Tag Archives: camping

Scott in the 1971 Volkswagen Camper Van :: Throwback Thursday

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Yes, it is Throwback-Thursday and yes, this is me in the family Volkswagen Camper Van, a shot taken in May of 1971 when we were apparently on a trip to Colorado Springs. There are many other shots of me years later when I wanted to drive (like in 1972) where I am sitting on the drivers seat, but this should be good enough for this week. My grandmother seems to have written on the back of every single photo ever taken and the caption on the back reads

Scott has his own picnic at Pike National Forest Colorado Springs May ’71

My sister hadn’t come along at this point yet so I was the star of the show. I love the classic look of this van, especially the license plate. Don’t remember exactly but I am pretty sure this van was very new at this point. Worth about 500 times today what they paid for it back then. Wonder if the “Roy Bridges” car dealership is still in business?

Photos From Gulf Shores State Park Beaches

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Tent at Night in Gulf Shores

Birds on the Beach

Sand on the Beach

Shells on the Beach

Water and Shells

Shell on the Beach

I finally got around to editing some of the photos from our camping trip last weekend.  We stayed at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores Alabama, just down the road from where we use to live in Orange Beach at Bearpoint Marina.  This state park is one of the larger ones, but a little less on the “camping” side and a little more on the RV side of camp grounds.

We have visited this park several times before and it is a very well developed area just on the other side of the main road from the beach.  It does border the lake that is in the area and there is a golf course in the park as well, but if you are looking for a camping spot on the actual beach this is not it (nor were we expecting it to be).  It does have great access to the Gulf State Park beaches which are starting to get a little crowded at this point.  If you want an empty beach in the same area, same beautiful white sand, just take a short drive down to the National Seashore in Florida called the Gulf Islands National Seashore (though they don’t allow pets on the beach).

One thing about this area is the hurricane damage that is still present in the tree line.  Several years ago a hurricane topped all the tress around here so if you look at what is normally a pretty full pine tree forest type area, you see sort of a tree trunk grave yard. Pretty weird looking but some of the photos below are a few trees that made it among all the ones that were topped, and the smaller ones that have emerged.

We have been to all these beaches and most of the restaurants in the area so many times that we will probably make our way east next time toward Panama City where we haven’t spent so much time.  All in all it was wonderful and relaxing as always, and I did get to take a few photos while we were there.  You can see the complete slideshow of photos here on flickr.

On the Beach Again with the Whole Family :: Friday Feet

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Scott, Deborah, and Ebby on the Beach

Scott, Deborah, and Ebby on the Beach

Scott, Deborah, and Ebby on the Beach

Scott, Deborah, and Ebby on the Beach

Last weekend Deb and I went back down to Gulf Shores for a quick camping trip.  Of course, being that we were camping we had no Internet access (at least non-cellular) which was weird, so I have some catching up to do on my blog.  I haven’t missed a Friday Feet post since I started it last year so this post-dated version was from last Friday.

Always an interesting weather time weather wise down here where thunderstorms usually start to roll in and winter still tries to hang on.  One day it is freezing and the next is it hot.  Thursday we arrived to a blustering tornatic frontal system and Friday it was sunny and hot.  It was still a great time to relax away from the computer and start thinking about Holy Week coming up.

I have several posts coming up on photos from that weekend, a few book reviews, and many more, stay tuned.  Have a great Holy Week this week.

Storms Arriving in Auburn as We Leave for Gulf Shores

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Cumulonimbus Clouds

Cumulonimbus Clouds

Columbia Tent

Last weekend we tried to go camping but the rain never really let up.  Not only did it not let up, but the severe weather down in the gulf kept getting worse so we decided to give it a go this weekend.  We are or were pretty avid campers in the day and we have camped in just about every state in the country but haven’t been in quite a while.

I am looking forward to a bit of relaxing on the beach with some time to read and write, hopefully we will see a bit of sun while we are down on the gulf this weekend.  Below are some of the cloud formations we saw in the storms coming through this week.  I love clouds, they are almost like snowflakes, day is different and they are constantly moving.

