The day we came full circle October 22, 2013

 The day we came full circle

October 22, 2013

Hubby's off days are Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and we both like to take day trips.

We buy lottery tickets every other week using the same numbers; we have never won much money.

Our day started with the drive to St. Joe, Tennessee, to buy lottery tickets and scratch-offs. 

I guess it was my lucky day, for I won $19.00.

We stopped at the US Post Office in St. Joe to drop off a letter to my daughter, Lora, containing her birth Certificate. 

We ate lunch at Long John's Silvers in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. I ordered shrimp, and Travis ordered a large seafood plate; we spent $12.00.

We stopped in at Duncan's for some fresh vegetables. We purchased bananas, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peanuts, and two freshly made fried pies. 

Instead of coming back home on Highway 43, we decided to take the scenic drive through Natchez Trace.

We rode west on Highway 64; I was taking pictures along the way of old barns, silos, and animals.

We turned right onto the Natchez Trace at mile marker 370, headed south. 

Along the way, we stopped at Sweetwater Branch, McGlamery Stand, and the Collinwood rest area to use the restroom.

At the rest area, a man was playing some sort of instrument, and we started talking.

We talked about Unions, Bell South (from which he was retired), the economy, and the government. 

I think this man could have talked all day, but someone came in asking for information, and I said thank you and left. 

We got back on the Trace heading south. Our next stop was the Alabama-Tennessee state line. 

This marker explained that John Coffee, a general under Andrew Jackson, supervised the surveying of the line between the two states from 1817 to 1822.

The marker had the seals of Alabama and Tennessee on either side. 

The seal of Tennessee:  The Great Seal of the State of Tennessee, 1796, Agriculture and Commerce

The Alabama Seal: Alabama Great Seal depicting a map of the great state of Alabama with its four bordering states of Tennessee to the North, Georgia to the East, Mississippi to the West, and Florida to the South. 

Our next stop was in the middle of the Colbert Ferry Bridge, which connects Colbert and Lauderdale Counties, and I got out of the van and started snapping pictures. 

These counties are facing one another, both with a view of the Tennessee River and each with a hint of autumn.

Our next stop was Colbert's Stand, where Levi Colbert, a Chickasaw chief, operated a ferry across the Tennessee River from 1800 to 1819.

We then drove down to the edge of the Tennessee River on the Colbert Side so I could take some more pictures. 

We stopped at the restroom on the trail, and I met a couple eating a picnic lunch or snack. They had parked their bicycles; the bicycles were two steps higher than a regular bicycle. I had to ask how hard they were to ride.

They said Do you want to try? I said No thanks; the last time I rode a bicycle, I was struck by lightning. I went on to tell them about my lightning experience.

The girl said, "You are the only person I know who has been hit by lightning."

I said goodbye, and we left.

 

We got off the Trace at Cherokee and drove through the town, not much to see.

Our next route headed toward Hawk Pride Mountain, where I had spent most of my early childhood.

I wanted to see how much it had changed since we left. Our home place had long been demolished, and another had been built. 

The gravel road that I once traveled was now paved (called Pride Road). 

We turned right onto New Bethel Road and drove past New Bethel Elementary School where I spent six years. 

The school building itself looked pretty much the same. The playground where I once played with swings, jump boards, & baseball fields were all gone.

The pine thicket where I once played was still there, and I thought, do they still let the children play in the woods as I once did? The memories of donkey basketball games and cakewalks lingered in my thoughts. 

As I took out my camera to photograph the school building, I thought to myself. 

How I wished I could capture all those memories of long ago with my camera.

Time to leave those memories behind and head down the other side of the mountain on Frankfort Road, which led to Highway 72.

We traveled through Muscle Shoals, stopping at Mapco for fuel, and spent $31.00.

We crossed the Patton Island Bridge and stopped at Veterans Park to take pictures of the newly restored markers.

