Mobile/Pensacola Highlights

We've now moved on from Alabama, and here are some of the highlights of our visit to the Mobile/Pensacola area.  We spent a week there and were able to spend 3 of the days sightseeing.

The first of these was spent looking for the token ball of string; we thought we may find it in the town of Foley, Alabama.  This small town's tourist attractions consist of a railroad museum, a hospital museum, and a soda fountain that dates back to the 1920's.  We headed for the railroad museum first, which is primarily 1 room with a lot of old paraphernalia, much of which was found in various old homesteads in the area--not necessisarily related to railroads or trains at all.  It's all housed in the old train depot, hence the 'railroad museum' title, perhaps?

We moved on to the hospital museum.  A small hospital was opened in Foley in the early 1930's and was closed in the mid 1950's.  It's now open as a museum offering free tours.  A hospital in existence for only 20 years or so, and closed in our (M&M's, anyway) lifetime.  A museum?  Really?  Turns out it WAS interesting.  It was used mainly for childbirths and minor surgeries such as tonsillectomies and appendectomies.  All other major cases were sent to larger hospitals in neighboring towns.  The birthing equipment and facilities did indeed look rather archaic, and gave us an appreciation for conditions that our mothers were in when delivering us.  Foley does now have a modern hospital.  The resident skeleton (on the left) did not make the move, and remains in the museum.

We saved for last what we hoped would be the best--relishing an old-fashioned milk shake, sitting on an old soda shop barstool.  Turns out it has become too much of a tourist attraction and has lost all of its authentic charm.  Darn.  We did indulge in a float and a dish of ice cream to appease our disappointment, but it just wasn't what we were anticipating.

The second day of sightseeing was in the Mobile area.  We toured the battleship USS Alabama and the submarine USS Drum.  Both were very interesting and brought back lots of navy memories for HeM.  We spent quite a bit of time below deck on the Alabama, getting a bit of an appreciation for how the World War II sailors lived, worked, and fought--a lot of similarities to the conditions HeM experienced when he was in the Navy  The submarine tour certainly brought home the snug quarters and the absolute need to be free of claustrophobic tendencies.  The torpedo rooms were impressive.

The third day was in Pensacola.  We toured the National Museum of Naval Aviation.  We were really looking forward to seeing aircraft carrier history--especially anything related to the USS Forrestal, HeM's assignment while in the Navy.  The number of planes that are housed in the museum is simply overwhelming--lots and lots of planes of all vintages.  And there were nice models of aircraft carriers, everything from the very first one to the modern-day variety.  Of course, the Enterprise was awarded the spotlight.  Models of carriers were nicely done; the attached picture of the Intrepid is a good example.  We kept looking for the Forrestal.  Looking....looking....ah, there it is!  But....is that all they could muster for its model?  Rather disappointing, but we did get a picture anyway.

As it was Mardi Gras season, and almost every town and city had a Mardi Gras parade, we had to see at least one.  We chose a small, local one and was able to enjoy it while sitting inside a restaurant, watching through a large window, having some of the best seafood that we've had so far, and toasting the floats with our cold beers.  No beads, but not bad.

We're in Alabama

We made the 264-mile trek to Robertsdale, Alabama (approximately 25 miles east of Mobile--halfway between Mobile and Pensacola).  We're in one of the few parks that still had spaces available in the area.  Given that, our expectations for the quality were set rather low.  It turns out that we're guardedly pleased.  It IS a bit on the rough side as far as roads and pads.

But the WiFi they offer is better than we've seen at any other 'resort' parks, the water quality is far better than at any other parks, the laundry facilities are comparable, and the satellite set up was a breeze.  The people here are very outgoing and friendly.  They have several group activities if we're interested; they even have planned a road trip to some Mardi Gras festivities on Tuesday, if we're so inclined.  If we weren't leaving Wednesday morning, we'd likely take them up on it.  So all in all, we did OK.

We'll be doing some sightseeing today, Sunday, and Monday.  We're trying to work around the weather, as it seems that everywhere we go outside of Texas there's an ABUNDANCE of rain.  Wish we could send a bunch of it back to Austin to fill the lakes there.

Louisiana Sights

So we finally did get some sightseeing in before our departure tomorrow.  We were looking for some local flavors, i.e. the local 'giant ball of string', so to speak.  We thought that the small town of New Iberia, just south of Lafayette, might fill the ticket.  They even have a suggested itinerary on their website, so off we went planning to hit 4 of the suggested stops.

The first stop was a restaurant, where we hoped to have a nice lunch.  Turns out this restaurant was not open for lunch that day.  It was a Saturday.  I'm not sure why a town would try to lure visitors to their town, and then not accommodate weekend traffic.  Especially during the Mardi Gras season when there are more visitors in the area.  We settled for another place that was open, although not on the suggested itinerary...and we weren't very happy with the food.  Anyway, strike one.

