DEAD OAKS

I haven't had much to say in the last couple days. I can tell you it rained all the way from Birmingham thru Montgomery and on to Greenville. In fact, Wednesday nite we had storms which rolled thru for 15 minutes, stopped for 5 and then repeated all nite long.

The Greenville campground was nice, but few amenities. The camp is owned by the city of Greenville. It's a few wooded and hilly acres west of downtown. About half the sites run parallel to the road. I call these 'pull ins' rather than 'pull thru'. Pull through sites, of course, are perpendicular to the road. I explain this for all those who may never have experienced the joys of camping and 'backing' a travel trailer into a camp site. I have a great deal of admiration for truckers who back up to loading docks with a 10 inch clearance on either side. Even more amazing is the fact they seldom have to make a second attempt. This is why I always ask for a pull thru or pull in.

Tonite will be our third and final nite at the Tall Oaks campground in NW Pensacola. I don't know quite how to describe it other than sandy with patches of green here and there. It's small, maybe fifty sites. The office is a shack with no services, and is seldom open. But it's nice. The sites are wide and the people friendly. The laundry facility and showers are great. I would change the name however. I'd call it 'Dead Oaks'
since at least half of the trees are long since deceased. It could be a dangerous place to park your RV if one of those Gulf Coast storms blew thru. I'm afraid you'd have a branch or two thru the roof. We'll be leaving here tomorrow and checking in to our home in Navarre for the next couple months.

We drove up the road to Denny's for breakfast. I was about to go out and buy a paper when a guy just coming in said don't bother, the machine doesn't work. I said thanks and sat back down. About 10 minutes later this same man came in with 2 newspapers and dropped one on out table as he walked by. He said he'd gone to the Circle K convenience store. I thanked him. When we finished eating I walked back to his table and thanked him again. I tried to pay him, but he wouldn't take it. I've been waiting for an opportunity to 'pass it on'.

My broadband card started acting up this morning. It connected me to the internet, but booted me off after from 2 to 10 minutes. I called Verizon's tech support, and during the course of 2 phone calls and about 1 hour of time, Joyce suggested I take the computer to the nearby Verizon store. After 45 minutes of tech time, Chaffee told me I needed a new broadband card. Surprisingly, I beat my 1 year warranty by 3 days. I bought the old one on January 26th last year. So I got a new card with no charge. It normally works the other way around, so maybe my luck is changing.

After 72 degrees and sunny yesterday, today is cloudy with a high of 62. Thunderstorms are predicted for tonite and tomorrow. I hope it doesn't rain while we hook up and go to Navarre. Of course once we get there we have to do the setup thing. A couple hours of dryness would be nice. We want to be all set up before the games come on. Colts will beat the Jets in the earlier game, and of course the Saints will overcome the Vikes. Colts and Saints in the Super Bowl. Write it down.

Till next time, "The person who never reads good books has no advantage over the person who cannot read."

jim