Albertville, AL
Let me catch up on a couple of short (too short, I suppose) visits we made late last week.
On Friday, we spent the day in Memphis with our friends Wayne and Eva. They were in town to see their granddaughter play in a soccer tournament, and we were passing through. Wow, what a coincidence! We met up at the downtown visitor's center and did some sightseeing before heading to Beale Street for lunch at Blues City Cafe. After that, we hung out a bit, killed some time having a beer, and headed for the Peabody Hotel to see the ducks. If you've never heard about them, you can check out the story here:
http://www.peabodymemphis.com/peabody_hotels/the_peabody_ducks.cfm
We relaxed in the hotel lobby for a while and met Eva's daughter, Tammy. After the ducks headed for their "palace", everyone decided that dinner was in order. I made a quick run back to the coach (about a 15 minute drive each way) to walk and feed the dogs, and caught up with everyone at a place called Alfred's, also on Beale Street.
We were in for a special treat since it was the last Friday of the month. At 6:30 PM or so, they had the monthly "Zombie Parade", where about 600 people of all ages (some even in strollers) do their best "Thriller" impression up Beale Street (the tourist area is only about 3 blocks long). It was quite entertaining. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures because the battery ran out back at the Peabody. Here's a link to the pictures from the Memphis visit:
http://picasaweb.google.com/GeorgeandGeri/AprilInMemphis
On Saturday, we "broke camp" and continued our trip east, this time avoiding the Interstates and heading southeast on US-78 through Mississippi and into Alabama. US-78 is divided highway all the way to Birmingham (it'll be I-22 someday, according to the signs), so it was an easy drive. We exited just short of Birmingham, and took US-278 east to Smith Lake. Our friends Linda and Wendell have a place on the lake, which is man-made and managed by the Tennessee Valley Authority. We've visited them there before, and it's always fun to see how much they've done to improve their place.
This time, they had additional welcome visitors. Their friends and ex-neighbors, Pat and Clarence, we up for the weekend, and Linda's brother, Joe, came up on Saturday afternoon. Clarence is a wonderful cook and really did a great job putting together dinner on Saturday night and brunch on Sunday. We had quite a good time and came away stuffed (OK, maybe the multiple meals of Memphis 'que on Friday were still with us, too!) Here's a link to the pictures from the Lake visit:
http://picasaweb.google.com/GeorgeandGeri/QuickVisitToSmithLakeInAlabama
We were lucky that the weather cooperated for the most part during all this visiting. We had rain overnight in Memphis and again at the lake, but it was pretty nice each day. On Monday, the clouds were dissipating all day as we packed up and drove the couple of hours over to my brother's place in Albertville. By late-afternoon, it had completely cleared up and turned downright chilly. Rick said that it was 36°F when he left for work in the morning. Yikes!
Once we were set up at Rick's, we set off to visit Mom at the nursing home. She was doing pretty well (having a "good day", I suppose) and seemed to know who we were, which is good. She's easily flustered and not sure at all where she is, but seems to be settling into a routine.
After visiting Mom, we picked up dinner for us, Rick, Annette, and Erik (Alyson's still at school for the rest of the week). We caught up with them for a while and called it an early night.
I'll close with a quick picture that Geri took before we left Arizona (it was in the camera when I downloaded the files). We're still new enough to the Arizona area and climate that we unsure of what plants bloom when and what types of plants we're seeing. We're learning a little bit, but it's still interesting to see different species. We've seen a lot of cactus blooms this year, but this one in a neighbor's yard really was unique…
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