The next stop was an old bakery that's famous for their french bread.  Yum!  We could already imagine how good it would be.  It's located in the next town about 5 miles down the road.  When we arrived, it was closed!  Not open on Saturdays.  Again, we're confused about their logic.  In any case, strike two.  At this rate, our sightseeing excursion was looking very bleak.  And HeM started mumbling something about never venturing out again without calling ahead, etc., clearly losing his appreciation for 'adventure'.  :)

Stop #3 was an old rice mill that's still in operation and offers tours.  They claim to be the oldest one in America.  We stopped.  They were open!

The Konrico rice mill tour starts with a 20-minute film about the history of the area which is called Acadiana.  The film is a bit on the grandiose side in its presentation, but informative.  The film is followed by a short tour of the mill itself--very old, very dusty, and lots of cobwebs!  Actually gives one pause when considering buying their products.  And, of course, there's a gift shop.  We found some habanero sauce that looked interesting, so we bought a small bottle.

The next stop was Avery Island.  This is a salt dome where Tabasco Sauce is made.

We arrived approximately 45 minutes before their closing time, and was able to catch the last tour of the day.  We missed the opening film, but caught the gist of it at an audio/display station at the end of the tour.  The salt used in making Tabasco Sauce all comes from the salt dome the plant sits upon.  And, of course, they have a gift shop.  We sampled several different flavors of Tabasco Sauce, and decided to purchase a small bottle of their habanero variety.  (We seem to be on a mission to purchase as many samples of hot sauce as we can find.  We had already purchased a bottle of Beware hot sauce when we were in Spring, TX.)

So, for our first day of sightseeing we were batting 500.  At least, it ended on successes.  The next day, we ventured into Baton Rouge.  We had 4 items on the list--the state capitol building, one of the art museums near the capitol, lunch at a local downtown restaurant, and find a post office to determine the postage needed on an envelope we were mailing to Arlington.

First stop was the capitol building.  It was built during the depression at a cost of 5 million dollars.  It was built in 14 months.  And it IS impressive.  It's the tallest building in Baton Rouge, and has a nice observation tower.  One of its tourist attractions is that Huey Long was assassinated there in the halls of the capitol building and one of the columns still bears a bullet hole.

After visiting the capitol, we were ready for lunch.  In this same area, there is a convention center, museums, and the USS Kidd.  With all these tourist attractions, there must be several eating establishments to choose from.  Turns out, NOT!  After driving around several blocks in every direction and finding nothing, we finally stumbled upon a McDonald's.  Really??  So, we had McDonald's for lunch.  Not at all what we had in mind; at least the fries were hot.

Our iPhone gave us directions to a post office that was just a couple of blocks away, so at least that would be easy.  After following the navigation offered by the phone, and going in complete circles in the opposite direction a couple of times, we did finally find the post office.  Mission accomplished.  But the disappointing lunch and the frustrating drive to the post office took its toll on our enthusiasm.  We called it a day.

Florida Can Wait

Being on no imposed schedule, and free to make changes as needed/desired is a huge benefit to being retired.  It has also made the launching of our adventure a really lengthy process, and most likely makes our pre-supposed total length of the adventure suspect at this point.  All remains to be seen, and does, after all, make this truly an adventure.

Our launch on January 1 of this year, to Spring from Arlington, was off to a grand start, and we were on our way.  We arrived at an RV park near Lafayette, Louisiana on January 8, prepared to spend a week before moving on to Alabama and then Florida.  The park here in Henderson (or Breaux Bridge, depending on which address record you look at) is a really nice park.

It's huge and offers lots of family fun with a couple of pools for adults and a pirate-themed wading pool for kids.  There's a small lake in the middle of the park with resident ducks.  Cabins line the lake for those visitors without an RV.  There's a miniature golf course, a couple of cabana bars, and even a few slot machines for the adults.  The interior roads and RV pads are all concrete which makes it very nice for biking and walking--when it's not raining.  Which it does a lot in January/February.

At this time of year, the park is rather deserted, but that actually worked to our advantage as it turns out.  A serious family medical issue compelled us to hurry back to Arlington, TX on January 11 to help with hospital visits and subsequent care.  Three weeks later, we were delighted when health improved, and we returned to our RV which we had been able to leave parked in the Louisiana park given the huge availability of sites here right now.  We're now once again settled into our RV lifestyle.  Before leaving here, we do need to take in a bit of local sightseeing.  A couple of possibilites are Avery Island (home of Tabasco Sauce) and an old rice mill that's still in operation and offers tours.  Baton Rouge may be on the list, as well.  Swamp tours are offered, but the wet, cool weather lessens their appeal...and then there's that parting comment by some family members in Arlington saying that they would be watching for us on Swamp People.  :)  So maybe not.

All previously arranged reservations at RV parks along our route to Florida were cancelled when we saw that our stay in Arlington would be a matter of weeks rather than days.  We've now made new arrangements, and have decided that sightseeing in Florida can wait until another time as we prefer to spend our time making our way further north along the Atlantic coast as spring begins.  So our route now is to drive to the Mobile/Pensacola area when we leave here next week.  We'll spend a week exploring that area before heading to Brunswick, Georgia.  The drive between Pensacola and Brunswick is more than we're comfortable with making in one day, so we plan to spend one night in a Walmart parking lot near Tallahasseee--another first!