A Brief Sojourn in Alabama

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Birmingham South Campground
222 Highway 33, Pelham, Alabama 35124
Cost $241.00 for 6 days.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

We arrived in Pelham, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham yesterday.  This is our 10^th state so far.  We had good weather for the drive in.  When we left New Orleans, it was after 5:00 pm and already getting dark.  We drove until about 8:30 pm and camped overnight in a Walmart parking lot in Hattisburg, Mississippi.  We grabbed coffee the next morning and left to drive most of the day to Birmingham. 

I wish I could report that we saw Mississippi, but we only slept there, ate breakfast in Meridan, and then crossed over into Alabama.  So, I wasn’t able to get postcards or photos.  What little we saw of it along the interstate is just like here—very pretty and green with lots of pine trees, oaks and other trees.               

One of the things that struck us as odd, is how often we see the interstates with very few vehicles.  Daytime, nighttime, doesn’t make any difference.  The roads are less crowded than back home.  This is true of Texas, Mississippi and Alabama, so far.

So far, this is the prettiest park we’ve been in.  And the facilities are really nice.

On Tuesday morning, we left early from New Orleans and then went to Bent RV Services for the scheduled LP check.  What should have taken 1 hour took all day because there were a lot of repairs.  The good news is that they fixed our heater system and replaced the LP alarm and changed out all the hoses and regulator on the propane tanks.  They suggested we buy a Propane Tank Cover so that’s what we did.  They said it would help protect the hoses and parts from the elements a little bit more.  The bad news is we have a leak somewhere in the range, probably a simple thing like a rubber seal or something.  But the leak is so tiny they weren’t able to pinpoint where it was exactly.  And they didn’t have all the parts on hand.  The problem is that without knowing exactly where the leak is, it can end up being more expensive to start changing out a lot of parts than to just change out the range.  When we get somewhere we can hole up a while, we’ll change out what the tech is 50% sure it may be and if that doesn’t do it then we’ll think about changing out the whole range.  The cost for the days’ repairs and tests totaled $695.24.  We also didn’t get out of there until 5:00 pm.

The extra expense of the LP system repair left us almost broke. So, we’ve decided to stay here in Birmingham for a week until the next pension check comes.  We’re here because my sister and her husband are here.  He’s very ill and in the hospital.  They are playing the waiting game—waiting for a liver transplant.  Since we were in the general area we decided to stop and see them.  Unfortunately, we have driven into a storm system with a threat of tornado.  Our camp host says they’ve never had one here but of course there is always a first time.  He said if one comes then we are all to gather in the shower room when we hear the alarm sounding.

We went online looking for an RV park but really couldn’t find one with showers and internet in or near Birmingham except this one.  It had lousy online reviews but we chanced it anyway and came.  We don’t agree with the reviews at all.  It’s very nice here—better than most parks we stay in.  Goes to show you that everyone has their own rating system.  I rate this one a 4.

We had planned to do laundry this morning but it’s too rainy.  It’s supposed to be clear tomorrow so we’ll do it then.  We’ll head out this afternoon to visit my sister if the weather allows us.  We discovered a leak where the antenna is but at least the leak over the shower is so far, secure.  We just need to re-caulk and re-seal the roof and we haven’t had enough sunny days to do it.  We hope to do it in Florida.

January 31, 2012

We spent most of the week here just visiting with my sister and staying in to try to conserve money.  So we did not do any tourist activities or see anything really.  I can say that my impression of Alabama, especially of Pelham where we stayed, and of Birmingham, is that it is very green, pretty and clean.  We saw no poverty or squalor, even though there must be some of that, somewhere.  The roads are not crowded.  There are a lot of churches, most of them historical, with tall steeples and cemeteries attached.  There is a lot of brick buildings as well as Victorian-style.  A traffic jam here means the traffic slows to 25 mph.  The towns have pretty names—Burnbridge, Vestavia Hills, Gardendale, Bessemer, Pleasant Grove, Montevallo, Alabaster, etc. 

Alabama grows a lot of pecans and peaches.

We met a local sheriff’s deputy in Ozark, and he was very nice.  He said yes, ma’m a lot.  We told him we were traveling, that his state is very beautiful, and that he is the first cop we met along the road.  I don’t think he knew how to respond to any of that but he was very nice any way.