Oh Yes, Al and Judy.

  Car of the Day…

 

So for today:

We have met some very good folks as we traveled around. Some became life long friends.

Many states ‘hire’ or ‘barter’ for Hosts to State Parks. We considered it a couple times but never did it. We knew people from home in NC that Hosted in Yellowstone.

We met R.E. and Mary AND Al & Judy who Hosted a campground on Lake Manatee in Florida. For a camping space they agreed to work 20 hours a week cleaning the bathrooms and camp sites after campers left.

The two couples became good friends as we spend most of the winter at Lake Manatee back then.  R.E. and Mary were from Tennessee.  Al and Judy were from Maine. WE visited both couples several times in our summer travels at their homes.

It seemed as though we had known them all our lives. Every Saturday Al & Judy went to Mass.

Besides not driving on interstates and eating anything that had been ‘nuked’ Al was a UNIQUE person to say the least. One Winter he had a finger hurting really bad, the Dr. said it could not be saved he would have to amputate. Al refused, “If God wants that finger, He will take it!”  Another year he had the same thing happen to a toe. He said the same thing.

Believe it or not, both rotted off. HONEST. Yeah I know, it must have smelled pretty bad in the RV, but I never smelt it out side.  He kept both in a ziplock bag. The two stumps were perfect closures, a Dr. could have done no better.

Al was definitely an interesting guy. They bought a small back country mountain, or Big Hill. Eastern Maine.  He checked on permits, he was told as long as he didn’t run electricity, he build what he wanted. Well true to Al’s make up. He built a beautiful log house. We visited it.

He had 12v power in the house. He backed his truck up to the house and plugged it into his trailer plug-in to power his home like an RV. They had 12v lights and a 12v TV also.

He dug a well and once a week he started a little generator to run the well pump. He had a 200 gallon tank in the attic and he filled it every week. The sink and toilet was gravity fed.  While pumping the water Judy would use the 120v to vacuum, clean house, and wash clothes.

I am sure a book could be written about Al; I will tell you at least one or two more things tomorrow!

Nite Shipslog

PS:  Thanks for your time and thanks for the comments & prayers