After the late night last night, we slept in a little this morning. It was another beautiful morning and we decided to go to church at Red Bay First UMC. It’s located just right down the road from the campground. The pastor is deployed with the same Guard unit with Bryson that we asked you to pray for Friday. The “fill-in” appointment is Yohan Hong. We never really know what to expect when we visit a church on our travels and today was the same. We really enjoyed today’s service. Pastor used the scripture about Jesus turning the water into wine at the wedding feast. He reminded us that Jesus was an invited guest at the wedding, but that Jesus doesn’t want to be our guest but rather our Lord and Master. Very good service and very welcoming congregation. Will definitely go here again next time we are here. Other RVer’s from our campground visited today as well. We were all impressed with the church.
The motorhome business is very important to this community.
Wonderful service with good music and good preaching
The first hymn even had shaped notes in the hymnal
After church I was back to the campground and lunch. We did some cleaning and straightening in preparation for hopefully departing tomorrow. We shall see. The rest of the day was spent walking, and visiting with others in the campground. There are some really nice people here. We have made several more good contacts for NOMADS.
Sounds like we may have some bad weather headed this way so everyone be careful!
The sky began to lighten about 40 minutes into the trip
We knew today was going to be a long, hard day but all in all it went well. The day began at 4:30 am (YUCK!). We hit the road a little before 5:30 headed to Tuscaloosa. It was another cool morning with a pretty start to the day. We arrived in Tuscaloosa a little before 8:00 and started getting furniture ready to move from Anne’s mom’s home to the assisted living. Jim, Anne’s brother arrived from Atlanta about 8:30 with the trailer and his two sweet dogs. We had the trailer loaded by about 9:15 and headed over to the assisted living facility which is only about 2 miles away. Mom, of course, was glad to see the three of us and we began the unloading process. We were really blessed with 4 young men who were there moving their grandfather into the Memory Care unit. They saw us unloading and just jumped in and grabbed the mattress and box springs and took them right to Mom’s room and kept returning to the trailer for another load until everything was upstairs. We spent the next several hours moving furniture around in the apartment. We eventually had things arranged in a way that made Mom happy. We did have to return to Mom’s with one chair that was just too large for the space and returned with a smaller chair that looked much better in her bedroom. Mom will be happy tonight to sleep in her bed with her quilt and pillows. She was already enjoying resting on her couch. We hope having more of her things will make her feel more at home. We will have to work on some pictures and decorator items over the next few visits. Mom really doesn’t care much for the facility’s hair dresser so she had asked us to get her an appointment with her usual stylist, Brenda, so at 12:30 Anne took her to see Brenda. Mom had a good day – her stuff moved in and a day with her hairdresser. Anne also got a haircut. After another trip back to the house for a few more things, it was time for us to head to Birmingham before the ballgame was over.
Can you believe these grocery prices?
We stopped in Trussville to get some groceries and see Aunt Jean at her assisted living. After a trip to the store for her supplies, paying her bills, and cleaning Noodle the Turtle’s terrarium we finally made it to Blount County. A visit with Max’s mom and Aunt Helen and preparing their weekly pill minders completed our round of visits to the LOLs. We then went home and loaded the pickup with our bikes, food, tools and other items we will need in Iowa and Mississippi. Shortly after 8:30 we headed back to Red Bay. As we prepare this post the GPS says we will arrive back to Fred in about 1.5 hours or about 11:00. We will then take the refrigerated items inside and leave the rest for tomorrow and go to bed. Good night.
Everything we said about the beauty of yesterday – repeat today! We had a nice long walk this evening as it started cooling off. Everyone is out walking and visiting in our nice little community here at Camp Red Bay. Interesting dynamics with 100 rigs and close to 200 people. No one knew anyone here until we arrived. Now it really is a caring community with everyone cheering for you when you get to take your rig into service. One of the people we talked to when we arrived Sunday and told about NOMADS joined this week!
Strange to have such perfect weather here knowing what is brewing in the Atlantic. We are so concerned about all the people trying to evacuate Florida. We had several more come in today that were so tired from the long drive in horrible traffic and so relieved to have a place to stay. Some people whose work was completed today couldn’t find anywhere with sites available and we were able to connect them to Camp Sumatanga. Sumatanga is allowing evacuees to stay at no charge. Thanks, Sumatanga. As soon as someone left today their site was taken by a new arrival, usually from Florida.
