The breakfast was not bad. It became quite crowded when a Mississippi Junior Basketball team called the Bulldogs all came in at once. They were all very well-mannered and quiet and obviously quite excited about whatever tournament they had travelled to play in.
We hit the Alabama roads just after 9am. Our first destination was the only Antebellum House near the City of Mobile that was open on a Saturday. I knew they offered tours but that didn’t really interest me and I envisioned sitting on the porch in a rocking chair or perhaps under a large oak tree whilst Karen absorbed the history of the plantation and house on a tour.
That would have been lovely. However, the house was now in the middle of a housing estate as the land had been sold off years ago. It was a reasonable size but didn’t have the presence of other such houses we have visited over the years. It didn’t even have a car park. Neither of us were getting good vibes from it and so after pulling up alongside decided to go for Plan B instead which was visiting the Mobile Botanical Gardens.
There was no coffee shop in sight. So, we kept walking to the business district where I figured there must be something for the workers. There was. A Starbucks in a bank building. We quickly went in and ordered as it was shutting very soon (at 12.30pm on a Saturday?). The staff cleared up around us as we had our drinks. I was unable to use the facilities as they were now locked and the manager had gone home with the keys. It kind of summed up the whole city.
We then had to come up with a Plan C for the day. This involved driving to the USS Alabama Battlesite Park a couple of miles outside the city. It cost $5 dollars to park which I had to pay using an actual credit card as their machines did not have long enough wires to stretch into cars to enable me to use Apple Pay. I just shook my head.
As we wandered to the gift shop, there was a notice saying the battleship and park received no funding and relied on donations and volunteers. It showed. It was very amateurish especially the gift shop. There was a café, but it had a funny smell and just served up junk food, so that was given a wide berth.
From our vantage point on the ground, we could see loads of people had now congregated on the deck of the ship but we didn’t know why. Then we heard something like blank gun fire from the deck as the ship came under ‘attack’ from a stunt plane in the sky. The plane did several circuits but wasn’t getting anywhere near close enough to make it seem real in my opinion, but what do I know.
At that point it started to rain. Not much but heavy droplets. The clouds though looked ominous. We made our way back to the car and came up with Plan D. This was to head back in the direction of the hotel and have a wander around the nearby Walmart in the dry.
It was raining harder when we walked into Walmart. As we walked round, we picked some random things (like a powerful water pistol for $5 to use on the pesky pigeons at home who keep eating my grass seed). We also got some wraps for a late lunch.
As we were preparing to leave the heavens opened. There was thunder and rain on a biblical scale. On the corrugated roof the noise was unbelievable. In the next hour there was 1.5 inches of rain. We stayed in the shop for a while and picked up more things to buy the longer we were in there.
Eventually it eased a bit and I nobly went out into the still quite hard driving rain and got the car and drove it round to the front of the store to pick up Karen. And then as quickly as it started the rain ended.
After a while back in the room, we ventured back out to get a hot meal. Karen wanted to go to Red Lobster which was a couple of miles away. When we were almost there, she then decided that as we had had a late lunch that perhaps she wasn’t that hungry but she might be able to just manage a starter. I said that was pointless and we would be better off getting a takeaway.
So, with a quick U turn we popped in a handily placed Dominos Pizza place. Karen just got some garlic bread whilst I had a medium pizza (that I couldn’t finish).
We ate the food in our room and watched another episode of Blue Lights. I was fast asleep by 10pm whilst Karen watched the local news and weather.