We celebrated Thanksgiving at the Styx River Resort in LA (I remind you that mean "Lower Alabama," NOT the more common alternative of a California city). The resort cooked turkey three different ways (deep fried, oven baked, and smoked) and the rest of us brought a dish (or dishes) to share. A good time was had by all and we enjoyed sharing the meal with a new extended family. And then there was so much food left over that we came back together for supper and turkey sandwiches. No one went away from the day hungry! Thanks, Styx River staff, for cooking the turkeys!
We did a lot during the week after Thanksgiving. Let's see how many of them I can remember!
The day after Thanksgiving, we went to Fort Morgan. It was the fort that guarded the entrance to Mobile Bay. It has been turned into a museum and to the old military historian in me it was very interesting. Here are some pictures from our visit that day.
We went to Alligator Alley, an alligator "rescue" farm. Alligators may not be very pretty (an understatement), but they sure are interesting! We even got to hold a two-year-old gator ... with his (or was it her ... they can't tell at that age) jaws taped shut with ordinary electrical tape. It seems that alligators have almost no real strength for opening their mouths, but once they are opened, WATCH OUT! A full grown alligator can bite down with a full ton (over 2,000 foot pounds) of force!
We also went to the National Naval Aviation Museum at Pensacola Naval Air Station. This was an interesting trip through time, nostalgia, and aviation! We had two different tour guides for two different parts of the trip through the museum. Both were retired Marine pilots. One was from WW II. He had flown torpedo bombers in the Pacific. The other was from the Korean Conflict and Vietnam War era. He had flown a variety of things. I couldn't help but think of grand-nephew Jakobh Coleman when we went past one of the helicopters that served as Marine One (flying the President of the U.S. A. from the White House to the air field where Air Force One awaits as well as taking the President to other locations requiring shore flights. Jakobh was one of the ground crew serving with Marine One for a while. I won't try to describe all the fascinating aircraft we looked at or into or learned about, but if you're interested in such things, the Museum is well worth a trip. And admission is FREE!
Another thing we did was to have a face-to-face meet-up over coffee with some fellow RVers at the Starbucks in Foley, AL. It was a delight to get acquainted with Millie, Bill, Don, Cookie, Shirley and (here I must DEEPLY apologize for forgetting a name!) and Shirley's Significant Other. I do enjoy making the acquaintance of other people in our RV lifestyle world. We generally share several points of interest (as well as having several views on which we may never agree but we just don't talk about those).
After one final trip to the Gulf Shores beach, we left the Styx River Resort on Friday, 30 November, heading into Florida. We spent one night at the Econfina River Resort located near Lamont, FL. It is a Passport America park and that gives us a significant discount on the overnight price of a site. It was quiet and pleasant and we'd stop there on another overnight. I'm not sure I'd use it as a destination park since it is really oriented toward fishing in the Econfina River and the Gulf of Mexico.
On Monday, December 1, we arrived at Crystal Isles RV Resort, an Encore park, where we are staying for the whole month of December (other than a brief, flying trip to WI for Christmas with the family and friends). I'll get to work telling you about our stay in Crystal River the next time I stop doing things around here long enough to write!
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