Day 74 Thursday October 17, 2024
We had a heavy frost this morning with temperature around 42 degrees. And we are still waiting to be called by Tiffin. It was kind of a boring day waiting around. We are reluctant to go very far from town, hoping we might get “the call”.
We did go to the Piggy Wiggly for some milk and eggs. That was the highlight of the day other than walking up to the Yacht Club for a free bag of popcorn. 😅
Day 75 Friday October 18, 2024
Still cool in the morning here, around 45 this morning but when the sun comes out it is nice.
Lena discovered last night we didn’t have any hot water so I investigated that this morning when I got up at 7am. I soon figured it out and it didn’t cost us anything to resolve the issue. Sure seems good since we have had to spend more than expected on this trip to Red Bay.
And we are still waiting for “the call”. And don’t really expect to be called today. So that means we have to stay until at least Tuesday morning, even if they call us Monday. So I puttered around trying to finds things that I could do around the motorhome and Jeep.
We didn’t get “the call” today. We could move to a different/cheaper campground here in Red Bay but this one is the nicest in town. It is in the shape of a horseshoe and there is a small fishing lake in the center, the paved street is extra wide so if one motorhome is hooking up their toad to leave another one can still pass safely.
All 51 sites are level concrete and have a concrete patio. There are street lights, a nice office with a very friendly accommodating staff, a nice building they call a yacht club that has TVs, recliners, couches and some light lunch options, free coffee and popcorn and some really good cinnamon buns in the morning. A lot of the wives use this while the husbands are taking their motorhome to the different repair shops around this small town.
There is also horse shoe pits and beanbag boards and a pickle ball court, plus a fenced dog park. The dog park even has a small red fire hydrant so the boy dogs have something to pee on. A lots of evenings there are really nice sunsets. The staff in the office realize the people that come to Red Bay for repairs and services don’t always know what day they will leave so they are very flexible with checkout dates. That doesn’t happen in most campgrounds/RV Parks.
Red Bay Alabama is a small southern town with lots of good hardworking people in it. Tiffin Motorhomes is by far the biggest employer and there are several small businesses around town and just over the state line in Mississippi that make their living servicing motorhomes/RVs. There is also a dog food plant, a mobile home manufacturing plant and a plant that makes the awnings for Tiffin Motorhomes.
This RV Park is just outside the edge of town and is very quiet. We rarely hear any traffic noise. Several years ago we stayed in a different campground that was one street off the Main Street through town and every morning about 5am the log trucks came through town and then the workers heading for their jobs and we heard a lot of traffic noise. Tiffin workers at the main plant start at 6am and get off at 3pm. Red Bay is about the same size town as Wallace, our hometown.
Day 76 Saturday October 19, 2024
Tiffin doesn’t work on the weekends so no point in us setting around today. When we were here in January we wanted to tour the Helen Keller House in Tuscumbia, Alabama but it was closed for renovation so we decided today would be a good day to tour it.
We ate breakfast and drove to Tuscumbia. Her homeplace is named Ivy Green due to all the ivy that grows on the grounds around her birthplace. The house was built in 1820 by her grandparents and sat on a 640 acre tract of land. Now the property only includes 10 acres and is owned by the town of Tuscumbia.
Helen Keller was born a normal child in 1880 to her father’s second wife but at the age of 19 months an illness left her blind and deaf. Her father and mother contacted Alexander Graham Bell for help in finding some way to help Helen. He put them in contact with the school where Annie Sullivan was just graduating from and she was hired to be her teacher in 1887. Annie was her teacher and companion until her death in 1936. After that Polly Thompson who had been Helen’s secretary since 1914 became her companion. Helen traveled in 39 different countries and was the first blind, deaf student to graduate from a college. She graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904 with her teacher by her side at all times. The guide told us her IQ was 160, which is considered a genius. Helen died June 1, 1968 just short of 88 years old. Helen Keller never married.
Helen’s father was a Captain in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. By trade he was a newspaper publisher, an attorney and a farmer. The house has four large rooms downstairs divided by a wide hallway and three rooms upstairs, two of which are bedrooms and a trunk room. There is a small cottage near the main house that was originally an office for the farm, then became a bridal suite when Helen’s father remarried after his first wife died. Later it became a school house and playroom where Annie Sullivan taught Helen. Most of the furnishings and clothes in the house are original to the Keller family including the 100 year old handmade quilt on the master bedroom bed.
