The trip is almost over and time for this one to go home... |
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| We are in Alabama for the first week of
November, making a couple of stops. Our first stop is in
Birmingham, so that I can do a little genealogy research for my
friend Allison. Can you imagine not even knowing your own great
grandmothers name? I can't, so I am helping a few friends to know
those names and hopefully a little more about their family. More Lenne Estate updates :) |
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I want to thank Kris A. (http://blog.aamot.net/) for bringing this video to my attention. It came when I was feeling pretty sappy myself about how time flies and how did Mark & Sean get to be the age they are. Both of them have their birthdays this month, so I dedicate this to them. |
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| As long as I am being sappy, I might as
well go the whole way :) I think the fall weather does that to
me, that, and remembering how old my kids are getting... I also want to say Happy Birthday to my two favorite Kathy's! You know who you are. I may never remember the exact date, but I do think of you often!
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People ask us why we travel around so much in our RV. Click on the picture above and it will help you to understand why. I know the link to the website has gone around a few times, but I never get tired of looking at the pictures and it does help to explain why we travel around this great country of ours. |
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Tomorrow is Nov. 4th, if you haven't already voted by early voting, please, get out and vote on Tuesday! This is a great video, check it out, hopefully it will remind you how important it is to cast YOUR vote! |
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| Here's our first stop, actually just south of Birmingham so that I have access to the public library for research and also Shelby or Jefferson Co., county seats. I made it to Columbiana, Shelby Co., but didn't make it to the county seat for Jefferson. Important places to those of us that do genealogy research! We are staying in a nice RV park that once was a KOA, you can tell by the buildings. | |
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| The office where we check in, it happens to be Nov. 4th, so I wanted a picture of the American flag and the beautiful fall colors... | more colors in the park... |
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| Home is where you park it... no trees so that we can get satellite reception :) | Fall is over (so it seems) because they are busy putting up Christmas lights in the trees. |
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| I had lunch in a little snack bar at the local Davis Pharmacy. You don't see these too often. I had a grilled ham & cheese, they served it wrapped in wax paper, no plate, no frills. This is in Columbiana, AL. | I came to do a little research. This is the tombstone of Allison's great-great-grandmother and grandfather (one of them) on her mothers' mothers side. |
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| The local area also put markers for those that served during the Civil War, Jesse Broome Nivens was in the Alabama Infantry. This is a great find, I can now request military papers and since his wife preceded him, she may have requested a pension. More data! | AND... I found a picture of Jesse Broome Nivens... how great is that??? |
| I had a great time doing the research
for Allison, found all sorts of stuff for her. She has cousins
all over the area that she didn't know existed. Well, they are
like 2nd and 3rd cousins, but cousins, none the less. I am
still struggling on her maternal grandfathers side, I will have a
break through one of these days! Our next stop was Decatur, AL, just outside of Huntsville. I wanted to say hi to my friend Nancy Steadmon.
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Nancy, her daughter Jessie, me, and Jim. We ate dinner at Greenbrier's, a local BBQ joint that has great hushpuppies. Thanks for having dinner with us Nancy and Jessie! |
| Then it's a 45 minute drive to Russellville, AL to visit Jim's sister Barbara and her husband Charles. There are no RV parks close by, unless we want to stay in Decatur or maybe stay in Muscle Shoals. Two years ago, we parked the RV on a side road and stayed in a hotel. We decided to do the same thing this time. | |
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| Lots of trucks stop along here also, either using the hotel, taking their 8 hours off the road, or getting a bite to eat. | This is the hotel we stayed at, we are on our way to Jack's for lunch. There is a bevy of places to eat along this frontage road; chicken, BBQ, burgers, DQ. |
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| Jim's sister Barb and I were working on updating my genealogy her their family. Barb had a couple of great-grand kids that were not listed :) | Speaking of gr-grandkids, they came to visit from Tennessee. We got to meet them. Here, they are checking out the cows... |
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| A momma and her "baby" are coming to check us out. | Charles, Barbara, Madison, Sherralea, Michael, Elijah and Jim. |
| We leave Russellville and drive a full day (6 hours or 300 miles, which ever comes first) to Hot Springs, Arkansas. I want to check out Hot Springs National Park, the mineral waters and the area. It is quite the tourist town in the summer, but this time of year it is pretty laid back. Click ->> Hot Springs :) | |
We left Hot Springs on Saturday, Jim drove another
full day (278 actual miles) and we drove into the park at 3:00pm.
We unhitched the car, I went and got the mail (hadn't had any
delivered for 3 weeks or more), and Jim parked the RV in the
driveway.
We Are Home :) |
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| Our friends, John and Carol invited us over to enjoy a little fire one afternoon while enjoying adult beverages. | I couldn't stand it, if there is fire, there should be food over it. I ran home, got some sausages, and we had a sausage/weenie roast, yum, yum! |
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| This is the stump that is left of the red bud tree that came down in our yard during hurricane Ike. All of the green that you see are suckers that came up after the storm. We will be getting rid of the stump in the next week. | This is the damage that the tree caused. A few branches caught the corner of the house, brought down a little of the rain gutter and beat up the edges of the roofing tabs. All very fixable, thank goodness! We were very lucky compared to so many others in the park. |
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| Leon brought his "tool" over to break up the roots so that we could get rid of them and to pull out the trunk (as seen above). | Here he is breaking off the largest root and has the trunk in the bucket already to take it over to the ravine for the little animals to use for cover. Thanks Leon! |
| It's time for Thanksgiving already! I thought I had more time, but I had 1 1/2 weeks to get ready, shop, cook and enjoy the holiday with friends. I quickly put up a few decorations (just in time to come back down again for Christmas...) put a list together for shopping (drove to Houston with Carol to do the "good" shopping at the Central Market), and started cooking a few days before. It was all worth it! The weather was great, right around 79 degrees but just a "little" humidity to deal with. Thank goodness for the air conditioning! It was running full out with all the cooking going on. | |
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| Dinner is on the table, looking towards the kitchen | Carol putting the last touches on the table, looking towards the living room and the guests just waiting to come to the table to enjoy a feast! |
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The gang's all here for dinner; John, Carol, Randy, Kim, Jim, Kris, Dottie, and Gin. Thank you for all your great dinner conversation and help! |
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| Now it's time to take down the fall stuff and put up the Christmas decorations and start playing non-stop Christmas music. Yeah! It will take a few days to get it all up, but I love it when it is done. | |
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Make a snowflake, click above :) I did... this is as close as I will get to snow this year. |
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Lenné Estate updates for
November... I received an email from Steve Lutz and it was full of great news! We got ratings on the 2006 Lenné wines from both Robert Parker (I am not a big RP rating fan though) and Wine Enthusiast. Check them out here, a PDF file for the Robert Parker review and a link to Wine Enthusiast review. Steve harvested 28 tons of Pinot Noir in the 2008 vintage, 20 tons will be used by Lenné and the other is part of the bartering for use of the Owen Roe winery for making our wine and storage. It's a great place, Jim and I were out there last year; the people are the best and David & Jerry make excellent wine. They use Lenné grapes in their Killmore Pinot Noir and I would recommend it to anyone! I should be getting my 2007 wine the first of the year and am really looking forward to it. If you want some of the 2006, it is almost gone, so you better check it out on the Lenné Estate website. |
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