The newly restored markers were: AGM-28 Hound Dog Missiles, 16" Projectile, Purple Heart Marker, Anti-Tank Gun, Gooney Bird Propeller, WWII Anchor, the Honest John Rocket, The Hawk Missile, The Phantom, The Cobra Helicopter, and Lieutenant Colonel R. Edward Yeilding.

We then drove past this strange house in East Florence, and I tried to take pictures, but it was overgrown with weeds, bushes, and trees.

We still had enough time to get our hair cut at Cost Cutters, and haircuts on Tuesdays are $12.00  per cut all day.

What a beautiful day it was, and we saw so many sights. We drove to Lawrenceburg, Tn., down the Natchez Trace to Cherokee, through Tuscumbia, Muscle Shoals, Florence, and back to Killen. I said today we have come full circle in our adventures.

What will our next adventure be? Will it take us on a long journey, or will it be another day trip?

Or maybe I will take a trip alone. Who knows!

11/23/13

2003 Summer Gulf Shores State Park

In the summer of 2003, I rode to Gulf Shores, Alabama, with my son and his family. 

My son pulled his pop-up camper with his truck to Gulf Shores State Park

20115 State Hwy 135 Gulf Shore, AL 36542 251-948-7275

We parked the car and camper on Gator Road by the lake. It costs $27.00 per day for 4 people, plus $2 per person over age 6.

Every day we would go down to the state park and public beach to swim, and sometimes we would swim in the state park's public swimming pool.

At night, we all slept in the camper; my son and his wife slept on the left side. My granddaughter and I slept on the right side of the camper, and my grandson slept on the table, which had been made into a bed. 

We had a canopy where we put our bicycles, coolers, and non-refrigerated food. We had a clothesline to hang all the wet clothes and a laundry room to wash and dry them. 

There were bathrooms with showers and toilets. 

Our camper did not have these facilities. 

We would use these facilities after swimming and in the morning to get ready.

We would ride our bikes to the Beach pavilion, a facility on the beach with a unique roof design. 

The pavilion features picnic tables, a bathhouse, and a snack bar. It has two large fireplaces and a boardwalk to get to the beach.

Church activities were held during the week we were there, and the kids took part every day.

We visited the Gulf State Park's Nature Center, where we saw several exhibits and live animals(snakes, turtles, bats, and possums) representing some of the wildlife that can be seen in the park. 
http://www.alapark.com/Gulf-State-Park-Nature-Center

The kids and I rode our bikes; sometimes my son and his wife came along.

Once, while I was riding my bike, I put the brakes on too quick and my back wheel went straight up in the air. Another time, when I was riding my bicycle, I slid off the edge of the sidewalk. We rode many miles along various paths, and we saw many different types of animals. 

We went to the Naval Museum in Pensacola, FL 
http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org.

We went to the Tanger Outlet Shops in Foley, Alabama, which have over 120 stores.
http://www.tangeroutlet.com/foley 

Address: 2601 S. McKenzle Street, Foley, AL 36535 251-943-9303.

We had a week of fun.

2009, Tuesday, June 2, Caught in an electrical storm on the Singing River Bridge

I had a dentist appointment at 9:00 A.M.

After the dentist, we rode to town, so I went to Kohl's, where I bought a pair of shorts and a top.  

Next, we went to Sam's Club where we bought two lawn chairs to use at music in Wilson Park on Wednesdays. 

We stopped at Ruby Tuesday, where each of us ordered a rib plate. We had a buy-one-get-one-free coupon.

We went to Lowe's and bought a thermal for our swimming pool and two screwdrivers.

I loaded my bicycle into our Vue and planned to ride it across the Patton Island Bridge later that day.

Hubby's iPhone issued a weather alert, warning of a storm brewing in Mississippi.

I felt the storm wouldn't reach Florence until after I finished riding my bicycle across the bridge and back.

My Hubby unloaded my bike while I went to the park's restroom to change into the shorts and top I had bought. 

It was very hot and clear when I started across the bridge, but by the time I reached the end, it had started to sprinkle.

I don't know what I was thinking —I didn't have my cell phone with me, or I would have called my Hubby to come pick me up. I had forgotten it.

