Ready For Mardi Gras

The campground is all decorated for Mardi Gras.  We thought they were done when they decorated the entrance, but now many of the signs have beads and/or other decorations. 

 



There is even a Mardi Gras flag.  It is windy here today, so hard to get a good photo.

This guy is a little scary looking at night.

The office is ready.

Beads are everywhere!

We take our longest walk in the morning.  We walk through the campground and then residential neighborhood.  It is not all street walking though.  We have fields that we walk through.

We don't walk through this. We just look at it.

The dog park is way down there.

We even have path in the pine trees that we walk through.

This morning, Scout and I did some running.

Scout letting me run before she joins in.

I am not limping.  This is an action shot.  BOL!

Scout usually tires before I do, but she is an older woman.

Today, we came home and Mom cleaned.  Blah!  She then organized Dad's junk drawers.  She also purged some of her knitting items and a few kitchen items. There is a table in the club house where you can put unwanted things and they find a new home.  It's a nice way to get rid of items.


Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is A Little Confused About This Mardi Gras Thing

Can't Catch This

My technique is not what it used to be, but I am having fuuuuun!

Come on, Scout!

It's fun, come on!

Let's run!

I bet you can't catch me.

Here I come again!

It's on!

Yikes!  The old girl still has it!

Weeeee!

We need a better camera, Mom!  We tried cropping the photos and they just became more blurry.

That was fun, Sis!

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Enjoys Running With His Sister

And The Greyhound Says....

"Weeee....can't catch me!"

Mom has been wanting to visit the train museum in Foley, AL since she got here.  It is not like she is a train person, but she thought the miniature train display would be interesting. She finally visited on Saturday. 

The first train depot was built in 1905, but it burned to the ground.  In 1908, a new depot was built.  In 1971, train service to Foley ended and the depot was moved to Magnolia Springs which is a nearby town.  In 1995, the depot was moved back to its' original spot and now it serves as a museum showing the history of Foley as well as a miniature train display.

This new clock tower was just installed in Foley to celebrate its' 100th anniversary.

This small train takes children and adults around the museum grounds.

Fountain on the museum grounds.

 The miniature train display is free to see.  Volunteers have spent their time creating it.  It has moving trains as well as moving cars. There is a fire going on at the fireworks factory.  There is really too much to take in, but there is a volunteer who describes the action to visitors.

The Clydesdale are behind the Sunoco building.  They are hard to see in the photo though.

A circus is in town and if you look to the back, you will see the drive-in movie screen.

Outside there is a real train that visitors can explore.

Mom enjoyed seeing the trains and learning more about Foley. She then decided to head back to Fish River Grill for another Swamp Burger. She brought it home to eat in front of us.  She gave us fries, but she ate every bit of that burger.  How rude is that?  She even said that it was better than the one she had the week before.

The Swamp Burger

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Still Hard To Catch When Running

We Need A Calendar!

Mom used to buy the wall and desk calendars from Celebrating Greyhounds.  She found that she didn't have a place to put them in the RV, so we haven't had one for the last two years.  She uses the calendar on her phone.  That was working fine until today.  I am not sure how she messed up, but she thought Fat Tuesday was on February 10th.  It is not.  It is the 17th.  So what is the big deal?  Well, it looks like we will not be here for the Mardi Gras festivities.  I was looking forward to showing off my beads.  BOL!  It is possible that some of the festivities will be held the weekend before.  We will have to wait and see when the February activities calendar comes out.

One of the activities that Mom wanted to attend was the auction that is held here.  They auction off the chairs that volunteers have caned.  I guess that is what you call it.  Our friend, Joanne, learned how to cane a chair.  She left on Sunday and Mom told her she would attend the auction to see how much money her chair earned. Sorry, Miss Joanne, unless the auction is held early, we probably will not be here. 

Here is Miss Joanne caning her chair.  There are seven steps involved. She said the first four steps go fast.

As we mentioned before, there are a lot of activities here.  There is caning, beading, knitting, quilting, music, game nights, social hours, breakfasts on the weekends, dinners on Tuesdays and Thursdays, ice cream socials on Sundays, trivia and BINGO.  We probably missed some activities.  A few weeks ago, The Sweethearts of Branson appeared here.  Mom really enjoyed their music.  They played some of the old country music from Tanya Tucker, Dolly Parton, Oak Ridge Boys, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and others. 

We really miss seeing Miss Joanne. She came by often and talked.  We took many walks with her and Mom.  She, Mom and another lady went to lunch at Fish River Grill last Saturday.  Mom and Dad had eaten there while he was here.  He said the seafood was better here than in Baltimore.

Gator Bites basket.  That is alligator for those of you from the North.  BOL!  It came with fries and hush puppies and slaw. We had some and it was delicious.  Mom had this when she ate there with Dad.

Swamp Soup - every meal comes with this.  It is greens and beans. Mom says it is really good.

The décor at the restaurant.

The seafood platter that Miss Joanne had.  It had shrimp, oysters, gator, stuffed crab, catfish (I think) hush puppies and slaw. She said it was good and no, she did not eat it all. She took most of it home.

The Swamp Burger is what Mom had.  It is a half pound with cheese, grilled onions, bacon, pickles, lettuce and tomatoes.  Did Mom eat it all?   Yes, she is embarrassed to say she did.  She felt bad that she didn't save us any of the burger, so she brought us two fries.  We got ripped off.  :-(  She said the burger was really good.

Mom has found several restaurants that she really likes here.  I guess they know how to cook in the south.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Found Out That Gator Gives Him Gas - BOL!

Did I Dream It?

Did I dream that Dad came home for a visit?  Part of me thinks I did. Our dryer is fixed and a new electric outlet has been installed, so I know he must have been here.  He was here for six nights, but after he left, I thought "Did I dream he was here?"  Mom was happy that Scout and I were not upset that he was gone again.  He will be home in a few weeks and then we will all be together until next winter.

Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit too!  We were thrilled to see them.

So, what have we been up to?

Yep, I have been running and digging.  Mom lets me run about every other day now.

We have had some computer issues.  We have 5 gigabytes of data that we can use each month, plus we have  2.5 gigabytes on Mom's phone.  She uses her phone as a hotspot.  Well, we noticed something odd going on with Mom's phone.  She ran out of data quickly.  The app that she uses to track it was updated and it no longer tracked the data.  She was quite peeved about that. She didn't realize she was out of data until she was.  Then, we noticed our data on the computer was gone after 15 days. She called Verizon and they said everything looked okay to them. They assured Mom that no one had hacked into her Wi-Fi.  They gave her 3 more gigabytes to get through the month.  However, Mom used 2 gigabytes within two days and was barely on the computer.  She was not downloading videos or movies.  She was just trying to figure out what was wrong with the computer.  She ran virus scans and took the computer to McDonalds to use their free Wi-Fi to download all the Window updates.  Nothing helped.  Finally, Mom decided to take the computer back to where it was when it was new. She basically removed everything from it.  THAT WORKED!!!!  We are not sure what was really wrong, but she thinks something was trying to update every time she turned it on.  She remembers trying to do a Windows update a few times that didn't work.  Maybe that was it?  Since she had used her phone as a hotspot, that explains all the data being used since it was being used with the computer.

Mardi Gras is big here and our campground is preparing for the festivities.

Mom bought us some beads to wear or throw. We will decide when the time comes. BOL!

The weather has been nice here.  Mom went to the beach for lunch the other day.

She said she sat with all the other snowbirds.  Mom says we are snowbirds now.  Have you ever heard of a greyhound snowbird?  Me either.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Is Having Fun In Alabama