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Moving at warp speed pace. Brannon and Jonathan waste no time getting down to business. We have the new theater/recliners installed. Cory & I took full advantage of their massage accessory. Ahhhhhhhhh. Nice! We watched the movie:”On the Basis of Sex”.... based on the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was good. The only thing lacking was the popcorn which we could have done but forgot. We were so relaxed with our massages we thought of nothing else. The added blue lights on these seats make for a beautiful ambience. We are sitting pretty!
The crew also put in a new, 40”, smart TV in the center of the RV. Perfect. He’s going to do the same with our front one. Exciting. The new, LED headlights are installed. Almost makes our rig look new. They’ll see us coming for sure & Cory will clearly see where he’s going at night. Just like having cataract surgery on the headlights. Our old ones were good...nothing wrong with them at all. We just had this on our “want” list. Brannon put a grab handle and new cylinder arms under our bed (there’s storage space there). Before, Cory had a rope we could pull
on...it worked. But we had to called “The Hulk” to stop by to raise it for us. I have so much bedding on our bed (remember I’m like the Princess and the Pea when it comes to sleeping comfort). To lift the bed to reach the storage space beneath, was like lifting a slab of concrete. Heeeelp Mr. Hulk!
Window & door seals have been replaced where they were worn....not all but some. Five of Cory’s basement compartment doors & latches are repaired. Now, he doesn’t have to bungee them closed. OMG! The small doorway awning needed a new motor....done. Jonathan relocated our cable/tv hookup in the water compartment to another location in it so no chance of them getting wet. He showed Cory a quick fix IF (please NOoooo) if our levelers don’t work as they should. They checked our roof and cleaned the shower & 3 vent skylights. Oh, thank you! Now I don’t have to look through a polka dot skylight when showering. It looked like it had the measles! I know they have done much more but I can’t remember it all now. Once we are done, I’ll list them all out for you. Happy?
We are!
I’m so confused! How ‘bout you? We went to Russellville on Monday. I don’t think I talked about that yet....sorry if I’m repeating myself. Go ahead and set your time machine for 5/20. Oh, excitement is overcoming me. We have entered into a Walmart (2nd one). Be still my heart. Downtown Russellville is unique. It has a marvelous old Roxy movie theater. Not used for movies anymore....just special events. I thought it was fascinating to see the steeples on the three churches all in a row. A message?....Trilogy? Seemed the few businesses that were open were all Mexican. Went in a thrift shop....a Mexican Madre and her 3 niños worked there. Mostly worn clothing for sale. Close-by was a Mexican bakery. What a selection of cookies. The nice clerk lady told me what they were and we bought four. They’re good...more of a tough flakey texture than soft and chewy. Stopped in a nice gift/antique shop. It wasn’t open but owner let us in anyway. She told us about various things to do and see. She highly recommended going to Tom’s Wall. We did go...on another day.... so hold onto your fancy pants...I’m doing a presentation about
it later in this blog. You will be “Singing Dixie” after this adventure.
Time was running out cause we wanted to get back to Brannon’s before he closed at 3:30 pm. Made it with time to spare. Watched the Red Box movie “Cold Pursuit”. I like Lian Neeson movies but this one was rough....gory and constant killing.
Reset your time machine to Tuesday, May 21st (yesterday). Our biggest and best event happened today! We met with the owner/CEO of Tiffin Motor Homes: Mr. Bob Tiffin. We have met him before here in Red Bay and at RV shows. He’s a true southern gentleman with such a warm and gracious hospitality. We chatted for about 45 minutes. He signed one of our cabinet doors....that’s the going thing to do. I glanced quickly at it and saw Bob & Judy! OMG. I thought he got our names wrong (what & how could I bring it up tactfully in conversation?). Duh! It was his name and his wife’s. They married in 1961. He is 77 years old and still hard at work. He is definitely their best PR guy! I quickly told him the story of Lulu as we lined up
for our photo together. He liked her (as we all do) and thought she was quite nice looking......see how kind & gracious he is! Lulu was star struck. When first instructed to find his office, we were told to follow the yellow lined pathway. OH, yes. Lulu and I loudly sang “We’re off to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz!” while we danced along the sidewalk in our bright neon garb. Cory walked 3 feet behind us. Once in his office building, the lovely, gentle receptionist inquired what we wanted. I burst into song “ We’re here to see the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Tiffin”. She liked that. We immediately went in his attractive office through his open door! A wonderful experience to start our day. As we parted, he whispered in my ear that he found each one of you a delight. He was surprised with such a large group, how quiet you all were. I told him I was the spokesperson for all of us.
