Roll Tide

We are at the Red Cross hot site facility in Montgomery, Alabama. No map today, as is usual for us at Red Cross facilities not open to the public. We've more or less wrapped up here, and are now just waiting for FedEx to come pick up our cases.

We actually arrived here Sunday evening, after finding "No Overnight RV Parking" signs at the Ozark Walmart, our planned stop. Too bad, because we had our mouths all set for a nice dinner at El Palacio across the street. The signs looked to be fairly new -- they were not there when last we stayed there -- and the explicit inclusion of "RV" on the sign is rare and usually means the store has either had problems with RVers, or problems with the local authorities. I was later informed that the store permits overnight RV parking upon request, but who in their right mind would go inside to ask after seeing such a sign?

Fortunately, we had plenty of daylight left and we just continued here to our final destination. That got us an extra night of 20-amp power, and we rode the scooters over to Carrabbas for dinner, as it was near the chapter, where we needed to pick up the keys.

It turned out to be fortuitous that we arrived a day early, as FedEx called first thing Monday to check our address, saying they would be delivering the empty cases that day. I think the DC office thought that FedEx would be on holiday schedule for MLK day, but of course they were not. So Monday morning we opened up the building and got ready for the delivery, along with scoping out the work for the rest of our visit.

Tuesday morning we got started and mid-afternoon our colleague Vicky from the Disaster Operations Center arrived to help. We had almost everything cleaned up and packed by the end of the day, leaving only a few pieces of equipment to disassemble and all the FedEx paperwork to be completed Wednesday morning. Vicky took us out for a nice lunch, and by mid-afternoon we were finished.

We had to remain here today, of course, for the FedEx pickup, and as long as we had to be here for the day, we made a dinner reservation for tonight at the Capital City Club downtown. That will keep us here through tomorrow morning, when we will return the keys to the chapter before heading west out of town. Our route from here will take us west to Jackson, Mississippi, where we will pick up the Natchez Trace to take us southwest to warmer travel conditions.