I always think of those after the fact.
They slept on the living area floor, feet to feet.  But only got this picture before our grandson got up.

Yesterday, our last day together, we got to take the guys in to Pensacola again to finally go to McGuire's Irish Pub for lunch.  It was one of the main places that we had planned to take them.  So glad that we got it done.  It was interesting to watch our grandson's eyes open wide when we walked in.  It is said that there is 1.3 million dollar bills attached to walls and ceilings.  It is a large restaurant and good food.  And we all enjoyed it.  The guys suffered through my picture taking as usual.

Three generations.

After leaving McGuire's, we went on to a used book store, Hawsey's, that we go to occasionally.  Gary looking for specific authors, me looking for anything 50 cents or less and Victor buying for his nephew.  So it was a good stop.
Back home we sat out more rainy weather and enjoyed our time together.  The guys doing their usual. We used up left overs and I made them tortilla pizza's.  It sure was a good thing that our grandson came with a heavy jacket!!  He used it most of the time, even the hood. 
Everyone was up bright and early this morning, but no one was ready for breakfast.  I figured that they could stop on the way when hungry, as it makes for good rest stops. 
It was sad to say goodbye!  But we look forward to our trip back east in August to meet up with them all at Outer Banks.

Now we will see what kind of trouble that we can get into on our own for a while before leaving for Vicksburg MS.

FORT MORGAN AND GULF SHORES PIER

ANOTHER cloudy and windy day! 
So we started the day with breakfast at Best Western on the Gulf Shore highway.  It was very good and will hold us for the day.  But as we sat there looking out at the beach and the wind, we knew better than to go on to Pensacola for the Blue Angels practice.  We sure missed it this week and so sad the boys will not get to see them.

We then went the other direction to Fort Morgan to check out those ruins and learn a little history. 

 

Now to climb to the top and check out the guns!



View from the top looking in to the Fort.



View looking out to sea.
This fort had two walls of underground
rooms and gunnery with a wide span of ground between.

On to check out the outer barrier.

After checking out Fort Morgan, we decided that it was too cold to cross the bay by ferry to see Fort Gaines.  So we returned home and I promised them I would make spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.

But about mid afternoon the boys humored us and went to the Pier for a walk to check out the fishing.
It is a half mile long and there were many out there fishing in spite of the cold wind.  We saw one fish brought in during the short time that we were there.

Beginning our walk



Walking out the pier which was rebuilt
after being destroyed by a hurricane in 2004.

Walking back to parking lot.
View of dunes, highway and zipline across the highway.

Half mile out at end of pier.

View from half mile out.

I love the water!  So powerful!

Day four almost over and the guys are relaxing as usual with computers on their laps!!  We have promised them lunch at McGuire's Irish Pub in Pensacola since we did not get to do it on Wednesday.  Not sure what else we might do, except laundry so that they are taking everything home clean. 
You all take care!!

MOBILE, ALABAMA, BATTLESHIP MEMORIAL PARK

The rain began late Monday evening, continuing a good portion of Tuesday.  We got a lot of rain and thunder storms with wind.  Then we finally got the sunshine by late Tuesday afternoon.  But we spent that day doing laundry and relaxing to do what we wanted at home since it was so wet.  You can see here what the boys interests are!!  They took over the recliners for the week, I think.  But that leaves me with my computer and Gary with his book and his own TV.

We got an early start Wednesday morning after a cereal breakfast at home, and went to Pensacola with the intent to watch the Blue Angels in practice.  It was a cold morning but very nice and sunny.  However, we no sooner got to the field to set up our lawn chairs when they came along to tell us that the practice had been cancelled.  It had also been cancelled on Tuesday, so the wind must have been the issue.  We were so disappointed.  I think that would have been the highlight of our week.  Bummer!!
So we packed up and went to pick up our mail at our service, and then drove on to Mobile.  I knew that we could find something to do there.  The USS Alabama battleship is docked there for touring! 

View of the battleship and Mobile skyline from I-10

Before we got off I-10 we stopped at LAPS Seafood Restaurant though we had never been there before.  We expected a good lunch and were not disappointed at all!!

LAPS Seafood Restaurant
What climb all of those steps?

Ah-h, Gary found the elevator!

Just finished alligator nuggets and they were appreciated by all.
Their rolls with seasoned olive oil were great also!

The fish, shrimp and pulled pork were delicious!! And the ambiance very enjoyable.  Our waitress was so enjoyable and quite willing to take our picture.

Then on to The USS Alabama battleship . . .

 


 
 


 

Panoramic photo taken by our grandson.
Testing out new things on the smart phones
 and learning from his uncle
 while teaching him a thing or two also.

On deck!

Gary and I walked through much of the ship and finally stopped and waited for the guys to finish.  We found areas that we must have missed the last time we were there as we sure did not remember them.  But the guys were having fun and climbed up the center also.

 Now on to the USS Drum submarine in dry dock also.  We sat this one out, but it was enjoyed by the guys.  They were complaining of aches and pains after that and that lighthouse on Monday!

USS Drum submarine

Someone suggested on the phone when talking with Vic that Church St. Cemetery would be interesting.   That area looked to be nice OLD town. We looked for it, but then decided that since it was already 5:30, we would put it off for another day.  We hope to do the Blue Angels the next day.  Hopefully, the wind will die down!!

Three days down and two to go!