Birmingham, Alabama, but first…..

We left Dothan, AL, with a smile, probably because the peanuts were plentiful and well dressed!

And we left with full bellies after stuffing ourselves with a last minute seafood boil at The Juicy Crab!

But enough about Dothan!

We’re in site 88 at the Hoover Met Complex RV park in Hoover, Alabama, just a short distance south of Birmingham. It was an easy 200 mile trip with only a couple of traffic jams. US 231 went through Ozark and Troy before joining Interstate 65 south of Montgomery, AL. A little bit of a jog near Birmingham, and we’re home!

This sports complex is phenomenal. A baseball stadium seating over 10,000, walking tracks, soccer fields, waterparks, and more. The Finley Center is a 155,000 square foot event center that transforms into pickle ball courts, volleyball and basketball courts, and provides space for trade shows and community activities.

There is a food court, a climbing wall complex, and indoor and outdoor tennis courts. Five NCAA baseball fields with led lighting and scoreboards, four with artificial grass and one with real grass, five additional soccer, football, and lacrosse fields are available to reserve. And, of course, 170 full hookup rv sites for use by sports enthusiasts and us flybys. We’re here for a couple of days to get haircuts and do a few errands. In addition to groceries we managed to add in a trip to Riverchase Galleria Mall for a bit of air conditioned walking since the outdoor feel like temp has hovered in the low hundreds. There are several stores in the mall that we didn’t recognize, with merchandise unfamiliar to us West Coast drifters.

Oh, Rhett, Rhett, I fear I have lost Tara…..

The Heart of Wiregrass

We’ve left the gulf coast and started north. About 200 miles as a matter of fact, to Dothan, Alabama. Dothan, known as The Circle City hereabouts because Ross Clark Circle highway completely rings it, is considered to be the heart of the Wiregrass. Encompassing part of Georgia, southeastern Alabama, and the Florida panhandle, this area is named for a native plant known as wiregrass due to its texture. Dothan was founded in the 1830’s as Poplar Head to harvest timber but the town all but died when the timber ran out. After the Civil War, Poplar Head began to grow, and citizens voted to rename the city after discovering that a Poplar Head post office already existed. Over time, farmers have turned to corn, maize and peanut production and now a quarter of the US peanut crop is grown within 75 miles of Dothan.

We’re in Dothan because of two spinster sisters. Fifteen years ago, or so, we were vacationing with friends Steve and Suzi, and met two of the most entertaining people imaginable! They kept us in stitches with stories of their families and friends, and their lives without the encumbrances of “menfolk”. They were from Dothan, so we decided to visit that memory by stopping for a few days.

We’re taking up temporary residence in site 1103 at Dothan RV Park, a wonderfully kept park about 3 miles from downtown.

With large concrete pads, grass between each site, excellent and well placed utilities, and manicured walking trails through an adjacent forest, this is one of the best parks we’ve seen this year. 

A trip into downtown led us to several of the more popular points of interest.

A stable water supply is vital to a city, and Dothan is no different. One of the city’s first water storage tanks is still in use.

Just a block away from the water tank, we found a small farmers market.

We didn’t have room for a lot of fresh vegetables, but we did manage to find a few quarts of home canned pickles and marinades. We sampled and found them delicious!

We know that peanuts are a big deal here, and uniquely decorated nuts are scattered around town, but we went right to the best at the Visitors Center.

Dothan also is known as The Mural City, with dozens of murals decorating buildings downtown. This one pretty much covers the town’s history, including George Washington Carver and his contributions to botany, farming, and of course, peanuts.

And this mural depicts the arrival of the Spanish.

A curious thing rests quietly just a few feet away from the Civic Center. The World’s Smallest City Block! Certified by Guiness, it includes all the items required for a city block.

Dothan, or Poplar Head, was located near a natural spring, providing a perfect place for gatherings of native peoples, traders and settlers. The spring location has been renovated as an outdoor amphitheater and stage. It appears to be a nice place for a summer concert. 

Unfortunately, the spring still needs a bit of help.

Time marches on, as seen on a small plaque near the Dothan Civic Center.

Sasha has been inside the trailer, except for morning and evening walks because of the heat, so we “treated” her to a daytrip in the air conditioned truck by driving east toward Geogia. The border between Alabama and Georgia at this point is the Chattahoochee River.

 Located just south of the rather depressed town of Columbia, Alabama is a dam and lock called the West Bank Dam and the George W. Andrews lock. This time of year there is no shortage of water!

We crossed the river and ventured into Georgia a bit, but turned back because we had another destination!

Turning west, we passed through Dothan and headed toward the town of Enterprise, Alabama, home of the Boll Weevil monument, festival, and anything else that could be linked to the nasty little bug.

In the center of town, smack in the middle of a busy intersection, a maiden triumphs over a bug.

The “bug” devastated cotton crops back in the day, before methods were developed to control it. The pest costs farmers an estimated 300 million dollars a year in lost crops and additional labor.