Alrighty now.....stay on Tuesday. Our exploit of the day is going to Tom’s Wall in Florence, Alabama. We drove through the town of Cherokee. A sweet little place. They
had a real big storm shelter...an actual building that could hold 250 people. I’m hooked on taking shelter pictures as you have probably figured out by now. An old fella came up as I was doing my photographing. You don’t do anything anywhere without someone watching you. Side story: I tried to tell Cory that when he stepped behind the base of the swinging bridge at Tishomingo State Park. You can try and guess what he was up to. Hint: it wasn’t to study the local vegetation.
Back to the old man. He was a friendly guy....just like all the other people we have met along our way. His name is Ron. He told us all about the town, the shelter and how to get to Tom’s Wall. We told him about Lulu. As you can see they became instant buddies. She has been handled as much as all the baggage at every airport in the world. She’s ready for the dishwasher cleansing. Along the roadway, I saw a front yard filled with upside down, blue plastic barrels. Each had a rooster (maybe a chicken) tethered to it. They were raising these birds for cock fighting. Noooooooo! Our travels
took us onto the Natchez Trace Trail Parkway for awhile. Beautiful. Remember you are going to Google it. Did you? Hope so.
Eventually, outside of Florence, our GPS & Ron’s directions got us to Tom’s Wall. The Russellville gift shop lady said she compared it to the Statue of Liberty so what we had in mind was nothing like we found. Still can’t figure out her correlation except they are both huge! This place is just up a small side road with woods all around and farming fields across the way. As we parked on a dirt path across the road, I saw an old white hound dog taking a stroll at the entrance. No one else around. You just walk in to a small driveway. WOW! Double WOW-WOW! On both sides of the entrance are walls & walls & walls & walls & walls & walls & walls of laid up stone.....as far as your sight can see and then way beyond. I’ve copied a brief history for you to read but you HAVE to google this place. It has a real story to tell. The wall is also called: Wichahpi Commemorative Stone Wall ( Te-lab-nay’s Wall). Since
the death of Tom in 2017, his son now talks, on the weekend, about the history of this unbelievable wall. My “borrowed” brief history is located in my photos. Click on each text photo and it will enlarge. That way you can see it to read it.
As you can see, I took a million pictures but can’t come close to giving you an adequate lay of the land. You just have to see it yourself. I hope my photos give you a good gist of its awesomeness, though. Obviously. Lulu used every minutes to pose on as many stacked stones as she could. They say folks from all over the world come here. They leave a memory stone and have a spiritual event here. See our stone we left? Lulu prayed over it. Could she be any better? God loves her! Cory tucked a lucky penny in one crevasse of a stone. We marked our visit well. There was a small wooden cottage in the back through the trees. Private Property. Maybe the son lives here? I could see the white dog in the distance.
Remember— Goggle Tom’s Wall, Florence, Alabama.
Once in the city of
Florence, we visited their tourist center. It’s located on the Tennessee River. Leaving, we “??crossed over the bridge, crossed over the bridge....brother, cross over the bridge??(one of my father’s favorite songs). There’s a Frank Lloyd Wright house in the area if you like his clever architectural ability. We asked a local policeman “Where do the locals eat?” He directed us to Court Street and The City Hardware Restaurant. Great! It was very nice but they used those square, indented china plates used for gourmet food. That’s not us. We immediately excused ourselves as if an emergency had occurred. Went right next door to Rigatoni’s. Wonderful! Now we’re talking. Nice atmosphere. Great service, delicious food. I even had calamari (favorite) plus an order of spaghetti & meatballs. Teddy came by to check on our happiness. We were very happy. Long story short: Lulu introduced herself and jumped into his arms. Take a look at the big grin on her flirtatious face!
