Bowling Green, MO

After fighting the wind all day, we stopped for the night in one of our favorite RV parks, Cozy C in Bowling Green, MO. 

The posts at the end of each site are topped with old  bowling balls. Appropriate for Bowling Green, right? My hand is on one in the picture above, but my selfie didn't come out very well. I guess I need a longer arm.

We were planning to make it to Saylorville tomorrow, but we got in touch with an old friend in Mt. Pleasant, IA so we are stopping there tomorrow for the night to visit with her. Then on the Saylorville on Saturday. We met some people next door tonight from Alaska. Had a nice visit with them and their dog.

Paducah, Kentucky

We are stopped for the night at Fern Lake RV park in Paducah, KY. The wind was blowing from the side with 30 mph gusts since we stopped for lunch, which was wearing Janice out driving. Stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch. They advertise Bus/RV parking, but we didn't fit in the spot very well with the Jeep behind us.

Athens, AL

We are stopped for the night at the Northgate RV park at Athens, Al. We had stayed here once before in 2013 on our way south. It is a small RV park just off the interstate exit with all pull-through sites which is handy when just stopping for the night. We left Little Tallapoosa this morning and were stopped for quite a while waiting for an accident to clear. Then we stopped at Temple, GA for propane, but they still had not fixed their equipment that was broken two months ago when we stopped there. We made a stop in Birmingham for propane, topping off the fuel tank, and lunch at Denny's Beautiful weather today.

Still in Carrollton

I looked at the weather forecast early this morning and there was a huge storm system right where we were going to drive so we decided to wait one more day. The system was actually headed towards us and about 11:00 the weather radio gave us a tornado warning and the sirens went off. We went up to the shower and laundry building but didn't get much more than rain. However, Carrollton got hit with high winds/possible tornado. Lots of damage, trees on houses and cars, streets blocked off, power off so no stop lights. Very hard to get across town. Mom lost power for awhile, but no damage there.

Forecast looks much better for tomorrow, so we hope to leave then.

Leaving Carrollton

I have gotten hopelessly behind in keeping up the blog. The two months here have flown past and tomorrow we hope to hit the road north. We were supposed to leave yesterday(Saturday), but I woke up around 4:00 Friday morning with an intense pain in my right kidney area. My first kidney stone! So after spending the morning at a quick care clinic and the emergency room at the hospital I am drinking lots of water and have a supply of pain meds. Everything seems to be progressing OK we are planning to leave tomorrow.

We have enjoyed our time here once again, visiting some new stores, working on projects with Mom and volunteering at the soup kitchen at least two days a week. A sprained ankle a couple of weeks ago has kept me off the trails here at the park since then and I miss the walks. We were able to celebrate Mom's birthday with her.

Rebecca and her family stopped in for a couple of days to visit while on their vacation and we enjoyed some time with them. One day with them we visited a historical gold mine near here at Villa Rica. The museum there also had artifacts from the Villa Rica Electric Light and Power Company which also was a Coca Cola bottling company.

The old Coke bottling equipment on display.

Some of the old mining equipment.

They had a chance to pan for gold. We had a cold spell while they were here, so coats were necessary.

An old grist mill on the property.

Rebecca in the remains of an old house there.

Liam exploring a tunnel.

Another shot of the remains of the property owners house.

Carrollton

  I haven't posted for awhile, so here goes. We are doing the usual things here, I went up to the big flea market one Saturday morning. Volunteering as a cook at the soup kitchen on Monday and Thursday mornings and every morning on the last full week of the month. I have been enjoying catching up with all of the workers there from before and meeting a few new ones. We have taken Mom to a couple of surplus outlet stores, and we went out to lunch together yesterday. Most days we go over to her house in the afternoon and play games or just spend time with her. The weather here has been nice so I have been able to get out and do a little hiking here in the park.
  Last week I notice a small antifreeze puddle under the Jeep wherever we parked and found that the water pump was leaking. If we were back in Sioux City I would have changed it myself. but I hesitate to tackle things like that on the road. I called the shop that had changed the radiator last year, but his mechanic had surgery and wouldn't be back for a month. I tried another shop, but his priority was foreign cars so he recommended a shop across the street. Great place, got me in on Thursday, was a friendly guy and looks like he did a good job for a reasonable price.
  One thing that we have missed here is a campground library. Most of the private campgrounds have a small one where you can borrow or trade a book. We stopped by the office one day and asked if we could start one in the laundry room here. They gave it their stamp of approval so we started working on it. Janice's sister had a set of bookshelves that she didn't need any more, we bought a box of books at an estate sale and the library here gave us two more boxes and said to come back if we needed more. Here is the finished product:

There are several temporary workers that winter here, so I hope that they will enjoy having something to read in their off time.

Back to Carrollton

As we left Noccalula Falls this morning, we stopped as we usually do to feed the geese there above the falls.

We stopped at Anniston, AL for lunch and then headed into Georgia. We were running low on propane, so I had planned to fill at a Flying J near the campground where we usually fill, but they were waiting on repairs to their propane filling machine, so we went on to Little Tallapoosa Park where we will be for the next two months. If we run out, we will have to pack up and go back for propane later. Had to detour around an accident after we left the Flying J. We are parked in one of our favourite sites here in the campground. I drove Mom over to her house and I think that she was glad to be back home. We really enjoyed her company while she was with us and hope that she can do it again some day.