Our day at the beach, Fort Pickens CG, FL, Nov 17, 2011

Just walk through the campground, across the road, and down a short boardwalk and you are at the beach.  Nice white sand, the water was actually pretty warm and had to taste it, of course, it was salty, more so than I expected.

We spent most of the day sunning ourselves and reading.

Then an afternoon walk to correspond with sunset, which here was 4:50 pm. (Central time Zone)

Our long long leg shadows very close to sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also found these things, looked like bubbles. This one has a shell attached to it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I was walking on the edge of a very small raised edge, and I fell.  When Bob tried to help me up, I got tickled and all giggly.  Finally Bob was able to help me up.  I fell while holding my camera, I did great, NO sand on my camera!!   I did tweak my left knee some, so have been putting ice on it, only hurts when I bend it tight or squat down.

Here is a photo of our site and the white pickup we had to avoid yesterday while backing in. Yesterday his truck was much closer to the main road.  Like I said, Bob did a great job of backing our coach into the site.

Our sunset tonight. 

In this special moment in life…trust others

Long driving day for us, Fort Pickens, FL, Nov 16, 2011

Today we chose to drive 350 miles in rain. Two things we don’t usually do, drive that far in one day plus driving in the rain. Even after refueling, we were on the road by 8 am. We drove from Fort Payne, AL to Gulf Islands National Seashore, Fort Pickens Campground.

The drive encompassed very thumpy concrete roads, detours, and of course rain, from sprinkles to heavy down pours.

Then at times the sun was out ahead of us, but our wipers still needed to be used.

Soon, we crossed the state border into Florida.

Soon the Pensacola Bay Bridge came into view.

This was the first of two bridges we had to cross.

The second bridge was a toll, $1 per vehicle, it surprised me that we counted as a single vehicle even though we were towing our car. Plus was surprised to see all the high rises, must be lots of condos.

Soon, we were heading west towards Fort Pickens Campground.

We had made reservations a few days ago and were glad we did, as almost all the other non reserveable sites were filled. Even though we had a site, getting into it would be tricky. Right across from us was another site with a large pickup truck parked in it and he was parked just off the road. First try, Bob was too close, as our front end swing was headed directly at his truck, then Bob pulled forward, repositioned the coach, and backed it right in.

Hosiery Museum, Fort Payne, AL, Nov 11, 2011

This afternoon we visited the Hosiery Museum in Fort Payne.  This quote is from Wikipedia “By the beginning of the 21st century, the hosiery industry in Fort Payne employed over 7,000 people in more than 100 mills. It produced more than half of the socks made in the United States.”  

Short sleeves and short hair were required for safety.

This sock knitting machine was the state of the art machine in the ‘50’s, it could make the Argyle sock all by itself. 

 

This looping machine was used to close the toes of each sock.  Each and every sock needed to be placed on this machine by hand, then the toe would be stitched closed.

This is part of a “Steam Board”, used to shape the socks.