June 7th

June 7th

I’ve had that song by Kid Rock with “Sweet Home Alabama- all summer long”stuck in my head all day. I really like that song, problem is I know I shouldn’t. The bigger problem is Rachel is the one that got it stuck in my head and if I shouldn’t be listening to it, Rachel definitely shouldn’t be either. But she does or did anyway. We are in Alabama and it is beautiful.

We stayed in Mobile last night, drove around a bit this morning and Rick gave us a little tour of what he could remember from his mission. We then drove to Andalousa, a little town kind of out in the middle of nowhere, where he also served. I liked it, it was really pretty and a bit quaint. We took pictures in front of the church he used to go to and stopped in and talked to one of his old investigators. Rick taught a guy named Ken who was a audiologist. So Rick called the audiologist office and asked for Ken. He was dead they informed us but they did let us talk to wife (or girlfriend or whatever). Joanne was really nice and invited s to come and see her. We went down to the office and chatted with her for about 10 minutes. Apparently Ken died a horrible death about 6 years ago. She wouldn’t say what was so horrible about it, we were curious but didn’t ask.

We then stopped and got some boiled peanuts at a road side stand. The lady I bought them from showed me how to open them and watched me try one. I tried to be polite so I smiled and said, Wow this doesn’t taste like I expected. “Why”, she asked,” Did you really think it was going to be good.” It was the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten but I can’t say it was good either. All the kids tried one and everyone hated them except for Anna who said they weren’t too bad. The boiled peanut lady also pushed me to buy a watermelon – she said Alabama watermelons were like nothing I ever had before, and the fresh peaches were something else too. In Utah the peaches aren’t ripe until early September so I was surprised they could get a crop ready by the first of June here buy they were excellent.

We drove on down to Fort Walton Beach and stopped for dinner at Zaxby’s a little chicken restaurant. It was surprisingly good and cheap. We had parked by this bar and grill but Rick went to check it out he said it looked ok – but maybe a little rough. So the chicken place was next door, not wanting to drive anymore we just went in the chicken place. After dinner we drove on about another 20 minutes to Destin and found an RV park to stay in.

After calling a couple parks that were all booked up we found an available site at the Topsail State park. It is really nice, we arrived about 7:30 and quickly walked down to the water to check it out. It was beautiful and the white sand beaches are amazing. It really does look like snow at first, or kind of like sugar. The water was very warm, which s surprised me a bit. It was getting dark so we told the kids we were just going down to look at the ocean and we would go swimming tomorrow. Rachel ran straight down to the water hiked up her skirt and ran in to about her knees – a wave came in and knocked her down and under. She popped up laughing her head off and spent the rest of the evening covered in water. The rest of us got wet too, but I guess that is what a beach is for – is it not. We came back and showered and started getting ready for bed. I had the kids lay down and wait there turn to brush their teeth, Ryan, Rachel and Anna were asleep before their head hit the pillow and so I just left them there to sleep. They were so exhausted. Tomorrow we hit the beach.