Interesting Weather in ‘Bama’

The last few days we’ve had some interesting storms. The other day, one passed just to our north and dropped a tornado or two, and today we were on the edge of another tornado watch box. We’re OK, just got some heavy rain and T-storms.

I’m writing this because I’ve been using an app on my iPad that’s just terrific in storms. When on the road, we’re nearly always unfamiliar with the area we’re in. Storm warnings on weather radio are by towns, villages and counties which doesn’t do us much good if we don’t know where we are!

The app is called RadarScope. It brings real-time, raw feeds of weather service maps that include watch and warning boxes and text of alerts. But the best part is, because the iPad has GPS built-in, the app precisely locates our position on the map. We could tell very precisely when a rain blob would reach us and how intense it would be. We were very lucky this time, but if we’re ever in a tornado’s path, this app could give us the warning we would need to get out of the way.

The photo above is of the iPad screen and the other is a detail of our area. The blue circle with cross-hairs near Foley marks our GPS location. If you have an iPad or iPhone, take a serious look at this app. It’s just amazing.

The Elephant in the ePod

Léna writing:

Living in an RV requires lots of small extra steps to get through the day; like removing spare cooking pots from the microwave before using it, or pulling all of the plastic bins out of the closet to get to the warm sweater in the bottom bin. (There are only 3 drawers in the entire ePod.) The first few weeks on the road can be taxing until all these little extra routines shake down and become automatic. After that, the carefully memorized locations of things can be easily sabotaged if things are put back hurriedly, anywhere they’ll fit. Then it’s anyone’s guess where the can opener’s gone, or the biking gloves.

The great thing about our ePod is that it has so many nooks and crannies for stashing stuff. The awful thing about the ePod is that once stashed, or mis-stashed, an object can remain hidden for months at a time. At present, my little point-and-shoot ELPH camera has been hiding since Washington, D.C.!

My living with chronic Lyme disease, in an Airstream, on the road, is a whole second, tiring tier of routines: one that could prostrate even a healthy person at times. But to a Lymie, riding the roller-coaster of this complex disease, it can bring a melt-down of frustration and exhaustion at times. My favorite mug says, ‘Pretending to be normal day after day is exhausting.’ So I’ll drop the pretense and share from time to time.

I know some folks in my online Lyme groups are following our travels and these people are dear to me. Many are too ill for travel, and some are recovering enough to wonder how on earth it might be done. So here goes! Between lots of ‘normal’ travel adventures, I’ll write blog entries that delve into the litany of Lyme routines that are a large part of one Lymie’s life on the road.

For those lucky non-Lymie readers out there, I hope you’ll bear with me. The occasional “Elephant” blog entries to come aren’t really travelogue material, but they’re part of my journey.

Stay tuned.

Exploring Fairhope

Went exploring today. Our campground in Summerdale is a half-hour or so east of Mobile Bay. Right on the bay is the town of Fairhope. Once a sleepy Alabama fishing town, it has become a bustling arts/retirement community with galleries, restaurants, a long fishing pier and beautiful streets lined with flowers that bloom in January–ridiculous!

As we were driving around, we crossed a small bridge that spanned a small body of water. The sign at the end of the bridge named this body of water–FLY CREEK.

A bit further along was another sign–for the FLY CREEK CAFÉ, “Find Your Happy Place”. We stopped for a mid-afternoon lunch, how could we not? It’s also a marina, so, we had a delicious lunch, with a great view. Boats on the water in January–ridiculous!

I had to show the waitress my driver’s license to prove we were from Fly Creek, NY. Ah, it’s great to be carded again.

Laundry Day

Couldn’t wait any longer–had to do the laundry today. What to do while waiting for the machines to go round and round?

Take a self portrait of course.

 

Time Ran Out for Sprocket.

Weeks of travel and beach dirt meant he, and we, had to face dog-wash day. He was very cooperative and didn’t shake it out until we had him wrapped in a blanket–all went smoothly. An Airstream pointer…don’t have a dog that won’t fit in the sink!

Now, time to get dirty again!

We’ve been here all year! Time to move on.

Today we left Topsail Hill Reserve State Park and moved a bit further west to the Rainbow Plantation Escapees Park in Summerdale, Alabama. We had a quiet Sunday drive with Garmina leading the way. We’re not sure how long we’ll be here–some exploration tomorrow, then we’ll decide.

As soon as we’d unhooked the Airstream, Bill and Peggy pulled up in their golf cart–we’d met them at the Canopener. Looks like we’ll have a fun stay!

