June 27, 2009

June 27, 2009

It’s actually June 30, as I write this while sitting in Room 102 of the Fairfield Inn in OK City. We’ve been so busy and we couldn’t find a Starbucks until yesterday and when we found it, we didn’t have time to download photos and catch up on our blogs.

When we left Three Rivers Park on June 26, we drove to Tuscaloosa and arrived at the Lake Lurleen State Park (named for former Governor George Wallace’s wife). It was really a beautiful park—I have the feeling that I’m going to be saying that a lot! We got there around 5 p.m. and called my Aunt Mary Jolley to tell her of our arrival. Last year she moved from the lovely country home she shared with my Uncle Dick to a small apartment on the University of Alabama campus. When Candace and I visited her last year, she was still living in her Moundville home but showed us her apartment. She was having lots of anxiety over the move. Downsizing was going to be a very difficult job for her because she’s very sentimental and can’t bear to part with anything that was a gift or anything that had been my Uncle Dick’s. I was curious to see how she would finally be able to pare down her possessions enough to fit in her much smaller new space. I was very happy to see that her new place is so comfortable and tastefully decorated. It’s sort of a smaller version of her other home.

She served us the best dinner. We had roast pork tenderloin, fresh summer squash casserole, tomatoes with fresh basil, fresh green beans, potatoes with butter and horseradish sauce and for dessert, a pound cake with fresh peaches and ice cream. She’s an amazing cook. All the fresh vegetables she served were grown in her very own garden, tended by her! We had such a nice visit with her. She sent us home with a huge package of cake, pork, squash and a dozen or so peaches. We had a feast the next day. When we got back to Lake Lurleen, it was around 10 p.m. and it was pitch dark, as you can imagine. We pretty much just crawled into bed and went to sleep. I read The 19th Wife for a few pages, but that was all I could handle.

We got up and left as soon as we had breakfast. We’ve really enjoyed the early mornings in the parks. There’s nothing like sitting with a cup of coffee and just looking around. We then hit the road for Hot Springs, AR. --- Jolley