A turn around town allowed us to meet a few new friends and shop at a few stores.

After a leisurely drive through Alabama farm country, we returned to the cool comfort of our trailer.

Sasha was happy to be home!

I think the sisters would approve of our visit to their town!

At Least the WiFi is Good

We rolled into Foley, Alabama at about 3 in the afternoon. We were happy to leave Laurel, MS, because of the prediction for high winds and heavy rain. The weather was good all the way south and we easily slid into Anchors Aweigh (sic) RV Park just south of the town of Foley and a bit north of Gulf Shores, Alabama.

The site is very nice compared to our last location, except for the water everywhere! The area had received a huge amount of rain earlier in the day, so we backed into a small lake! The good news is that the water soaked in within hours and the wifi is super fast; the bad news is that the next morning we woke up to thunderstorms, flood warnings, and potential tornadoes. Just about the time we had decided what we wanted to do and see in the area, the rain started, and within an hour the tornado warnings appeared and we were warned to seek shelter! Fortunately, the park has a secure building and, along with a couple of dozen of our new best friends, and Sasha, we waited out the warning. Sasha was uncomfortable, and we were totally soaked by heavy rain, but we were safe! The local tv station kept us updated, so I took a pic of the screen just before we left for shelter. The slight blue spot was an area of rotation and was heading for Miflin. Our rv park is just east of Miflin!

 This was our first experience with severe storms and storm shelters, so we probably waited too long to seek shelter, and probably waited too long to return to the trailer, but we were happy to have had a secure place to go. Local news has told us that over nine inches of rain has fallen on this area in the last seven hours, with other areas of the Gulf Coast getting a foot of rain! There’s more on the way, but for now, we just need to be concerned about flooding!

The trailer and truck survived nicely, even though rain was falling at a rate that obscured the trailer 20 feet away! As things calmed down, we again considered what to do, and dinner made its way to the surface! Out we went, looking at a really interesting cloud:

Then, as if by magic, the skys began to clear.

We had previously determined that seafood was the order of the day during our visit to the Gulf Coast, and since we had eaten oysters and fried shrimp at Acme Fish House already, we drifted into the Wolf Bay seafood restaurant for shrimp scampi and coconut shrimp. Delicious!

We took a daytrip to Fairhope and Daphne, AL, a few miles north of Foley. In Fairhope a cruise of old town led us to a park at the edge of Mobile Bay, and dozens of birdhouses along the waters edge, and the city of Mobile in the background.

Except for shipping channels carved out of the bottom, the bay is only 3 to 10 feet deep!

Walking on the pier, we were accosted by dozens of pelicans! One of then had a tangle of fishing line, including a lead weight, wrapped around a leg. Not being equipped to deal with a wild animal, we had to shake our heads and move on. This patient guy followed us, hopping from one rail to another in hopes of a treat.

We stopped into Kravers Seafood in Daphne for a light lunch. It was good, but we wanted to have room for dessert at Whits Frozen Custard. This drive thru, take out ice cream shop has an outdoor seating area where we enjoyed an O’Henry George (hot fudge, hot caramel, spanish peanuts) and a Jubilee (hot fudge, hot caramel, pecans), and had a great conversation with some people that are moving from Chicago to Daphne.

Downtown Pensacola is about an hour east of our location in Foley, and we had to visit this very old city. In 1559, before Jamestown, and before St. Augustine, Tristan de Luna y Arrellano led an expedition to Pensacola Bay with 11 ships and 1500 men to establish a settlemen, which he named Santa Maria de Ochuse. Palafox Place is the original main street.

The street ends at the bay.

Our Son in Law’s best friend owns a donut shop on Palafox, so we had to stop in. Now, this is not your usual donut shop. No donut holes found here!

Welcome to Parlor Doughnuts.

These pastries are more like a sweet croissant than a cake. The dough is mixed, folded, rested, and worked again, requiring 3 day’s preparation before baking and toppings. The toppings include our favorites chocolate, maple and fruit, with dozens of combinations. Pics of current options:

You get the idea….

Two in the shop and four for the road and we left carrying a few thousand more calories.

We had to stop at what is arguably the most famous fresh fish store in the country, Joe Patti’s.

Hundreds of pounds of fresh seafood is available every day, of all types and sizes. It’s a seafood paradise, and even though Captain Joe is no longer with us, the selection and quality continues to be amazing. We’re starting to run out of space in the refrigerator but still found room for a couple of seafood tidbits!

On our last day in the area, we braved the crowds on Ocean Blvd and checked out Gulf Shores, Alabama.

This area is a destination for thousands of vacationers, and the condos, rentals, restaurants and surf shops are there to serve them.

We tried to get into deSotos Seafood restaurant at about 6 this evening and found an hour wait. We moved on…

And the draw for these thousands?

White sand and warm water.

It’s unique.

And beautiful.

We will miss this beautiful part of our country.