What the hail??????

We got here late Thursday afternoon and were told we had a 2-3 day wait for the windshield. No problem there. Friday morning at 9 a.m. we were lounging around trying to decide what to do with our "free" day. A knock on the door changed all that. "Can you be in bay 46 asap? We'll get that windshield replaced." Wow! Boy did we have to scramble to get the coach ready to go, but we did! It was done by 1 p.m. We hung around and shopped in the camp store and visited our favorite salvage grocery in Golden till we picked up the coach.

So now the dilemma. . . where to go, what to do. We have to camp somewhere and by the time we were all checked out, it was 2 p.m. We called Florence to a city camp we like but they were filled up with spring breakers and bass tournament participants. A camp in Nashville where we could go is not yet open and if we get too far north, it's going to start getting colder. Hmmmmm. So we decided to sit here in Red Bay over the weekend. We may head to Florence today, not sure.

Saturday morning we started to Tupelo. We took a long circuitous route. We drove south down to Smithville. (Scroll down to the June 18 entry.)This little town was literally wiped off the map last year with tornadoes and we wanted to see what progress had been made. Most of the debris was gone or not visible and a few new buildings are up, but there is plenty of empty space where buildings once stood. There was activity and people are rebuilding their town. The school still does not look usable, but we did see an area with school busses and temporary classrooms, so that is how they are coping. We need to remember the people of Smithville and pray for recovery.

We got to Tupelo and went to Sam's Club. Sam's Club has once again arbitrarily messed with our business membership and removed people I have paid for. I paid for a year's membership and sometime during the year, the take them off my list. No one knows why this happens and no one is doing it. ????? Somehow it's happening, however. Why? I got nowhere talking with people on the phone until I mentioned fraud. I believe that when they bill me, I pay, then they remove people I have paid for an entire year of membership, there is some fraud. When these people go to buy at Sam's, they are told they must pay for the year when I have already done so. At any rate, if I pay for a year, they should be good to go till that membership expires. So, I did have to go to a Sam's club to get it straightened out. . . till next time anyway. They did give me that one person free for the year to avoid the fraud charges. Thanks, Sam's Club, but let's just get it right this time, eh?

We ran a couple other errands and then drove back to Wheeler where we visited with Terry's cousin Shirley and her husband Paul. They are doing well and she was working on getting the swimming pool ready for grandsons Preston and Johnathan. We stayed for several hours and decided to head back to Red Bay. We took a different route home again, always anxious to see the landscape around Terry's "roots" and we passed by Agnew's, a restaurant in Pratt. One of Terry's half-cousins does the steak grilling here and last year at the reunion, he told us to come by and he would cook me a steak! So we stopped. While we were waiting on our food, in walks his cousin, Kerneth, so she sat down and talked a bit. She was meeting other family for a birthday party and we enjoyed a brief chat. She had Tommy, the griller (her brother), come out to see us. It was great to see even more family than we had planned.

On the way back to Red Bay, we took the Natchez Trace. Upon exiting close to Dennis, it started to rain. The rain drops were so large you could see them coming down. The sunlight glistened on them and we have never before seen anything like it. However, I got to thinking about super large raindrops and what phenomenon would be responsible. Shortly after, the hail started. I mean hail. It was large and loud. We were driving and finally stopped, not under a tree, but used it to block the hail a bit. I was worried our windshield would break as we have several spot-fixes on it. It was hailing so much, you couldn't see well down the road, so we just waited. . . and waited. . . and waited. The hail was mothball size. It lasted a long time. Eventually it started to subside and we drove on. Unfortunately, it was a slow moving storm and headed east, same as us, so we drove back into it. We stopped again a few miles up the road at the Dennis post office and went to the back of the lot to have some shelter from a tree line. We stayed there again till it subsided and drove on. The storm continued and when we got to Golden, Mississippi, we found a car wash and ducked in there for shelter from the hail. From there it was a short run to Red Bay and we were able to get there, but it was raining quite hard.

We got into the coach and turned things on and about an hour later, tornado sirens sounded and a loud speaker announced a tornado had been sighted and we should go to a shelter. We got in the car and drove over to the Tiffin Service Center and went to a designated tornado shelter area where other Tiffin owners were already congregating. We were there for about an hour and came back when the all clear was given. There was still storm activity in the area, but the most severe threats were gone. We will have to check to see if we had any damage from the hail, but we haven't found any so far.

We are at the park in downtown Red Bay and drove over to the shelter with our neighbors here. She has been knitting up a storm and I asked her if she crocheted. She said she knew how, but preferred knitting. She is going to help me this afternoon learn a basic crochet stitch so I can make some preemie caps for my new grandbaby. Whoo hoo!

So we are here and still all in one piece. Not sure when/if we will move to Florence today, because I want to get my crochet lesson!

Till next time. . .

Dale