Thursday morning I took another walk on the beach before anyone else was up. I gathered just a few more interesting shells and another starfish, this one would break on the trip home, though. It was very chilly out and ice was everywhere, even in the pool. We went out for lunch and had some leftover spaghetti for dinner that Dan had fixed us the night before. Sand was all over the now-drying roads, also we saw water softener salt at the intersections.
And I finally got some more smokes and some whiskey for our last night. We were running out of everything. We had only packed supplies for 3-4 days but we did do a couple loads of laundry in the condo so we had clean clothes to wear. In the afternoon, Kate and I checked out the indoor heated pool and hot tubs.
Friday morning we were finally leaving town. Not that we wanted to, but it was time - past time to get back home. Again I awoke early, early enough to catch the sun rise over the gulf. We had a longer drive to the Mobile Regional Airport than it would have been to Pensacola but we didn't want to wait one more day to fly out. Mom and Dan were gracious with our unexpected stay and drove us to the airport. Again this airport seemed even smaller than Madison's and for some reason that surprised me again.
Monday was pretty stressful around midday. We found out that our flight out the next day was canceled due to weather, weather that we didn't have yet. We settled down once we were rescheduled for the same times on Wednesday. So we went out to eat again, maybe even for lunch and dinner, I don't remember. I think it was after dinner that we all walked down to the shore, though. It was a wonderful view in any direction, especially my wife's direction. ;)
On Tuesday it got interesting. It was rain with temperatures at or just below freezing during the day. We went out to lunch at Lambert's - home of the Throwed Rolls, I remember this one because of the weather. The roads were fine while we were out. On the way back we stopped at a few places so I could get some whiskey, but to no avail. Stores were shutting down.
Wednesday morning I was up early again so went down to the frozen beach. Ice coated everything, yet it was thin, rough ice, not a slippery as it could have been had it been thicker. I did not slip on the beachwalk or the frozen beach but I could have if I tried. It was this morning that I found a lot of interesting shells, large shells, and even a couple starfish up on the beach. I also saw quite a few dead jellyfish on my morning walks. I did find a small sand dollar for my Mom but, unfortunately, it broke on the way back upstairs. It was the only whole one I saw on the beach, any day we were there.
When I got back to the condo things got weird again. Or flight out that day was canceled. Again. Pensacola airport was shut down until further notice. Later our flight from Atlanta to Madison was rescheduled for later that night, but there was no possible way to get to Atlanta in time even in good weather (unless we could fly there!). My wife spent a lot of time on the phone; we could fly out of Mobile, about an hour and a half away, on Friday or we could wait until Saturday to fly out of Pensacola, a half hour away.
On Sunday morning, January 26, I got up relatively early and before everyone else, so I thought I'd venture out and down to the beach. It was a bit chilly out, but there was no one around yet and I seemed to be one of the first to leave my footprints on the shore. I found several shells, but nothing very interesting yet.
Later we took a drive, they took us on a loop up to Mobile and back. On the way we stopped at a local restaurant, one of the 5 or 6 Tacky Jack's in the region. Tacky Jack's is a colorful place, inside and out. It seems to be one of those places that must be visited when in the area. If I'm down there again I would like to try a different location.
After the ferry and a short drive into Mobile, we found the USS Alabama in a complex that included several planes, helicopters and tanks. We didn't pay to go inside or board the ship, but we were able to see much just from the parking lot. It would take several hours to do the tour and see everything, but I was happy with what I saw.
My Mom and her husband Dan left for the gulf coast of Alabama shortly after the new year and are staying until the beginning of March in a luxury condo on the Gulf of Mexico. As a Christmas present, they offered trips to all their kids to come down and spend some time with them. We had never taken a vacation in winter before so we accepted their generous offer.
The Pensacola airport was a bit smaller than Madison, I'm not sure why that surprised me. Mom and Dan were there to pick us up and drive the half hour west to Orange Beach, Alabama, kind of a suburb of Gulf Shores. The Blue Angels fly out of the Pensacola airport. They said they've seen them flying since they've been down, but we did not see them in our time there.
