We’re back with old friends.

A year ago, on Christmas morning, we were parked on the South Carolina coast. A lady knocked on our door, and offered us cookies she had baked just that morning at her nearby campsite. Not only were the cookies delicious, we ran across her and her husband a week later when we pulled into a Georgia campground. We became fast friends with Laura and Rich. Remember this picture?

That’s Rich splitting the wood he brought to our campsite in Georgia. Most people would dump it and leave, but not Rich!

They invited us to visit their farm in Michigan, and we did that last May. Knowing we were coming, Rich added a 50 amp receptacle next to a water spigot on their property, so we could have all the comforts of home while there! We had a wonderful time with Laura and Rich!

They travel during the winter months, and we arranged to meet them here in Alabama for a week, and then we’re all going on to Pensacola for almost two weeks over Christmas. We’ll actually be parked in a federal campground off the coast on a tiny spit of land in the Gulf Islands National Seashore….with white sand!

For now, we’re parked beside the Tombigbee River in a lovely, quiet park. Rich and Laura tow a boat, and they’re pictured here checking it out in our side channel before heading out onto the river.

Barges are moved up and down this river at all hours of the day and night. The one pictured here was carrying coal downstream. Its crew told us the coal was on the way to China! They were maneuvering for the lock that exists a few hundred yards downstream from us. That means tugs pushing barges going upstream are still accelerating out of the lock as they come by us…so the engines throb deeper and the water out the back churns higher. I’ll try to get a photo of one operating at night…with its mighty spotlight picking out the river banks ahead.