Off To A Good Start

We have one resolution for the coming year--no resolutions.  So far, so good.  We have made resolutions every year.  Some years we do better than other years at keeping those resolutions, but we never seem to be totally successful.  Besides the feeling of inadequacy at not being able to meet our goals, we spend a great deal of time during the year worry about, fretting over, and beating ourselves up over a list of resolutions.  We say, “enough is enough”; we’re not going there any more.  Instead, we’ll spend all that time we would have spent on worry, fretting, and beating enjoying life and being grateful for the opportunity to live our dream.

We brought in the new year with a hundred or so fellow RVers at the Plantation clubhouse.  The evenings festivities got under way at 6:30 with dinner.  Chef Larry worked his magic in the kitchen and we had a wonderful meal of either roasted half chicken or stuffed pork tenderloin served with a roll, garden salad, green beans, potatoes, cranberry relish, and dessert.  Gene and I both selected the chicken and it, along with everything else, was great.  We also volunteered to help serve the meal to the guests.  Gene took chicken/pork duty and I scooped potatoes and cranberry relish.

Following the meal, a local band played for our listening enjoyment and dancing.  We rang in the new year at 9:30.  Hey, it was past midnight in a good portion of the world anyway.  In fact, I wouldn’t mind celebrating with Australia and get that out of the way early so I could go to bed at my regularly appointed hour.  Seriously, we had a good time and even though the band left (along with more than half the crowd) there were CDs to provide the music for dancing and several night owls brought finger foods to sustain them til the witching hour.

This morning we drove down to Gulf Shores to Gulf State Park for a short walk along a portion of the paved trail there.  The wind was blowing pretty strongly making the air feel colder.  We walked with coats, gloves, and hoods on our heads.  After our walk we took our picnic lunch to the beach pavilion, but the wind was just too strong to eat outside.  We ate in the car, walked out to make a couple photos of the deserted beach, then headed home.  I’ll write more about Gulf State Park later.

Along Oak Ridge Trail

For now, I need to get busy with my hoppin’ John.  Don’t want to risk not eating those black-eyed peas.

It has been a great first day of the new year.