48 Hours...

Ranburne, AL - Country livin'

We arrived in Ranburne, AL (just a few miles east of Heflin, AL off Interstate 20) around Noon time on Wednesday to visit with old college friends from the late 60's. When we began our endless summer back on January 30th one of our goals was to visit as many friends, family, and college friends as possible as we criss cross back and forth across our great country. We did that in Stuart, and now, again, in Ranburne. Diane and Paul, our hosts (Diane being one of the college friends) found a wonderful place just a couple hundred feet from their home in the more than adequate driveway of their neighbor for us to park for two days. Our plan B was to park next to the local country store about 4 miles distant. The store would have been more than adequate, but being able to walk back and forth from Diane and Paul's comfortable country home has been a blessing these past two days. Around 10:30am Thursday morning another good friend from our college days, and also a childhood friend of Elaine's, arrived (Tom W. and Elaine grew up in the old Miami, Florida, which really no longer exists). Of course, Wednesday afternoon and evening we spent hours talking with Diane about the "old" days.....Paul thank very much for your indulgence.....although I think you had almost as good a time as we did reminiscing about our young adulthood. During these free flowing discussions Diane kept us plied with food, snacks and drinks. Then we restarted all over again Thursday morning when Tom arrived from Huntsville....he had driven a little over 3 hours over to Ranburne to spend time with us, and we were both very grateful for the 5 hours he spent with us before returning home. We had tried to hook up with him in Gulf Shores, AL, and at his country home in Lacey Springs, AL, but our timing with each other was just out of sync.

During our time with Tom, Diane again kept us supplied with food and drink....first some taco chips with a very interesting spicey dip, and then sliders.....this woman can cook! Later Thursday evening Diane treated us to a Mexican themed dinner with Margaritas, Chile Relleno, chicken, re-fried beans, and rice. We talked again that evening until after 11pm. As I have written before, you don't really know anyone until you get below the surface, and did we ever do that the last two days.

Today, Friday morning early, I sit here writing about our time with our friends with a big satisfied smile on my face, and a still full stomach. Parting is always such sweet sorrow, and later today we will again say "Goodbye" to friends and change our view once again. It is always amazing to me how when we reconnect with old friends, and in this case friends going back to our teen years, that we can pick up our conversation as if just a short time had passed. In Diane's case it had been close to 40 years since I had seen her, and even longer with Tom. When we meet up with old friends I wonder if we will run out of things to talk about, and the answer is always a resounding "NO!". Of course we have all raised families, and had several decades of intervening experiences, but the connection is still there, the shared history is still there.

From here we will begin moving our home on wheels north through Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and into Michigan over the next 10 days. My sister, Jill, lives a few miles west of Ann Arbor and we will be spending a week, or so at her country home and catching up with her, and her husband Elliott. Jill, we'll be there before you know it so keep the home fires burning!

Along our planned route is Campbellsville, KY where we will be spending 2 months come this October working at the Amazon Fulfillment center earning some extra diesel money, so we are going to check out the RV park where we have reservations (Amazon pays for that in full), and meeting the guy who graciously hired us two old folks!

Thanks for stopping by!