A Surprise 3 Day Vacation

Barb & I arrived back in Buffalo early Tuesday morning with no weather issues and our flight was on time – whew…. at this time we are hoping we can get up to Jasper to see Jim and Lydia then head back to Alabama and our winter home. We are also looking forward to some heat and sunshine to warm these weary bones!

We arrived in Washington DC for a shortish layover. As we wait, we hear an announcement that our flight to Pensacola had been cancelled and we have to check-in with the airline for further instructions. Waiting in line, we learn that Pensacola has been closed due to sever ice on the runways. The flight attendant booked us on the next day flight and gave us a chit with instructions on hotel information with an 800#. We learn that because the cancellation was due to weather, the airline does not cover the costs of accommodations but will help us with preferred rates. We made reservations at the Sheridan Suites in Alexandria, VA, just a few minutes from the airport and they have shuttle service. We spoke with another couple in the same predicament that were flying down for a month of warm weather, escaping out of Truro, Nova Scotia.

Our room was great for the price we paid – the rate card suggested it was a $300/night room but we got it for $80. It was a suite with a separate bedroom, a microwave and coffee pot and a sitting room, we thought for 1 night, it will be fine. We had free internet access in the lobby so as I was checking email, the Truro (Phil & Linda) couple walked past and of course I had some smart ass remark and they stopped to chat. They were coming to Orange Beach for a month of beach time.

 

 

 

 

 

We kept an eye on the airline plane schedules first thing Wednesday morning and found out Pensacola was still closed and we were here for another night. I checked with the front desk about the room rate and found out we had to go back to the airport, check in with the airline and get another chit for the Wednesday night! You might think that the desk staff would know that we are already inconvenienced with the layover and yet they required us to go to the airport again to get a chit for the ‘special’ room rate! So, Barb, Phil & I were back on the airport shuttle to check in at the airline again! So, the three of us are checking in and the attendant says the earliest we can get out is Friday now! Yikes…. We asked the attendant if she could give us 3 chits in case the worst happens and we get to stay beyond Friday and she said certainly, how many do you want? She would give us any amount  whatever we asked for! It took me a few minutes to determine if there was some easy money there but….. nothing that I wouldn’t get thrown in jail for! So, back to the hotel and plan on something to keep us occupied for the rest of the day and Thursday!

 

It was Wednesday afternoon that we found out that our dear friend Jim had lost his battle with cancer and passed away while at home in Tate, GA. We spoke to Lydia and his funeral is set for the following Tuesday, in Jasper, GA. We will make our arrangements when we get back to LA. Again, our hearts are full of sorrow for Lydia and their family which we have been with for a couple of Thanksgivings in Georgia. Jim was another good guy that we shall miss deeply.

There was a small grocery store down the block so the four of us ventured out for happy hour supplies etc. Oh, what do we find next door but an ABC Package store for more goodies! Now we have all the accoutrements for added fun besides hooking up with other Canadians while stuck during our return flights. We hosted the first happy hour and of course, there was way too many treats but we all fought threw it and had a fun time doing it. We also agreed to plan an outing for Thursday, like a city tour etc. Phil & Linda were easy to befriend and we had lots of laughs and a great time. After we devoured the treat trays, we met in the lobby later for dinner.

We needed to add time to our prepaid cell phone so back to the grocery store to purchase a card but they didn’t sell our brand but apparently the 711 a few blocks away did. The clerk was not sure exactly where it was but a lady in line behind us was and she gave us directions. Off we go, walking to the directions she gave us and it was cold! After about 30 minutes of trudging through some snow and ice, we start to think she was somewhat mistaken! We turn around and stop at a couple of gas bars along the return trip but no success. We ended up back at the hotel, cold and empty handed and a cell phone with very few available minutes on it!

