the Youngest Snowbird:

Another Day, Another RV Park

We switched RV parks yesterday.

After staying a full week at an overpriced park in Ozark, we moved further north to a resort roughly an hour away from the Alabama capital of Montgomery.

The new park is really spread out, with tons of space. Here was the view from my little office window at 7 this morning. 

that body of water just down the hill from JohnnyDisco is a catch and release fishing pond

Our new park is $400/month (including taxes) and features:

• full hook-ups, 50 amp service
• free wireless
• tons of cable channels
• lots of room between rv sites
• great walking areas for me and the mutts
• two fishing ponds for My Fella

And groceries and other necessities (like beer and peanuts  :)  are only 5 minutes away by car. We're excited to explore this part of 'Bama and make some day trips into Montgomery.  And at the end of January we head to the Tiffin Mothership in Red Bay.

* If you're keeping score at home, our weather has been pretty decent for the first week of January. Yesterday was sunny and 17C, with similar highs forecast for the next few days.

Speaking of Frost...

Woke up to this at the RV resort this morning

At 6:30am, it's 0C ... and yes - that is frost on the southern Alabama grass. 

You can see it much better on our black car below.

Yuck.

The local forecast is calling for sun and a high of 15C today and then high teens and low 20's for the rest of the week. And hopefully no more frost.

updated pics taken at 7:15am

Wondering About Southern 'Bama Weather?

Since we parked JohnnyDisco here in Alabama almost 5 weeks ago...

• 4 weeks have been perfect weatherwise, sunny and 25C during the day and overnight lows ranging from 7C to 10C
• there's been the odd sticky day with 100% humidity
• we've had two tornado warnings for our area (Baldwin County)
• and there was a massive rainstorm this past Sunday, with 24 hours of very hard rain - when you looked out the window it felt like you were in the center of a waterfall

We're back to beautiful sunny skies but it is starting to get cooler overnight. Which thrilled My Fella since he got to haul out the muttz winter clothes  :)  

Despite the look on her face, Shelbert loves the warmth of her pink hoodie. While young Norman prefers the more rugged style of his camo muscle shirt.

some days the dogs are dressed better than My Fella

Reporting from Summerdale, Alabama

My Fella and I are settling into our daily routines. 

Traveling south for the winter is fun but it's not just an extended vacation. I still need a regular routine to stay productive (daily exercise, stock stuff, errands, dog walking, etc.) We're planning a trip to the zoo tomorrow, but in the meantime, a few random observations about this area: 

Weather

Since we arrived the weather has been perfect: sunny and mid 20's during the day, with lows of 7C at night. But the past few days have been very humid.  100% humidity, a few big storms and a couple tornado warnings as well. My Fella has never been to the southeast and has some trouble breathing in high humidity. He says it's like constantly swallowing water droplets.

But it's better than shovelling snow.

Guns

Guns are a big deal here. It's weird to be sitting at my little desk in JohnnyDisco and suddenly hear gunshots nearby. Guess that's the trade off for picking a small RV park out in the country; if we wanna hear the neighbours rooster crowing at 5 every morning, we have to be okay with those wild turkey shoot-outs as well. Or whatever it is those shotguns are aimed at...  

Water

We've only seen the Gulf coastline twice.

Both days we were out driving around, checking out nearby RV parks.

The resort we're at is great but we like to know what else is out there.  After a few days of snooping around the competition we've decided this is the best park in the area with regards to price and pad privacy - which are the two most important things on our personal "RV Resort List". The other RV parks are a little closer to town and/or the Gulf coast, but the RV pads are basically on top of each other. We try avoid parks where RV's are parked thisclosetogether, packed in like sardines. Definitely not for us.

We've also been scouting out coastal beach houses for rent. Our little family needs a pet friendly spot to call home when we drop JohnnyDisco off at the Tiffin mothership for repairs.

My Fella found a few gulf coast vacation spots online through VRBO and most of them were clustered in this area.  

The homes are all built up on stilts and it looks much nicer than my pics. Very beachy. And very gusty. When I hopped out of the car to get this shot, I was nearly blown into a sand dune. The wind howls like crazy on the Gulf.

The beach grass and dunes are really neat... until you look off into the distance and spot the obligatory off shore oil rig in the background.

BP is still a bad word around these parts.

Edited (7:42 Thursday morning) to add this news link: nasty results from yesterdays tornados. 

Anxious To Get Going

Now that we're all packed and sorted out, we just wanna get on the road.

Does every RVer feel this way?

The inside and outside storage bins here in JohnnyDisco have been cleaned out and organized. Our summer stuff (planting supplies, fishing gear, gazebo, extra tools, etc.) have all been packed away. The final trees and shrubs we bought for this RV lot are in the ground and mulched for winter.

We pick up our travel medical insurance this week and will also be ordering a Millenicom wireless USB stick for mobile internet in the USA. The mutts shots are up to date, our mail is being forwarded to different RV stops along the way and I finally received my passport.  

My Fella has just one more week of work left at his summer golf gig and then we leave the following week. But I'm ready to go now.  

No doubt the cool, rainy weather has something to do with it. We wanna hit the road

Canada Weather: Summer 2011

This has gotta be the wettest summer ever here in the BC wilderness.

July has seen rain every single day except one or two.  And when it's not raining, it's cloudy and windy.  I have eight plastic rain buckets scattered around our RV yard and there have been many days they've filled up with rain 2 or 3 times per day.