Youth Boys Campout on the Farm :: Friday Feet

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This week my Friday Feet post is a little different.  We had the boys youth group out to have a campout, cookout, and whatever else they do at that age.  Being Friday I used this opportunity to get a Friday Feet shot in with some of the guys before they ate.  It was absolutely pitch dark but those are my feet in the middle and Rusty Hutson’s one foot stuck in the side, Heath to my right with socks on, and everyone else that stuck a foot in at the time.

The boys play this sort of cruel version of a game that no one over the age of 25 should play called catch the flag.  I was given the “easy” task of guarding our teams flag (this is pitch dark night at 30* by the way) and when someone came by I was to “get” them.  After several sprints, tackles, and sumersalts that this body hadn’t done in a while I was exhausted.

The food was great.  They brought out some fraternity grill on a trailer and cooked all night until we were all full.  Breakfast was a different story.  I learned you need to cook a normal portion times 10 for these guys, but it was all great fun.

Every Exit is an Entrance to Somewhere Else, Leaving North Carolina

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It is difficult to say goodbye to friends and to leave a place you have come to call home. We left North Carolina last week to travel to Texas where we will be staying for a month or so before going to Colorado for the rest of the year. Eddie, Nora, Leslie, Jerry, Josh and Obidiah (pictured below) had come to be our surrogate family while we were in North Carolina for the last year and a half. We will miss them greatly.

Nora showing off her new North Carolina dish cloth that I knitted for her.

Here are some more friends we made while at Twin Lakes. We watched this mother duck raise these babies from hatchlings to this size. Somewhere along the way they picked up a friend who would follow them around and he became like a foster parent.

Before leaving North Carolina we had to have the sailboat pulled out of the water and put into dry storage. We had to do this because when Scott went out to close her up and batten her down for the season he found that she was taking on water. The sheath that surrounds the swing keel had a small fracture in the fiberglass and was leaking. Luckily, he found this out before we left and we were able to get it taken out of the water. Now it will spend this hurricane season on land where it is safer anyway.

We left North Carolina and headed for Dallas, Texas. It was so hot outside that our generator would not hold power for the air conditioner to stay on. So, we sweated a lot. We decided to make it a 3 day drive instead of 4 and arrived here in Texas on the 2nd of July. Blazer and Aubie were so happy to be plugged in to shore power and to have air conditioning again. Here is Blazer showing his relief.

Although we will miss our friends we are very excited about our future adventures in Colorado. Scott is planning on getting back into his photography and I am looking forward to knitting a lot during the colder months.

Twin Lakes RV Resort and Sailing on the Pamilco River

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Deborah at the helm of the Sailbaot

Sailboat at the Dock for the Night

Aubie on our Sailboat in the Pamilco River

We have been here at Twin Lakes RV Resort (http://www.twinlakesnc.com) for about 8 months now. It is a very pretty park with 500/800 sites and is located at the beginning of the Pamlico Sound where the Tar and the Pamlico Rivers meet. We arrived here in March and decided to stay stationary for a while.

We have at least a one year lease on the rv spot we are in and when the lease is up we will see if it is time to move on to another spot or to stay here a little longer.  It is a nice place and just outside little Washington (Washington, NC), which is also a nice little town.  It could be a little closer to the Outer Banks which we love, but it is all the way up at the mouth of the Pamlico river.

While we have been here I have been able to learn many new techniques using beads, as well as complete a few other unfinished projects. I hope to finish my first knitted-beaded amulet bag tonight. It is from a pattern by Theresa Williams, a.k.a. The Bag Lady, (http://www.baglady.com) and is called Baby Dahlia. This bag has been fun to do and I am looking forward to doing many more in various styles.

I learned to knit over the last month or two using yarn and size 8 needles. Once I was comfortable with the knit stitch, I moved on to this pattern. For this first attempt I chose to use DMC size 8 Perle Cotton in Ecru color and #227, size 11 seed beads, a denim color purchased from http://www.indiandreamstrading.com.