Today, some new friends we have met at the marina, Ken and Brenda, (they did the loop a few years ago and had their own blog. Their blog, if you are interested, is at http://www.tellicolady.com), Ray and Delila and Ben and Sharon all went to visit Fort Morgan.  I put some information on that under the Points of Interest page if you want to look at that.  It was good to get out of the boat and do some exploring not to mention to eat a lunch I didn’t have to prepare :).

We decided to go get our van from Aqua for the 5th and 6th.  We got a 2 day rental from Hertz for $68.51 which we didn’t think was bad, $30 a day.  We decided to make it a two day adventure.  It was kind of cloudy both days but not much rain so it was good traveling weather.  Gary and I always enjoy a good road trip, lots to look at and comment on.  It took us about 7 hours to get to Aqua.  We picked up the van and then drove for two hours before we stopped at a Days Inn in West Point, MS, for the night, $63.22.  Again, not a bad price and we got a free breakfast that included cold decaf coffee for myself…..yum!  We decided to stop at a gas station so we could fill the cars and I could get my coffee. I went in to get my coffee after we filled up.  Hmmmmm.  Two orange coffee pots.  I have never seen JUST decaf….anywhere.  So I ask if there is decaf in the pots.  No, the girl says, no one ever wants decaf!  So I settle for diet root beer and a water.  What’s a girl to do?  We have a pretty uneventful ride home except for a few things.  I looked in my rear view mirror and watched as this white car weaved back and forth between both lanes.  The car was quite a ways behind me so I wasn’t too concerned about them hitting me.  Then all of a sudden the car started speeding up and getting closer.  When it passed me a hugged the shoulder and keep an eagle eye on the car to make sure it didn’t swing into my lane.  I was going to warn Gary who was in the lead but thought I better wait until the car passed him so he wasn’t distracted.  The car passed him and you could hear the noise from his tires as they hit the bumps they put on the shoulder of the road.  He made it past Gary so I called Gary and told him to watch out for that guy.  He drove in front of us, weaving and a dodging for quite a while, then a truck that was in front of him signaled that he was turning right, the white car signaled he was turning right too.  Whew!  Glad that car will be off the road.  Gary and I pass both cars and continue down the highway.  I glance in my rear view mirror again.  What the heck?  The white car didn’t turn right!  Crazy!  He started back down the highway again.  After a few more miles of weaving and dodging, he finally got off the highway.  Good luck getting home buddy.

We got back to Orange Beach safe and sound.  The next day was going to be house cleaning day.  Oh Boy!  Gary and I have come up with a list (a list?  Really?  You two anal people have a list?  What a novel idea :)) that show different things that should be done on the boat monthly, quarterly etc, etc.  We were going to do our quarterly items even though 5 months had passed.  So we did things like change our water filter on our hose

New water filter

We checked and cleaned the shower sump pump

Inspecting sump pump

Cleaning sump pump

I helped too!  I held up the carpet and padding so Gary could get to the sump.  Man, that is a nasty job.  Think of your shower drain.  All the soapy hair and gunk, ish!  Of course Mr. Smokie just had to supervise us

Get to work you lazy human

He always has to watch intently no matter what we do.  Now I see where the saying “curiosity killed the cat” came from.  He does some pretty stupid stuff just to see what we are doing to to see what is going on.  He is lucky he has us humans to keep him safe.

We got all of our chores done and I updated our list to show that when we did our checks and maintenance.  Good, all done for another 3 months.

Now that we have our car here we have just been checking things out.  I found out the McDonald’s also don’t have decaf coffee drinks.  Man, I miss Caribou 🙂 If we do anything more exciting, I’ll post it here.  Otherwise, enjoy the winter where ever you are and thanks for the continued interest in our adventure.