Thursday, we met Phil & Linda in the lobby and were off to our city tour of Washington, DC. We saw many of the high lights of DC, The FDR Memorial, MLK Memorial, Lincoln, WWII Memorial, Korean Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, the National Mall, the Capitol Building and of course, the White House. We were on a double decker bus with a blind lady with her service dog and no one else! Wow, talk about personal attention by the bus driver, it was great! The four of us were seated across the top level in the first row of seats, what a great view. The only thing that could have improved our day was some warmer weather!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The FDR Memorial was most moving. His quotations etched in marble can still ring true today but of course, today’s politicians have their own ideas. The next was the Korean War Memorial. The statues and the pictures in the marble wall were breath taking. The statues were so life like to the looks on the men’s faces as they wade through a field. It was another incredible scene. The last one was the Vietnam Memorial. The wall of names really does cause one to stop, pause a minute and first pay your respects and then consider what lays in front of you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our bus took us right back to the door of the hotel. It was Phil & Linda’s happy hour this evening. After, we couldn’t decide on where to go for dinner but Phil noticed the hotel dinning room was offering half price wings! That didn’t tickle Barb & Linda fancy but we were sure there would be something on the menu they would like – what could be better for the guys? Touring most of the day and then cold beer and good wings! After dinner, we said our goodbyes as they were off very early in the morning and we would not see them but we did agree to get together when we all got back to Alabama. Our plane departed at 1PM and we arrived in Pensacola at 5PM.

Our next challenge will be Jim’s funeral but for now we are ‘home’ and we have some down time before we drive up to Jasper, GA. Hope all is good where you are and come back again…..

Not a Great Start to 2014

After hearing the shocking news of Gerry’s passing, Barb and I muddle through some of our activities in a bit of a fog. But life does go on and we try to keep busy, keeping our minds busy to keep down the sadness we feel. First things we had to do was cancel our cruise to Hawaii and reschedule our flights to take us back to London, Ontario. Our daughter offered to pick us up but a rental car would give us more flexibility while back home. There are complications when one dies outside of their home country and it sure made us think about our own situation of being snowbirds.  Our good friends sent us home with a going away dinner.

 

The flight home was uneventful, get into rental, stop by the ‘hobby house’ and head to Chez Terri & Mark’s in Toronto. Kerri & Kelly, Gerry’s daughters and their significant others came by for dinner and the evening. We sat around the dining table remembering their dad and telling stories. As the wine bottles fell, the funnier the stories became. It was a great pre-celebration!

 

John gave us a heads up that friends Donna & Ray were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. So, on Saturday on our way to London, we just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stop by and hoist a beverage with them. We surprised them completely and had great fun for the short time we were there.

 

 

At Anne’s, the family all gathered for dinner and stories. Anne’s kids, grand kids, Terri & Mark, Anne’s sister Rose and her husband Flo with their daughter Leanne. A tremendous amount of food was served, the odd beverage consumed with lots of fun and good times remembering Gerry – it’s too bad this was one party he missed or did he!

Gerry’s service was held at the funeral home, attended by many, many family and friends to honour Gerry’s memory. Terri provided a eulogy that exemplified Gerry’s life and accomplishments. It was a tremendous and deserving celebration for a send off of a truly good guy – we will miss you Gerry…..

 

We spent the remainder of the time in Toronto, waiting for our flights home. We had dinner at Corrie’s and visited with our grandsons Mackenzie and Nathaniel, dinner downtown with Terri & Mark – now that brings back past memories, we used to do this lots when we worked downtown in our previous life!

On the weekend, we’re off to the cabin – no, we’re not skiing but Terri & Mark did while Barb & I sat in the lodge doing the après ski thing – I’m good at that part of the sport.

Monday, we drove back to London to have lunch with Anne and Kelly and a farewell. The weather was threatening so we did not stop off to visit John & Di but headed back as quickly as we could. Brrrr, cold and snowy is not our idea of a fun time! All the time away, we are keeping an eye on FB and our email for news on Jim, our dear friend in Jasper, GA. His battle with cancer has been hard fought but he has been in the hospital lately for blood problems and we are hoping we can drive up to see him after we land in Pensacola on Tuesday.