The entire country is getting hit with extreme weather.  While our BC summer has been cold and wet, Ontario is having a heat wave right now with Toronto temps hitting 37C today and Waterloo getting up to 39C.

Small villages north of Saskatoon were hit with grapefruit sized hail yesterday.

And several days ago a freak windstorm toppled the main stage at the Ottawa Bluesfest while Cheap Trick was on stage.  The band wasn't hurt, but their truck driver was injured, along with two other concert-goers.

From this Canadian Press story:

"It was like a scene out of 'Armageddon.' Right before the collapse, it was sunny and lovely, and then moments later, dark clouds appeared, and the atmosphere changed. A gust of wind blew confetti from the ground up, the drapes blew inwards, the stage collapsed, and someone yelled, 'Get off,'...

Cheap Trick manager Dave Frey, who was on stage seconds before the collapse, told Rolling Stone magazine that the driver's leg was broken and the band lost all of its equipment.

Video of the Bluesfest site posted on YouTube showed the stage, which stood several storeys tall, being propelled backward before crumpling and damaging a tractor-trailer truck parked behind it.

So how's the weather in your neighbourhood this summer?

** Totally off topic - at 8am pacific time, the CAD is trading at $1.06 vs. the USD.  Could be time to buy more American dollars for our winter trip south. 

Can I Borrow Your Umbrella?

It's been a soggy spring out here in the BC wilderness.

A day of sun followed by two or three days of rain*...

Today  Jun 8th	Thursday  Jun 9th	Friday  Jun 10th	Saturday  Jun 11th	Sunday  Jun 12th
Mostly Cloudy with Showers	Sunny	Mostly Cloudy with Showers	Mostly Cloudy with Showers	Mix of Cloud and Sun
22°C 13°C	26°C 11°C	25°C 11°C	24°C 11°C	27°C 10°C

Which explains why one of the locals hopped over to borrow a big golf umbrella yesterday.  

Not a big deal except this particular neighbour is small and green and he was actually hiding in the umbrella.

Scared the beans out of me.

Don't frogs like rain?  Why would he need an umbrella?

* This weather graphic was swiped from WeatherCity.com - my fave new worldwide weather website.

Good Thing Our Floors Are Clean Enough to Eat Off

... cause the kitchen table is a little busy right now.

Spring sun gods are finally on our side and the long weekend forecast is calling for five days of sunshine out here in the BC wilderness. So yesterday I zipped into town and bought most of my summer annuals and herbs.  Guess I could've waited until today but the closer we get to the long weekend, the busier all the garden centers will be.  

Unfortunately, our forecast predicted one more night of freezing temps last night so before bed I hauled in all the plants to protect them from frost.  

And that's when the unthinkable happened...

Keep in mind this pic was taken after I had scooped up most of the wet dirt to stop it from soaking into the carpet.  There's no need for a full play by play, but I will say:  pee on the floor + slippery socks + a heavy flowerpot = big muddy mess on the carpet.

The pee was of the four legged variety.  At almost eight months old, Norman is pretty much house trained but he still has the odd accident in the house.

And his latest accident caused my clumsy accident.  I didn't totally wipe out, but I did slide across the floor like a three year old on skates for the first time.  And that heavy pot full of petunias and wet dirt didn't stand a chance against a puddle of pee. In slow motion I felt it slip out of my hands, bounce off the kitchen stool and crash down onto the carpet; splattering mud all over the walls, floor and computer desk.

My Fella was very sympathetic to the 'incident' but I could tell that inside he was laughing his head off.  And I'm darn sure he wished he'd been home to witness it.

Recent events have convinced me that when you have small kids or dogs running around, life starts to resemble scenes from a bad comedy.

But how can anyone get mad at these two?

Been A Soggy Spring Here in the BC Wilderness

My pink gum boots have been seeing a lot of action lately.

It's been grey and wet around these parts for the past week, but there's some sun in our weekend forecast (swiped from weather underground):

Friday

Partly Cloudy. High: 19 °C. Wind SSE 10 - 19 km/h.

 Saturday

Mostly Cloudy. High: 25 °C. Wind SE 5 km/h.

 Sunday

Partly Cloudy. High: 25 °C. Wind South 8 km/h.

Monday

50% Chance of a Thunderstorm. Overcast. High: 14 °C. Wind South 5 - 11 km/h.

 Tuesday

50% Chance of a Thunderstorm. Partly Cloudy. High: 17 °C. Wind South 3 - 11 km/h.

Wednesday

40% Chance of Rain. Mostly Cloudy. High: 22 °C. Wind SW 8 - 13 km/h.

Rain or shine, the mutts still have to pee and get some fresh air.  Here's a quick stroll around our neighbourhood:

We saw this dude out in the icy cold river a few days ago.

Our local fly fishermen are just as nutty as all those golfers who head out on a frosty spring morning to whack around their balls.  Someone please explain to me the joy in freezing your nose off.  Guess I could just ask My Fella since he's guilty of both.

Continuing our stroll... Shelbert loves all the neighbours, especially these guys.

When it's wet outside I always wipe off the mutts paws before they run up the stairs into JohnnyDisco.  But sometimes they sneak past me... and end up here.  

eight dirty paws on the bed, twelve paws if you include Norman's Ken doll (the stuffed leopard on the left) ... we named him Ken after My Fella's boss  :)