Rocket City

We are at the Monte Sano State Park, east of Huntsville, Alabama (map). We've been here before, and remembered it as being very pleasant. This was the first decent place along our route east from Joe Wheeler State Park with power, and we called right before we left there to see if they might have a spot. To my surprise, they told me they had plenty, and, in fact, the park is nearly deserted. I guess folks from Huntsville all went to Wheeler Lake for the holiday instead.

We were relieved to find that Site 2 was available, the same spot in which we stayed on our last visit after scoping out the entire park for satellite access. This might well be the only spot in the park where we can get online. That's good, because neither of us even has cell coverage here. It's a tricky back-in, but once we got positioned we got on-line right away, and even the DirecTV is working. This time, we are prepared to repel boarders.

It was incredibly quiet here last night -- we could barely make out the sounds of fireworks in the distance over Huntsville -- they are banned outright here in the park. All we could hear was our own air conditioner. The rate here was just $21.09 with tax, for 30 amps of power and a water spigot. That's enough for us to run two air conditioners full time, plus everything else we need, so we have been quite comfortable.

This morning I walked down to the office and paid up for a second night. The heat has us trapped inside, so we're not really enjoying much of the park, but at least it's a good deal cooler here up on the mountain than it is down in Huntsville itself.

Tomorrow we will get rolling again, with our sights set on the Choo Choo garage in Chattanooga. It's more or less directly on our way to the Research Triangle, NC area, and I'd like them to look at the air compressor they installed last year, as it already appears to be leaking oil, and maybe check on the overall health of the engine after the other work they did back then. It will also be nice to visit the folks there, and besides, we know a good massage place nearby.

We are due in the Research Triangle area on the 11th to visit with our niece. She's doing the whirlwind tour of potential colleges, and she'll be visiting Duke and UNC Chapel Hill over the following two days; we'll find a time to have dinner with them while they are there. I remember visiting Chapel Hill myself three decades ago under similar circumstances -- I had a fellowship offer from UNC to do my doctorate there -- and I have fond memories of the place.

After our visit we will be continuing east to the coast, where we will look at some more boats. All of which presumes that we don't get called to a disaster between now and then. We're on the alert list this month, and leadership is already stretched pretty thin between the Colorado fires, TS Debby in Florida, the midwest floods, and the heat wave and power outage in the mid-Atlantic states.