Except for the wonderful folks, John and Lorrie, that owned the store and took us by truck to the new campground (see previous blog), Vancleave really wasn't our best stop. By way of saying goodbye, we missed the first real turn of the day. Given that it was only 0.1 miles off the main road, in retrospect it seems rather (fill in the blank) ------------ that we missed that turn. At least that seemed to be the reaction of the deputy sheriff that I flagged down about 3.5 miles down the road, evidentially on the road to nowhere even for this rural area. The nice deputy said, " you want WHAT road? And you came out of Vancleave? And you didn't notice that turn 0.1 miles off the main road?" Now what was unspoken but delivered none the less, how do people like you survive and why did you have to come to my part of the world. Yet, he was very nice.
Getting our mid course correction early in the day, we set off for Alabama. LA, (lower Alabama) and we find the state line without much fanfare. A simple sign and there we are, in Alabama.
The real jewel of the day comes at the end. We cross over a long causeway along with a long bridge and we are on Dauphin Island. The waters are brownish from all of the flooding that is taking place locally. After all those miles where I talked about the lack of water we now have water, water everywhere.
The campground on the island was nice until about midnight. That is when the entertainment started. I will try to convey in a "G" rating the content of an "R", strong R, rated argument. Not knowing the exact relationships, let's assume there was a mother in law, a wife and the husband/son in law. Alcohol for sure played a strong role in the drama and it evidentially was on the scene early and in volume.
I awoke from a frenzied dream, I thought my mother in law had come back and was resurrecting her old conversation with me. "You're not a man, you're just a ----this is the R rated part! Now, the lady was efficient and limited.with her words. She basically stuck to the same word, used as a verb, adverb and adjective. She compared the man, using this word in various ways and combinations, with a word that is sometimes used to talk about cats. All was spiced with Cajun accents, got louder and louder, with words broken down into syllables, hooked on phonics kind of thing, with great emphasis on the constants. SSSSSSSS's etc.
I realized my nightmare of past conversations was just a dream. (Actually my mother in law was a great lady, passed from us much too soon, we loved her and we miss her.). This drama was real. I expected gunshots any time. It was vicious. They finally decided to go to bed. About 1:00. A Walton " goodnight John Boy", it wasn't. Not that there weren't suggestions of what kind of night each wished to the other. I think the police or security came, not sure. Not a restful night.
Also, FYI. Don't buy a spray on sun tan lotion and put it in a tight suitcase where something might press against the nozzle causing it to empty out inside. Trust me.
Pictures of the Mississippi
No comments:
Post a Comment