Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Went shopping...., 1 by crestedchik

crestedchik wrote:
Well,I just got back from Alabama tonite.......

What a week I've had.

When we left Thursday,we just missed the ice storm that hit here....the weather was WAY warmer as we went south,heck,5 hours south of here it was in the upper 70's and an hour or 2 later it was 82!!!!!!
We stayed in Bristol ,Tenn,on Thursday nite,and made it down to Talladega on Friday.
We were sleeping in a tent and it started raining Friday nite,woke up Saturday AM and it was still raining.....
So ,as much as Chuck didn't want to drive anywhere ,I talked him into heading to Birmingham so we could go to the Botanical Garden there....We get a few miles down Route 20 and traffic comes to a standstill.I look up ahead and all you see is a mess.....huge accident with tractor trailers.....cops were just starting to get there.....
Luckaly we were right next to an exit so we jumped off it.Start driving down the road looking for a possible route to bypass the accident,happen to see a Nursery sign.Chuck decided thats where we were going.
Had a great time going thru the plants,the place was very large and the people were GREAT!!!!!
Many of the things I wanted weren't there but,I did find a few things to bring back...LOL
I would have bought more but Chuck got a look at the statuary and started buying.We got a great deal on a HUGE bird bath,a swan planter,and some lily pad stepping stones.So many of the plants I wanted were not going to fit in the back of the truck with all that CEMENT.So only got a few.
We get back to the track and all of a sudden my cell phone is ringing off the hook.That Ice storm hit hard up here,knocked the power out plus trees down.No power means no heat in the GH......the power came back on yesterday(Sunday at 7-8 pm) So the whole time we're down there I'm worrying about the GH,the group camping a few sites from us were a little uncontrollable and when the one guy smashed some guys back window out of a blazer the blazer driver pulled out a gun and started shooting(and people are scared of NY!!!!LOL),then they weren't sure they'd get the race in because of the severe storms ,but they did,and it was great and I got a nice tan...,we leave after the race to get as far away from the storm as we can.....and of course it catches us but is was just heavy rain,made it back to Bristol,spent the nite,then took off for the frozen tundra (I had to put long pants on!)ran in to freezing rain in Maryland,and SNOW in PA all the way up here!

Ask me how I feel about snow...go ahead ...make my day!

I had to take the plants out and put them in the cab of the truck with us because of the temps(NO,Chuck was NOT happy about that)so they look a little beat up.....
this is the Pineapple