When we heard that the Alabama Airstream Club's Spring Rally was being held at the Anchors Aweigh RV Resort in Foley, Alabama, we checked our calendar and noticed that we did not have anything planned for that weekend so we penciled it in. We had attended Alabama Airstream Rally twice before but we had schedule conflicts in recent years. It would be nice to see our friends in this event.
Another factor in attending this rally was that the campground was less than an hour from Mobile and our grandson was scheduled to play a baseball game there on Saturday. We could slip away from the rally and watch him play ball then spend the afternoon with our son and his family.
When we checked the Rally's schedule, Saturday was a free day, allowing us to spend the day in Mobile. That was all the "convincing" we needed, so we made our reservations to attend this rally.
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| Airstream trailers heading to this rally taking a break in a Rest Stop on the Interstate |
There were more than 55 people and 27 Airstream trailers at the rally. That was a larger group than I remembered at previous rallies. The main event at the rally was attending the Foley Hot Air Balloon Festival. We joined the crowd and saw what they called a “glow” one evening. It was impressive to see the inflated and colorful balloons across the field.
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| Selfie at the Balloon Festival |
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| The "Evening Glow" at the Balloon Festival |
The balloon festival spanned across several days. In fact, we were concerned about the traffic around the balloons when we left on Saturday morning to travel an hour to watch our grandson play baseball. The balloons were scheduled to lift off and float away about the same time we needed to leave for Mobile. Our worries were relieved when we left Rosie that morning. Traffic around the Balloon Festival would be minimal because there was a thick fog. The balloons could not fly in fog.
We discovered that the new technologies available in our truck were very helpful while driving in inclement weather. The adaptive cruise control system was able to spot cars ahead of us before we saw them and adjusted our speed to stay behind them.
After about half an hour on the road, the fog lifted and we were able to arrive in time to watch our grandson’s 9 a.m. game. We were amazed at how much he had improved since last year.
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| Grandson playing the "pitcher" position |
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| Grandson at bat |
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| Celebrating winning the game |
We made it back to Rosie in time for the Rally’s Low Country Boil. It was very good.
The rally ended Sunday morning and we watched as most Alabama Airstream Club members hitched up and left. We planned to stay an extra day because our next campground did not allow checkins on Sundays.
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| Rosie in the campground |
We spent our “bonus” Sunday looking for a public beach to walk on. We ended up at Gulf State Park and enjoyed our time at the beach. We were amazed at how good we felt being at Alabama’s Gulf State Park.
We were surprised to see that about 10 Airstream trailers were still in the campground when we returned after spending some time on the beach. I guess we were not the only people who decided to spend an extra day in this park.
The weather deserved a special mention. While it wasn’t too hot, the humidity was oppressively high. Rosie and our truck were covered with condensation. It was hard to breathe. We saw the results of the humidity when we opened the awnings in the mornings. They were very wet and it took a long time to dry out.
One of the lessons quickly learned in the campground was that traffic in Foley and the campground were impossible to deal with. Logically, you would turn right exiting the park and travel about half a mile to Foley's main road. We did that once and ended up waiting a painfully long time to safely cross the highway. Turning left adds a few miles to your trip, but you ended up at a traffic light. That was a much better option, especially when exiting with Rosie.
Another lesson learned at this campground was to frequently inspect the anchor points on Rosie's bike rack. An Alabama Airstream Club member asked if he could look at our bike rack because he was thinking about adding one to his Airstream trailer. He quickly noticed that one of the anchor points had vibrated loose. I was able to add "Locktite" to the screws, reconnect and tighten that anchor point. I also added checking the bike rack to our safety check list that we use before departing any campground.
Here are some specifics about this campground:
- There were multiple loops in the campground
- Our site was a back in
- Most sites could be classified as "full sun" as trees were few and far apart
- Most sites had some space on both sides
- Our site was paved with concrete and we needed to use leveling tools to correct a side-to-side lean in Rosie, our Airstream trailer.
- Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service
- Our site had a water connection
- Our site had a sewer connection
- The trash dumpsters were at the exit to the campground. It was easy to walk there with your trash
- There was a bathhouse in the campground
- The park provided WiFi service
- AT&T provided 2 bars of 5G voice and data service over our campsite
- We were able to watch ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. Digital channels seen were Antenna-TV, Bounce, Comet, Court-TV, Cozi, CW, Dabl, Grit, ION, LAFF, ME-TV, Outlaw, Rewind, Start and TBD
- There were restaurants and shopping nearby
- This was a pet friendly park
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| I doubt that was the "real" tow vehicle! |
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| Visiting our son's family from this campground |
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