This morning we had a schedule: Coco had to be at the groomers at 9am. We put the groomer’s location into the GPS, and one GPS couldn’t find the address and the other wanted to take us to the wrong part of town. As we’re driving there we called the groomer and got pretty good directions on how to get there. We found it a couple of minutes later.
We said our good-byes to Coco, then took Molly back to the trailer and headed off to Bellingrath Gardens, a gorgeous estate created at the turn of the last century by a gentleman who made his fortune bottling Coca-Cola on the Gulf Coast. By the looks of this place he did very, very well.
Marianne and I had visited Bellingrath in August 1975 right after I got out the Navy and we took our Ford Courier pick-up, with a fairly large cab-over slide-in camper on top, once around the U.S. I can’t believe we took that thing on pretty much the same route we’d been on this route without air-conditioning – in August! Ah…to be young and foolish again.
Although it had been recommended to us to tour the elegant home, we elected only to tour the gardens. Marianne and I then played dueling cameras as we each sought to shoot the most dramatic photos we could. Oh yeah, it was still hot…and it was all outdoors.
The grounds were still as beautiful as they were 35 years ago, with many nooks and crannies of different views and foliage. After we had been there about 90 minutes we received a call from the groomer that Coco was ready to be picked up.
As we headed back to our truck to drive the 20 miles back to Mobile, we once again put the location into the GPS’s, and once again those electronic marvels lied to us. As a result we ended up taking a very round about way to get there.
Arriving, we entered the shop, and there behind the cashier’s counter in a wire cage was a skinned Coco. She didn’t look at all like we had left her. She looked totally different. We knew that there was a gray coat underneath Coco’s brown fur, and now, trimmed, she was totally gray. In fact she looked very much like our miniature Schnauzer, Mitzi, who passed away three months ago. Nevertheless, Coco was still extremely happy to see us. She probably thought we left her there; she had never been separated from Molly since the day we brought her home.
We headed back to the trailer to unite the dogs, which proved to be very interesting. Coco was glad to see Molly, and although Molly was glad to see Coco, it was apparent Molly didn’t totally recognize her partner in crime, neither by sight nor by smell. Molly had to examine and re-examine Coco time and time again.
As they were getting reacquainted, I prepared the trailer to the journey to Montgomery, about 150 miles north of Mobile. We passed through a couple of little rain squalls and also came upon a pretty nasty car accident which had apparently happened about 10 minutes earlier. Other than that is was uneventful.
We arrived in Montgomery and pulled into The Woods RV Park, a relatively new park surrounded by trees, henceforth the name, but there were no trees inside the park. It did have a lake on the border of the property which I could fish for free if I were so inclined. And we could hear the cattle lowing from just across the lake.
After we got the trailer set-up, we drove a few miles to Marianne’s mom’s home with the dogs. Then it dawned on us: our dogs had never been in anyone else’s home but our own. But they loved exploring this large home, and loved playing in the backyard around the pool. They chased after one another like they never had before, playing their version of the rabbit and the fox.
Marianne’s mom prepared dinner; we watched a little TV and then headed back to the campground, where the choruses of the frogs croaking were almost deafening. Fortunately our air-conditioning was blasting away, so we were not only cool, but its white noise lulled us to sleep. Frogs? What frogs?
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