There is also a separate building behind the house that was the kitchen and quarters for the family cook. And there was a reconstructed ice house. Helen’s father would travel 6 miles to the Tennessee River during January and February to gather ice and it was stored in an ice house below ground in layers divided by sawdust to be used all year.
There is also a stage and bleachers out back where the play The Miracle Worker is held in June and July.
Then we decided to go down the road a ways to the small town of Sheffield to get a Latte at Groundhog Coffee shop. From there we went back to Tuscumbia to the Tuscumbia Big Spring Park. There was supposed to be a nice man made waterfall there but I guess it is dry here now because there was not any water coming down and it looked like there had not been any for quite some time. There were a lot of people out in the park enjoying the really nice weather today.
We headed back to Red Bay and stopped in town for a late lunch at Casa Fiesta before returning to the RV Park.
Day 77 Sunday October 21, 2024
We didn’t go anywhere today. Just set around and twiddled our thumbs. There were lots of vacant sites here in the park until about 4-5 o’clock almost all were filled up.
Day 78 Monday October 22, 2024
We finally got “the call” about 2:45pm to be at service bay 44 at 6AM in the morning. Now let’s just hope they can find the jack problem fairly quickly so we can leave here.
Day 79 Tuesday October 23, 2024
Early to rise this morning at 5:15am to be at the Tiffin service bay at 6M. Once in the service bay I explained the issue with the jacks not working properly to Terry, the service technician. The motorhome owners aren’t allowed to stay in the service bays once the work begins so we left and went to McDonald’s for breakfast. They open early because this town wakes up early.
Just as we were getting back in the Jeep to go to the Tiffin Allegro Club customer lounge at 7am, Terry called and said he had the problem fixed so we went back to the service bay. The problem was a small electrical device called a solenoid.
I paid the bill and we went back to the RV Park to checkout and hookup to leave. So we waited about 12 days to fix a problem that took 1 hour once we got in the service bay. I spent several hours on the telephone in June with Tiffin technicians and one from a company named Valid trying to find the problem with no resolution but at least it is fixed now.
We drove 250 miles to Douglasville Georgia and stayed the night in the parking lot of Mount Carmel Baptist Church. They are a Harvest Hosts so we requested an overnight stay. They have a large parking lot and except up to 5 RVs a night. There was a lot of local vehicle traffic but after nightfall it was quiet and we slept very good after getting up at 5:15am this morning.
Day 80 Wednesday October 23, 2024
We had breakfast and pulled out at 8:45 hoping to miss rush hour going through Atlanta GA. Our GPS was telling us there would be a 20 minute delay due to an accident and stalled vehicle on I20. Actually it was more like 30 minutes as we creeped and creeped for what seemed like several miles. We didn’t see any accidents, only a 18 wheeler on the shoulder of the road with a police vehicle nearby then some road maintenance vehicle several miles down the road on the shoulder with one lane blocked with 3 workers, one on a piece of equipment, one stretched out in the bed of the truck playing with his telephone and one standing near another truck doing nothing.
We made good time once we got well past Atlanta. When we got to Augusta GA we began seeing lots of trees down on the shoulder of the road. That continued on into South Carolina. We are guessing this was a result of the recent hurricane. Several had been on the interstate but had been trimmed just enough to get them off the travel portion of the road. The state or contractors will have a lot of tree and debris to get up.
We took a restroom break after three hours, then a fuel stop and finally got to South of The Border and checked into Camp Pedro Campground site 160 about 3:45pm. 350 miles was enough driving for today. We usually follow the 3 and 3 rule. No more than 300 miles a day and checkin to campground no later than 3pm.
Day 81 Thursday October 24, 2024
After breakfast we did our departure chores and headed home on the last leg of our 80 day trip. We only had 105 miles to travel to be home.
We made it home safe after a trip of 80 days and about 5,000 miles. We stayed in 24 different campgrounds/RV Parks/Harvest Hosts sites. We had a very educational trip. We got to see and do things we didn’t ever expect to be able to experience. I think the most beautiful place was the farms in Iowa. Thousands of acres of rolling farm land as far as we could see covered in green soybeans and corn waving in the breeze is quite a remarkable sight.
We are very thankful for a safe and uneventful journey.
