Still at Ditto Landing Marina

Date             October 31-November 1, 2011

Day               125-126

Departure      No travel                                                                      
Arrival           Ditto Landing Marina, Huntsville, AL 
Miles               
Cumulative   2802.4

Decided to stay a couple of days at Ditto Landing Marina and rent a car.  We needed to take Willow to the vet as she has had a bout of diarrhea for the past 4 or 5 days.  Additionally, we wanted to do some sight seeing.  After getting the car on Monday, we found a vet nearby the marina.  They were wonderful!  They took us in right away without an appointment, checked her out then did an x-ray to make sure she hadn't injested something she shouldn't have.  The x-ray came back normal, so they gave her some medication and it should clear up the problem in a few days.  We then returned her back to the boat and headed out to visit the Veterans Memorial Museum.  When we arrived, a gentleman said they weren't open, but go ahead on in as there were some folks inside working.  They had historical military vehicles and field pieces, maps and artifacts from 18th century campaigns to present.  The museum is staffed totally by volunteers and it was amazing to see all the items that have been collected from the different wars.

Railroads cars like this were given to every state

After the museum, we did some grocery shopping at Wal-Mart and then headed back to the boat to relax for the rest of the evening.
Today is Tuesday, November 1st, I can't believe that winter is on it's way.  Back home in Connecticut they had a historical snowstorm over the weekend, 17 inches!  Most of the state is without power and it likely won't be restored for at least a week.  Our family is fine, but one of our friends had a tree come down in their yard and squashed two pickup trucks, a car, their small powerboat and trailer and damaged their truck camper.  Now they have to deal with removing the huge tree that is over 4 feet in diameter and the insurance headaches on all those vehicles.

Vinny's boat and trailer, squished by the fallen tree

Fortunately, our weather is much more agreeable, sunny and in the mid-60's.  Our sight seeing adventure today took us to the Huntsville Space and Rocket Center.  It is the world's largest space museum and has the Nation's largest and finest collection of NASA rockets and army missiles along with an IMAX theater with a 67-foot domed screen.  Some of the displays include the 354-foot Saturn V moon rocket, a 98-ton full size model of the Space Shuttle, the only full scale model of the Hubble Space Telescope, a US Air Force SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, the world's most complete shuttle mockup and many artifacts from the Mercury and Apollo space missions.  Needless to say, Bob thoroughly enjoyed the time spent here!

A-12 Blackbird Spy Plane

354-foot Saturn V moon rocket

Full size model of the Space shuttle

Collection of full-size rockets

Bob walking in a "moon crater"

Burial site of Miss Baker, the first U.S. animal (a monkey) to fly in space and return alive

Returning to the boat, we went past a cotton field.  The cotton had already been harvested, but I was able to retrieve a couple of pieces of cotton!

Look who arrived, Sweet Pea!  We first met Dale and Jim at the 2010 Spring Rendezvous when they were boatless.  Look at them now!