But, our return trip was unfortunately extended by bad weather in Pensacola and the airport was closed down for 2 days with ice. We got held up in Washington DC for 3 nights before we could get a flight out. More unfortunately, we found out on Wednesday that Jim had lost his battle and passed before we could even get out of DC! Jim and Lydia are the type of people that you meet once and immediately are best of friends. We spent many great times together even though we only knew them for 4 years. They would tell anyone who listened that Barb & I were the couple that inspired them to go full time RVing. That’s a heavy title to bear but love them both.

More on our unscheduled holiday in Washington, DC in our next post. We hope all is good where you are, it has been a shaky start to 2014 so far.

It’s a New Year

Well, we’re all winding down from our Christmas excitement. Many ‘Mercans’ do not ‘celebrate’ Boxing Day here – it’s just the day after Christmas and everything, shops, businesses and routines go on as usual. Of course Barb & I educated our friends with a bit of Canadianisms, making it a holiday.

Our DVR died on us and if you know us, you know we use it extensively to record our favourite shows so we do have to be tormented by the crazy amount of commercials. I opened the case to see if the fuse was ok but that’s as far as I could go to fix it. Call around and all the repair shops I called said throw it away and buy a new one! So, being a frugal minded or as  Barb would say – cheap, I surfed over to the manufactures web site and found a service centre not far away in Mobile. After a brief conversation on the phone, Barb & I are on our way to the repair shop. After a 90 minute return trip, we just step in the door and the repair guy called to tell us the unit is repaired and ready to go – just had to replace the power supply board and at half the cost of a new one! So, where are these other shops coming from? Are they too busy to do the simple jobs, they only want the high end warranty repairs? I digress, we went back on Dec 30th for pick up.

The park has a New Years Eve party at the clubhouse but when they sing Auld Lang Syne at 9 PM, I find it too racy for me so we planned a party at our place. We invited 3 other couples over for a pot luck and beverages of course. We had a great time with Ann, Bill, Marcia, Dick and our new Canadian friends, Simon & Sandy. Good food, good friends, what better way to ring in the New Year.

 

 

New Years day was different for us. After we witnessed the ‘polar bear plunge’, we wandered through the campground with various stops, toasting the day. We ended up at Simon & Sandy’s and some one (can you spell Simon) kept filling our glasses and soon enough, it was difficult to aim Barb up the road to home – yes friends, she was toasted and feeling no pain! This is a most unusual state for my bride but she was having fun anyway.

Simon & Sandy are fairly new to the Plantation and have not experienced some of the attractions of the area so we decided to take them on Jan 2nd to Pensacola to do lunch at McGuires Irish Pub – Simon likes his stout beers – and then over to Joe Patti’s for some fresh sea food. Going to Joe Patti’s is a different experience that should not be missed if possible. Well, word travels fast around the park and soon we were expecting about 14 people to go to lunch! Unfortunately, Simon had come down with a flu bug and he was unable to go but the rest of us – we’re there! Not too many folks turn down a trip to McGuires! Of course, the girls decided that they would rather hit a few quilt shops instead of the fish market and would meet us at home!

On Jan 3rd, there was a quilt shop having a ‘going out of business’ sale in Ocean Springs, Mississippi – I guess the girls didn’t buy enough there last year. Anyway, 10 of us thought it was a great opportunity to meet the girls at The Shed for lunch, that’s a 90 minute drive each way! Anyway, the 5 ladies, Marcia, Ann, Mary, Marsha & Barb headed out at 9 so they could be the first to scoop up some of those ‘you just can’t miss’ deals and the guys, Dick, Bill, Dick, Bud & me left at 11ish to meet them at The Shed BBQ. It’s a unique experience and again, one of those local attractions that one should not miss!

