Arley Alabama October 2 to October 23, 2020

This is the first campground in our Thousand Trails network.  This campground is on Smith Lake which is a huge lake, our first night we stayed in a site and the next morning on of the sites overlooking the lake became available to we contacted the office to see if we could move, they said we sure could so we did. 

My office was facing the lake which was an amazing view.  We were in an area where the other campers around us were seasonal, so the owners just happened to not be there for most of our stay so the dogs we able to get off leash for a bit. 

The town of Arley is like a total of maybe 400 people, but they had a convenience store, dollar general, Mexican restaurant, and a small local café.  Believe me we were here for 21 days and we visited them all multiple time.  The Sons of Arley Convenience store served BBQ on the weekends and the Smoked Whole Chicken was to die for.  The Arley Café had a great Philly sandwich which is one of Brian’s favorites. 

They also had a Campground Halloween on the 17th.  All the campers were decorated we of course we completely unprepared and just gave our candy and put of our disco light. 

This is also where we received the news that Brian’s mom Carol Goetze had passed away on 10/21/2020.  Our plans were so up in the air, did I need to get him back to Utah, Montana or where,  what would I do while he was gone do I extend my reservation so that he could get back home.  In the end the family decided to wait until spring to have any kind of memorial for her, so we continued with our planned trip.  It was hard for Brian to continuing to enjoy what we were doing without feeling bad for doing it.