Cullman to Opelika and The Return To A RV Park

Opelika, AL
72 deg. clear, no wind.
Forecast today = high temp. 91 deg. Sunny this morning becoming cloudy this afternoon with scattered t-storms. W. winds @ 5 to 10 mph.

We left Cullman about 9:45 and continued S. on I-65. Just North of Birmingham, we pulled into a Flying J Truck Stop where Jim gave me another drink of #2 diesel fuel. It sure is good to see the price dropping on gasoline and diesel. At this station, the diesel was $4.31 per gallon, which is much better than the almost $5 per gallon up in IL earlier this year.

After my drink, we continued S. on 65 until we came to I-459, (which is S of Birmingham), and took it NE for about 4 miles and then turned SE on US 280. By doing this, we were able to miss most of the city traffic and all of the stop lights that are on 280 as it goes through the city. Even though we missed most of the city traffic, there was a lot of traffic and congestion when we first turned off in 280. Once we cleared that, it was clear sailing with good roads all the way down here to Opelika, and the Lakeside RV Park, which is actually about 4 miles South of Opelika on 280. It was 1:30 pm when we got here, so we were on the road for about 3 hrs and 45 minutes, (including the fuel stop), and covered 179 miles.

After we got here, I found out that Jim and Linda had been here before. It was way back in 2001, and they had just begun to full-time. In fact, they were taking some of their "stuff" down to Laura's in a U-Haul trailer, which they were towing behind their MH. Well, at that time, this park was brand new, in fact the owner had a bulldozer and was in the process of leveling the areas for the sites. There were only about 10 sites available at that time. While they were here, the owner offered Jim a job, working here at the CG and helping him build more sites.

At that time, the place was not well maintained, and there was stuff setting everywhere, but that was to be expected when building a park. Well, I'm sorry to say that this park is still not well maintained and it looks like some of that same stuff is still setting around. It's too bad, the owners seem to be really nice and this could be a really nice park, but I doubt if it ever will be more than just an OK place to spend the night.

After we were here for awhile, a pretty strong t-storm came through the area. After it had passed, Jim and Linda decided that they needed a few groceries, and they also decided to grab a sandwich as long as they were out and about. They ended up at a Burger King for the sandwich and just stopped at a convenience store for the groceries. When they got back, they watched some TV, and then went to bed, after the news.

Did you know that today is National Cool-Aid Day?