Day 14 – Huntsville, AL

Laundry Day! And Family Day! And Game Day! A fortuitous confluence of events.

We’re two weeks into our adventures at this point, and we’ve definitely been getting up to some HiJinx. And well – the harsh realities of laundry are starting to set in. All our hot-weather clothing has been worn at least twice each. Luckily my sister (and her family) live at the almost midpoint of the trip and we were planning a day spent with her and her family. She graciously agreed to allow use of her laundry facilities.

I know, this sounds mundane. Laundry? Really? Yes, something that seems so routine in life but when planning trips of longer than two weeks, think about how you’re going to handle those necessities we take for granted. It’s challenging to handle laundry on the fly unless you want to do bathtub laundry (which we’ve done at least once already!). Those of you who have experienced spending a day at a laundromat with a pocket full of quarters would understand. 

Even more fortuitously, it was also a Florida State game day. Those of you who know Steve knows that this is almost a religious dedication for him and my sister had already set up the television for his viewing pleasure. Unfortunately FSU was playing Louisville and it didn’t turn out as well as expected.  Actually, if you’ve been following FSU, it turned out pretty much as expected; just not so good for FSU.

However, laundry was accomplished with flying colors (not running colors thankfully)! The Jeep got to charge for a few hours, and Steve got to spend time with The Nephews – three adorable boys, all under the age of 7 whom he had not met before in-person. (One side effect of marriage is instant-family; just add spouse).

It was good to visit with everyone, and Steve was a big hit with the kiddos. As he puts it, he was the new toy they all wanted to play with. One nice thing about being Auntie and Uncle is that we get to leave at the end of the day, and Steve got lots of backrubs after being the jungle gym and trampoline.

The day culminated with a visit to the Huntsville Botanical gardens special evening exhibit “Night Blooms: a botanical dreamscape where flowers glow from within, birds and insects flit across the night sky, and light transforms the landscape into a new word, waiting to be explored!” The entire park was laid out as a walk-through of beautiful light pageantry.

It was the last night of the event and the crowd was more than perhaps even the organizers were anticipating. We had to park in the very last row of the overflow parking, and there was a significant line of cars waiting to get in behind us.  But it was well worth the effort.  The mile-long walk through the gardens was full of delightful light displays best seen rather than described. I’m not sure who got up to more HiJinx – the two of us, or The Nephews!

Note: no photos of The Nephews (adorable as they are) are posted here for privacy reasons.

As mentioned previously, Steve recently purchased the Samsung Ultra 21, specifically for the camera, which continues to perform beyond expectations. Once again the Night Mode and Pro Mode were key to most of the photos below. 

Next we travel into Atlanta where we begin our week-long sojourn in the area so that the Jeep can be serviced, Steve can take care of some meetings, and I can catch up on work at the Sonnen, Inc. factory.  Then back on the road!  Or…. maybe not the road.