Fat & happy we headed back to Brannon’s. More storm shelters along the way to photograph. Look at their bridge warning sign! I put one from NY next to it in comparison...ha,ha! We stopped at a tourist center in
Muscle Shoals. I like the unique name of this town. It comes from the shallow waters/reef (shoals) where they harvest mussels (look like black clams). They don’t seem to know why the miss-spelling of Mussel....some think it took muscles to do the work to get the mussels. Others say it was just the confusion by the people who named the town. Side story: when our 2nd daughter, Kim, was born, we named her Kimberly Page. Actually her middle name was to be Paige but when Cory filled out the paper, he only related to a “page” in a book. That’s how Kim got her name. She could fill many “pages” if she ever wrote a book.
Looky, looky. Look what we found in Muscle Shoals. Another Swamp John’s Restaurant. And just take a good look at it. What a difference from the Swamp John’s in Red Bay. A world apart in all aspects. Of course neither place has the special murals. Rats. This is a real fancy, dancy eatery. We are running out of time. Doubt that we’ll get to dine here. Rats.
We are still talking about Tuesday’s episodes here in Alabama....is your time machine working up
to par? Back up at Brannons. Nice & comfy all snuggled up on our heated (not needed here...it’s HOT), massaging recliners. Ahhhhhh, the good life!
Let’s review one thing. This blog has 57 photos. I know it’s like going through our big family photo album. Booorrr-ing! But you have to do it to be nice. Remember to scroll as far down as you can, find the little boxes that take you onto more pages.....go thru them all...or until your eyes scream out in pain. I just saw on Facebook where someone responded to someone’s lengthy notation. He said “Really? I don’t want to hear your life story...I get Christmas Cards from relatives not this long and I throw them out....get a life!” Oooohhh. The knife in your heart pain! I’m sure you are in high agreement with his comment but......part of my life includes writing our newsy travel blog with personal remarks added. I even do one of “those” Christmas letters!”. Glad I don’t send him one. Hopefully, some of you find enjoyment with my incessant ramblings. How else would you go to Tom’s Wall without it? Don’t forget to make your way through our big photo gallery. My
biggest display yet. How lucky can you get?
Your next appointment with us is tomorrow, Thursday, May 22nd. We will reflect back on today. Not a lot of doings so our Blog might be kind of short. A respite for all of you.
FYI: it’s 92’ at 2:30 pm here! A real hotty. Once inside any place around, I’m near freezing to death cause they crank their air conditioners so high. I have to wear my sweater and melt the icicles that hang from my nose hairs. Is there no happy medium, man? I feel like Little Red Riding Hood. Cough, cough....hey, what’s this. I have a little nagging cough going on. Nooooooooo! I’m probably getting sick as a dog cause of the stupid air conditioners. Noooooooo. I’ll load up on my crash-cart supply of medications once we get back in the RV. Feeling more and more like homeless people living out of our car. Pray for my health everyone. I can’t get sick now! Lulu is whining for a surgical mask. Says her immune system doesn’t function well.....what immune system? She’s nuts!
Today (Wednesday) —Our dedicated workers have done a lot more work on PP. Just
for clarification - you have figured out why “Pretty Penny (PP)” is the appropriate name for our RV now....right? When you spend a quantity amount of money on something, we say “That cost a Pretty Penny.” Some might say “ It costs an arm & a leg” but what kind of name is “Armleg?”....dumb. Our son, Cory, has a girlfriend named Penny. Our daughter-in-law, Brittany; her mother’s name is Penny. Both are pretty but I don’t want them to think I named our RV after them. Ha Ha!
Because I’ve over extended my allotted time - AGAIN..... I’ll close this biggy blog NOW! I just don’t seem to be able to produce a condensed version. Remember, our blogs slow way up during the summer so get them while you can....you’ll be lacking reading material in a few weeks. Then you’ll feel sad. We will, too. Lulu has to go for therapy during this dismal period. She will miss you terribly!
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