Stars Fell on Alabama

---

"Jacob's Tails ... (Back-to-the-Land)"

Now Available
On-line at www.firstepbooks.com
or
Call: 1-866-479-3248

We've started exploring our surroundings!! We are South-east of Mobile, Alabama towards the Gulf of Mexico.

On our first outing we headed down towards the water on the local back roads. The houses that line the shore roads all sit on pillars about 10 feet off the ground and many of them are spectacular and have cut off any access to the water.

The nearest place of any size is Foley. Foley's major claims to fame seems to be 'The Tanger Outlet Center - a 120 store factory outlet mall; there are an incredible number of medical services; and Lambert's - the 'Throwed Bun' restaurant - that will feed you till you get sick (After 2 days, I'm still suffering from overeating or a reaction to too much MSG). We brought home enough for at least one more meal. This could put me off food for a while!

The area is VERY flat and has vast fields of growing things we aren't all that sure about. We did find out that they are just now harvesting the soy bean crop, got some pictures of peanuts being harvested and saw fields and fields of cotton growing.

Peanuts grow like potatoes, underground. They plough them out and leave them for a time so the peanuts can air dry. Then they are gathered up – we’ve seen the windrows sitting in the fields but are yet to see what they do next.

Foley is the next town up from the Gulf. Gulf Shores is right at the water. Apparently Katrina took its toll on the area and most of the older buildings were either destroyed or badly damaged. They are now replaced with new high apartment buildings and condo complexes. There is very little public access to the beaches but the public beach we did find was absolutely empty - too cold – they call this winter down here (it went up to 75 F that day).

As far as we are concerned, the weather is great. Mind you, the TV is warning people to make sure to bring their animals inside because it might go down to freezing - dah! The daytime temps might go down the mid 60's but will return to mid 70's by the end of the week. Tough, eh?

The Naval Aviation Museum

Everybody we talked to here at the Park said the Aviation Museum was incredible and that we just had to go see it. I kind of took this with a grain of salt knowing how military Americans are BUT I have to agree with those folks – it is pretty spectacular.

It looks to me like it covers about four football fields and they say it houses about 150 aircraft and covers every war where aircraft were involved. There is even an IMAX theatre in there. We spent the most part of a day there and still only scratched the surface. I still want to go to the IMAX to see a film on Hurricanes and Katrina so we’ll go back again.

Food and other Interesting Places

Of course a fair amount of time is spent finding places to eat and eating foods we’ve only heard about before. Some we’ll try again and others – well I just don’t think I’ll bother. The other night we went to an Asian
Buffet-type place where we managed to fill up on Crab legs and Crawfish. They’re O.K. but geez they’re a lot of work before you get to the good stuff!!

The other day, we went out to a small village (Fairhope, AL) that used to be primarily a fishing village but got hit pretty hard by the hurricane. It completely took out their pier and wharf. They have since replaced it with a pier that extends out over the water for about 1/3 of a mile.

We did manage to talk to a few of the local fishers and watch them catch a 27 pound ‘Red Fish’ – whatever that is. I was funny; I was trying to eavesdrop on what they were talking about. I could hear them O.K., but their accents were so heavy I couldn’t understand a word they were saying.

Like so many other places along the Gulf, with the destruction came all the land developers. Apparently Real Estate prices have increased triple-fold and there is house construction everywhere.