Wandering With The Wrights

11-6-2016

We left Illinois Beach State Park as planned on 11/1.  Before leaving we were blessed to have visits and to visit many of our friends and family. 

My brother Brian came up from Peoria, my brother and sister-in-law from Zion and Jerry and I had a great dinner with my mom.

Spent a delightful evening with Lauri, Shaun and Kayla Zenner.  After being family since Lauri was born and neighbors for 21 years they are some of the people we miss the most.  She is extremely talented at decorating and this was her fun dinner table centerpiece.  Being creative is not one of family genes I inherited.

I forgot to take a picture of Audrey but spent a fun afternoon with Audrey Slosser - we worked together for many years and she shared some of her garden bounty.

Since we still have not been able to eliminate my mom's wrist/arm discomfort completely - we are now doing acupuncture.  Please say a prayer that this works - she will be going 3 times this coming week.

Also spent time with Dale & Carol Meisinger and got to see their beautiful new home.  Spent many years working at EMCO with Dale & Carol also.  Last but not least pictured above are Joan and Linda Dockery - I really think Linda comes to see Teddy and just tolerates us being there :-).  We were also able to visit with most of our children and grandchildren so the stage was set to move out.

 So on Tuesday morning we headed out.

bringing way to many of these little guys with us but haven't seen any in a few days so assuming we threw the last one out the door.

 Our first night was a stop in Effingham, IL.  We had a nice drive and we commented that we were excited to be on the road again after sitting still for the most past of 6 months.

Arrived at the campground and to make a long store short we had a run in with a tree.  We always make a point of telling them our length and that we are towing a car and they assured us this was a good sight - not so much!!  Way to many trees to maneuver around.  I was spotting and was talking to a man who came up to point out the tree issue and wasn't watching as I should have been - so we are both taking blame for this one.  It is really minor and ironically our destination was to Red Bay, AL to get some minor things checked on our motorhome.  Tiffin coaches are manufactured in Red Bay and they are known for their customer service and good coaches.  So we were heading to the right place to get our little tree issue fixed.  Jerry says we didn't run into it - it jumped out and bit us!!

Saw this magnificent 198 foot Cross at the intersection of Interstates 57 & 70 in Effingham, Illinois.  The site is intended to serve as a beacon of hope to the 50,000 travelers estimated to pass the site each day.  

The following day we drove to Jackson, TN - it was another long driving day so when we stopped for lunch we all took a rest before continuing on our way.  Spent the night at a Walmart in Jackson - we laughed as with it being a parking lot there weren't any trees!!

This is at the Walmart - Teddy is watching a raccoon right outside the window.

We arrived in Red Bay, Alabama on Thursday morning having traveled through parts of IL, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi.  Red Bay is a town of a little over 3.000 people and 1,500 of them work at Tiffin Motorhomes.  It is a small town full of very friendly and courteous people.  We took a wrong turn looking for the campground associated with the service department of Tiffin.  We ended up in a school parking lot which was a good thing as it had room for the coach.  We weren't sure how to get back out.  A man pulled up in a red and white pick up.  I went over and introduced myself as Jerry maneuvered the coach around - the man had us follow him and he took us right where we needed to be.  His name was Bobby and his wife had family in Zion & Winthrop Harbor - small world.  Went to the Piggly Wiggly in town yesterday to pick up a few groceries and I got out my Pig loyalty card and the manager happened to be standing nearby.  He asked if I was from the Carolina's and I said no Illinois - he said you don't need a card here we give everyone the best price we can.  Then the bagger insisted on taking the groceries out to the car.  They always offer at home but when I say no I am fine that is it but this nice girl said that is a service we like to extend our customers and proceeded out the door with the cart.  At church this morning several people asked what model of Tiffin motorhome we had - they knew we were visitors and probably in town because of Tiffin.

The Tiffin campground is actually an old airport landing strip surrounded by grassy areas for dog walking.  Everyone in this location is waiting for service.  It is mostly done on a first come first serve basis and people who need a lot of work can wait weeks before they get in.  Fortunately our items are not very time consuming, even including the scratched end cap and busted vent cover, so we get to go to an express bay.  Which means they think everything will take less than 3 hours and we will get in sometime this coming week.  People here are nice and friendly in the campground and we are all in the same boat - waiting so lots of visiting goes on.  The only negative is we only get a couple of PBS TV stations as we have chosen not to have satellite TV in the coach.  But what a great time of year not to have to listen to TV so we aren't listening to political commercials!!  We get news on the radio and there is a lounge we can go to to watch TV a very short walk from our coach but we haven't done that yet - might tonight.

Teddy made a new BIG friend - he kind of looked at him in amazement.

 So far now we sit in Red Bay, AL - when we leave we are hoping to spend some time in Birmingham and Montgomery to soak up some of the history there.  It will depend on how long we are here as we are meeting friends in Georgia for Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow we will tour the Tiffin manufacturing facility which also gets you one night free here at the campground and Tuesday plan to go to the Red Bay Museum and learn more about the history of this area.  FYI - we were curious as to home costs and taxes here so did some searching on Zillow - highest taxes we found were $669 on a $229,000 home!!

Here we are heading out on our 2016/2017 winter adventure