 

 

And of course, all this time while I’m trying to catch my breath from the trip down and setting up, Barb continues to knock out beautiful quilt tops like this one.  She took a Craftsy course this year with Laura Nowles and this is the finished product from the class.  Now all that is left to do is the Free Motion Quilting.

 

 

 

It is with great sadness that we learn of my cousin’s passing. Gerry and Barb & I were the same age and he was more a brother to me than he was a cousin. Gerry & I grew up together, hanging out, playing hockey and spending the summers at our cottage, water skiing, fishing and swimming as if we were in our right minds.  As we grew up and had families, we picnicked, partied and spent holidays together.  He and Anne were enjoying a vacation with two of their grandsons in Cuba when he left us.  We will miss him deeply.

Back in LA

In our last post, we talked about frozen water lines but we were lucky and did not suffer any damage. Our second night of the trip down, we stayed in a Walmart in Clanton Alabama. It was a few miles off I65 and was not a super store but they allowed us to stay anyway and it was warm and quiet, what a treat! From here, it was a short run down to the Plantation. We arrived just before the annual Christmas tractor parade – we prefer to think they were having the parade just to welcome us back! Since many of our Plantation friends did not expect to see us this year, we had many of them stop by to greet and welcome us back. It was a very warming arrival.

Now that we are all set up in our site, we try to tend to things that are becoming routine – raking the gardens, washing the roof of the rig and then the sides and of course, digging the shorts out of the cabinets! It took us a couple of days to catch our breath from the escape from Ontario, the long drive down and acclimatizing ourselves to the temps here. But once back on our feet, we’re back into the swing of the activities in the campground.

With Christmas looming and since we have already celebrated with our kids back home, it is kinda anticlimactic now but we’re celebrating with a clubhouse full of other campers with a Christmas eve party and then dinner on Christmas day. To help get us in the mood, we went shopping and bought ourselves new bikes. When we decided to drive to California for our cruise, we stored our bikes, thinking we were not going to be stopped anywhere long enough to use them so why drag ‘em around. Once we changed plans not to drive west, it was too late to retrieve them – does that sound reasonable? Anyway, new bikes for Christmas, just like when we were kids. I’m sure you also know our Christmas card ritual – we take the camera and exchange cards in the isle at Walmart and take pictures of the occasion – this way, we can ‘spend’ as much as we want to for the card without spending our hard earned cash!

One event we try not to miss is the Fish River Santa Claus boat parade which was on Dec 21st. So using last years memory of timing for the parade, we went for dinner with Simon & Sandy at the Old 27 Grill and planned to be at our usual viewing point at the boat launch by 7PM. Well, not a lot of good things to say about my memory here….. after dinner, we arrived at the boat launch and were surprised at the number of available parking spots – this was a hint! Oppssss….. the parade has already gone by! We got the refreshments out anyway and met a nice couple from Silverhill, a town just north of the Plantation. We did manage to get a few pictures of some boats on their way back to where they launched from so not all was lost – we saw a few decorated boats and met nice folks too.

It must be Christmas, it has turned cooler to get us in the mood. On Christmas eve, we went to the Christmas party at the clubhouse. There was a Plantation music group to lead us in some carolling and after, we had our usual ‘secret Santa’ ritual. Everyone with a gift sits somewhat in a circle and a ‘host’ reads a short story and when she says right, you pass your gift to the right, left you pass your gift to the left. There are many instances of right and left so some times you might get a little lost and that makes some fun. You are in an Escapee park so you know there is lots food available. Everyone had to bring a finger food for the buffet table – wow, so much great treats! We even had Mr & Mrs Claus there checking who were being naught and nice. You notice I wasn’t in the picture!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas day brings us back to the clubhouse for our Christmas dinner at 2PM. We were with 10 others and it was a great time – lots to eat, plenty of wine around and the desserts were over the top. Our table stayed after clean up to carry on with the chatter and of course, we were the last to leave – turning out the lights as we departed!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hoping all is well wherever you are and all the best in 2014….