Mobile, AL Part Two

Wednesday morning we awoke to a cloudy morning with an outside temperature of 76˚ with a high in the 80’and some rain predicted.  We had signed up for the courtesy car with Chris from Southern Belle and headed off to a local Grocery store because both her and Mary said they were tired of Wal Mart.  Well  it turned out they both missed Wal Mart so we headed to the other side of town.  This worked out well as John needed to get a water pressure drain opener at Lowes and we needed to mail some items.  It turns out you can drop off mail at a UPS store, who knew?

Neat looking sail boat

After we got back and put everything away we met up with some of the other Loopers staying at the marina.  There were quite a few who we have met along the way and at the Rendezvous.  John worked on the port rear scupper which has always drained slow but had gotten worse lately.  It didn’t take long for him to get wet but he had some moderate success before the opener burst and he got really soaked.

We had decided to rent a car to see more of Mobile but by the time we were able to get picked up it was getting dark.  Before 5:00 pm would you believe.  We had a nice young  man just out of college pick us up and we asked him about some good places to go for sea food.  He told us about a place in down town Mobile that when we walked in thought it was a college kid’s bar.  It turns out it has been around since 1938 and we had an excellent meal.

View from our slip at Dog River Marina

Thursday morning we experienced sever temperature culture shock.  The wind had shifted to the North and it was only in the 50’s.  We were on the end of a long pier and the wind was just pounding us on the stern.  John dug out the fender boards that came with the boat and we added extra lines. 

Battleship Alabama

Grandpa trying to be like Opa

We toured the Battleship Alabama which was quite interesting.  It was amazing to see all the machinery and systems on the ship, especially since it will be 70 years old next year. After touring the ship for a couple of hours we headed to Fairhope which is on he East side of Moible Bay.  As we were walking around we hear ”John – Mary” , we looked over and Wayne and Francine from My Way were waving at us from a passing van.  We first met them in Grafton, IL and have bumped into them at many other spots along the way.  We had a nice lunch with them before looking at more of the shops in Fairhope.

We took a scenic drive back to Mobile to return the car.  After returning to the marina we went over to the marina next door to say good byes to Dickie and Dixie who we first met in Mackinaw City just as we were getting ready to start our trip. They are almost done with there trip and were headed back to Louisiana in a day or so.  Really nice people and we were very happy to see them again. Also stopped in to say farewell to our friends on the boat Kadadi as they will be leaving their boat and going back to Canada for the holidays.  Sure hope we meet up with them again somewhere along the way. 

Missing you all and looking forward to seeing some of you over the holidays,

Mary and John