More details and photos tomorrow.

Saturday Breakfast with a Ranger

This morning, we had ‘Breakfast With a Ranger’ over at the clubhouse. Volunteers had made a good Southern breakfast of scrambled eggs, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, and we got to ask the ranger lots of questions about the park. Rangers are so full of enthusiasm and knowledge of their calling.

We asked about the turpentine farming that used to dominate this area over 50 years ago, and he told us where we might see ‘cat faces’: the slashed scars, like cat’s whiskers, remaining on some of the slash-pines on one of the trails.

When we asked about the prescribed burns of yesterday, he bounded out to his truck to bring his flame-pourer in to show us. The eco-system of this area of FL is fire-dependant, and what looks like misfortune is really absolute necessity for life. The short-needled sand pines hold on to their numerous, small round cones, and only release them after storms or fires, when they can safely reseed. They must land on the bare minerals of sand, not duff or pine-needles, in order to germinate.

Fires keep the underbrush open for the gopher tortoise, which is a surprisingly essential creature for all the other inhabitants of these dunes and woods. Whenever natural fires sweep through, all small reptiles and mammals go into truce mode and hide in the cool, safe gopher tortoise burrows which can be as long as 40 feet, only to re-emerge later to resume their prey-predator relationships.

Our enthusiastic ranger described how the deer will stand by and actually watch as they set the fires, eager to eat the first ashes, and later nibble the abundant new growth that quickly shoots up. Nature, it seems, is as tightly interwoven as ‘Ragtime’.

On our way out to one last day on the beach, we encountered our ranger, now sooty and helmeted, at the edge of a charred landscape beautifully layered in scrims of smoke. Unfortunately, the trails with the ‘cat faces’ had to remain closed as the fires were still smoldering in the roots, and smoking heavily.

Friday Fires

After a cold night, perhaps even freezing, we knew the beach wouldn’t be promising even if the trail to it wasn’t closed for the controlled burn. In that direction, we saw a tall, dark billow of smoke which gradually lightened. Mercifully, it rose straight up in a steady column. As we headed west to run some errands we saw other clouds that turned out to be burns as well, and later in the day, the sunlight was pinkened by the smoky atmosphere.

Bruce got two pair of his favorite Rockport shoes, on sale, at the sprawling outlet mall in Destin, and then, while he got an overdue haircut, I shopped in Publix, rounding up the makings for a big hearty chili that could simmer and warm up the ePod and then us.

As much fun as it is ‘to strive to fill the unforgiving minute’, it‘s sometimes nice to dawdle through the mundane activities of life in warmth and sunlight, thinking of cold and snow with nostalgia.

Thursday Winds

The ocean was leaping and rollicking and the white sands were blowing in blizzard-like drifts and sand-blasting our ankles. Despite this, we stubbornly spent two-plus hours on the beach.

Tide and wind had uprooted one of the two sturdy beach benches, and I set my back-pack beach chair in its lee, hunkered down with a couple of blankets. My windbreaker’s hood luffed, roared and chattered around my ears in positively arctic fashion, and I cinched it tight around my face and peered through its opening at the paperback in front of me.

Campgrounds have a lovely tradition of take-one-leave-one bookshelves, and when we first got here I’d turned in Jeff Shaara’s ‘Gods and Generals’ for E.L. Doctorow’s ‘Ragtime’. I’d enjoyed the interwoven stories of Houdini, J.P. Morgan, Freud, Wm. Howard Taft, Scott Joplin, Stanford White, Evelyn Nesbit, and other historical figures of the early 20^th century. This morning, I’d finished ‘Ragtime’ and turned it in for a British mystery, ‘The Lost Luggage Porter’. Now, out on Topsail beach, I assumed a British impermeability to weather, basked in the ocean’s negative ions, and let the wind turn each page as I finished it.

Way down the beach, Bruce roamed with the winds, leaning against them to steady himself to photograph, periodically wiping the salt of his lens. We had a glorious time.

Our small piece of Topsail Hill Reserve State Park

We’ve been running errands and hanging out at the campground and the beach for the last couple of days. A cold front passed through bringing wind, thunder, and rain and leaving behind cooler temperatures. No more 70 degrees for now, but still bright Florida sunshine. Even had the Airstream shaken buy the bombing range from nearby Eglin AFB. That was a first!

Took a few shots of the vegetation surrounding our campsite and the stormy beach.

Site 147

Palmetto

Cone-loaded Sand Pines

Storm clearing

Churning sea

What a great place to hang out!