We did get to take FRED in for service at 7:00 this morning. Our two techs were so nice, polite and knowledgeable. They did a great job and completed all but one of our items which will be done Monday morning at 7:00 am. They even did some things that they noticed that we didn’t have on our list. They really tried to be sure everything was just right. We so appreciate their professional attitude. We were not happy with our dealer when we took FRED back there. The problem that the techs will be repairing Monday is one that was incorrectly repaired and made worse by the dealer. We will not be allowing anyone but Tiffin and Freightliner to work on FRED in the future unless it is some kind of emergency. The people here are so good and so nice. It’s been a pleasure to be here even though we have had a little wait.
For lunch today we went to a little locally owned cafe, The Mason Jar on Main. We met the owners who seem like such a sweet couple. Anne had on a Sumatanga shirt and the lady owner immediately said “I’ve been to Sumatanga.” Both of the owners have done Emmaus walks there. Everyone one was so attentive and nice. The food was good. We had the grilled chicken salad, but then sort of spoiled our healthy eating by having their appetizer of fried green tomatoes. They were worth it. Then we really spoiled it by sharing a mason jar hot fudge sundae. It was really worth it! Sooo good. The owner’s son, Bryson, is currently deployed with the National Guard, and we would ask that you join us in praying for his and his entire unit’s safety.
Great little place to eat
Our empty mason jar. (We dug into it so quickly we forgot the “before” pictures)
Tomorrow we will be heading back to Tuscaloosa to move furniture to Mama Ruby’s new room at assisted living. We think she will be so much happier in her new larger room. After that we will head back to Blount County to pick up tools and other items we need before we leave for Amana Colony, Iowa, then back to Red Bay. It will be a LONG day. We will rest Sunday!
Praying for everyone’s safety from the storm. Be careful. Be smart. Have as good a weekend as possible in light of the destruction that is headed for the southeast US.
Today was just about as beautiful fall morning as there ever is in Alabama. It was 52 degrees when we got up this morning and we used our fireplace heater for the first time. It warmed the coach up nicely, but of course it had some help from the beautiful sunshine as well. The entire day was beautiful. We had to have long sleeves this morning, then short sleeves by about 11:00 and now we are back in jackets again.
We again today didn’t make it into a bay for them to start working on Fred. However, that left us with lots of time for walking and explaining what NOMADS is (people ask about the magnetic signs on the truck) and visiting with our neighbors. There are a lot of very nice and interesting people here. We did one other interesting thing. In the material the camp hosts gave us Sunday was a Guest Guide with information on the area and different restaurants, etc. In that guide was an ad for Piggly Wiggly grocery store that advertised their “World Famous Deli”. Well we couldn’t pass up trying a “World Famous Deli” if for no other reason than to let our readers in on the place. Who knows when you might be passing through Red Bay, Alabama and we wouldn’t want you to miss out on this attraction. It seems that fried chicken is one of their specialties along with lots of fresh vegetables and other entree choices. We were surprised to see the seating area quite full. We were planning to take our lunch back to FRED anyway. To be perfectly honest, lunch was good, but “world famous”? However, their Bavarian cream long johns are very good! By the way, there is also an Ace Hardware inside the Piggly Wiggly in case you need to pick up some screws when you are here.
The “world famous” deli at Piggly Wiggly
And the dining room
Lunch
The campground remains completely full. We now have a lot of Floridians here who have run from Irma and plan to spend their time getting their coach repaired while having to be out of Florida anyway. We understand from several people who arrived today that Tiffin was not surprised by this influx of Floridians. Tiffin also knows from the phone calls they have received that there are a number of people from South Carolina headed this way as well. However, with the large number of people here and at the other campgrounds in Red Bay there is now as much as a two week wait for the folks that arrived today. The great news for us is that they will start working on Fred at 7:00 in the morning. We don’t really expect them to get everything done tomorrow, but by Monday we expect to be ready to head to Iowa for our annual national meeting of the NOMADS. Of course between now and then there will be two more trips to Tuscaloosa and one back to Blount County. All will be good!
RVing With a Purpose 