Thursday, October 16, 2003
Deerlick COE Campground, Tuscaloosa, AL - Oct 15-16
Most of the CG is on a ridge extending into Holt Lake, with the sites looking down dramatically on the water. We would have loved to spend a few more days here, but because of our 2-day delay getting out of Piney Grove, coupled with our site being reserved for the weekend, we only had one full day. The weather was absolutely ideal, so we decided to spend it indoors with the local bridge club, which we discovered on the web. Unfortunately, the address on the web was wrong, but we managed to find it with the help of a passing postman and rushed in 5 min late. They welcomed us with open arms, however (we had called the night before to make sure it was OK for us to come), and after a complete rearrangement (the rotation in duplicate is dependent on the # of pairs, and we added one more, throwing everything into disarray), they were nice enough to give us the first sit-out, allowing our pulse rates to drop a bit. Word of our unusual living arrangement (fulltimers) quickly spread, and each new couple we played peppered us with comments & questions. One woman even issued us an invitation to dinner that evening. We were unsure what to say, but she assured us that she was completely serious. When she said the only meat they eat is seafood, we graciously accepted. We felt immediately at ease with them, and enjoyed the food & company immensely. Another couple whose wife played bridge that afternoon came. Her husband works for the State Dept (has since JFK & LBJ). He said his work was best described as counterintelligence. He spends much of his time in the White House, or on assignment in some foreign country, including the Middle East. We wished we could have asked him lots of questions!! We enjoyed their company very much and hope to see them when we pass through on our way back to Columbus.
The cats are adapting well to traveling again. They have some days that are better than others -- so do we!! They seem to realize more and more that they'll have their cozy home back when it is over. Email service using our cell phone gets more & more problematic. We think it is due to there being fewer & fewer analog areas, with many of them not having agreements with AT&T. So there are often times when we can't get emails for a couple of days. Don't worry if you don't hear from us immediately. One of these days we'll have to investigate other options, but that's a future project.
The cats are adapting well to traveling again. They have some days that are better than others -- so do we!! They seem to realize more and more that they'll have their cozy home back when it is over. Email service using our cell phone gets more & more problematic. We think it is due to there being fewer & fewer analog areas, with many of them not having agreements with AT&T. So there are often times when we can't get emails for a couple of days. Don't worry if you don't hear from us immediately. One of these days we'll have to investigate other options, but that's a future project.
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 11:17 PM 