So I turned my bicycle around and started back across the bridge.

I was almost all the way back when the rain started to pour down, and lightning was dancing all around me.
I remember looking toward the dam's locks and thinking, I sure could use some windshield wipers to clear the rainwater from my sunglasses.

"All I could remember was trying to get safely across the bridge away from the storm, but it was too late. I was caught inside the cage on the bridge during an electrical storm and had lost my short-term memory. 

I was lucky that was the only thing that happened to me, with lightning dancing all around me. 

It took me about 20 minutes to ride my bike four miles, two miles out and two miles back. 
The storm hit at 12:53. I must have started about 12:33 P.M., and I was at the hospital by 2:30 P.M. 

Later that day, it was reported that a terrible storm had hit the Tennessee River.

I was dripping wet when I arrived back at the park. 

The storm had frightened Hubby, so he drove the VUE across the bridge to look for me, and he saw me coming off the bridge.

I didn't remember riding across the bridge or changing out of my wet clothes at the restroom in the park. 

Hubby said I kept repeating myself all the way home. Where did all those wet clothes come from?

When we got home, I ate a snack bar and drank a can of soda, and I remembered nothing.

Hubby thought I had a stroke, and he said that I needed to go to the hospital, but I kept saying nothing was wrong with me.

Hubby called my daughter; he handed me the telephone. My daughter asked me some questions, and all I could say was, "Give me a minute to think."
My daughter asked me if I remembered riding my bicycle on the bridge, and I said, 'What bridge?' I could not remember anything. 

I had been inside an electric field caused by the lightning.
The lightning hit the cage attached to the bridge where I was riding my bicycle.

Somehow, my daughter and Hubby persuaded me to go to the hospital, and Dr. Robert Coble saw me. 

They drew blood, took a brain scan, and checked my urine. The doctor was puzzled by the results. 

He said that the enzymes in my heart were going crazy, and I would have to stay until they stabilized. 

My family stayed while I recovered.
It took several hours, but my short-term memory began to return, and they released me at 7:30 P.M. 

All I wanted to do was go home and go to sleep. 

The next day, I felt a little better, but the right side of my head remained numb.

Information on Lightning:

Lightning injuries are usually the result of five different mechanisms: 

Direct strike — direct strike injuries occur when lightning strikes a person directly

Contact injury occurs when a person touches an object that is part of the lightning current pathway

Side flash (splash): Side flash or splash injuries occur when lightning arcs from the object struck to a nearby object.

Ground current (step voltage), Ground current, or step voltage injuries occur when the lightning current spreads peripherally through the ground from the site of the strike.

Blunt trauma, or blunt injuries, occur in two ways. 

First, the victim's musculature contracts diffusely, throwing the victim a considerable distance from the lightning strike. 

The second mechanism results from large temperature fluctuations associated with a lightning strike. 

Lightning causes instantaneous superheating and expansion of the air, followed immediately by implosion as the air rapidly cools. 

The heat lasts so briefly that thermal injuries seldom occur. However, the explosion and implosion of air can lead to blunt trauma of major organ systems such as the brain, liver, and spleen.

Because the duration of a lightning strike is extremely short, little of the massive energy is transferred internally to the victim. Instead, most of the energy flows externally across the victim's body (a "flashover"). 

However, enough energy passes through the body to disrupt and short-circuit its electrical systems, especially the heart, vasculature, the brain's respiratory center, the reticular activating system, and the autonomic nervous system. 

The primary cause of death in lightning injuries is cardiopulmonary arrest due to asystole. 

However, asystole can be converted to a coordinated cardiac rhythm with timely, aggressive cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Why were the enzymes in my heart elevated after being caught in ground current lightning?

Weather observations for June 2, 2009, Muscle Shoals, North West Alabama Regional Airport 

SCT055 means scattered clouds at 5,500 AGL; scattered means 3 to 4 eighths cloud coverage.

BKN090 means broken clouds at 9000' covering 5 to 7 octas of the sky.