January 15th-18th - Last Days in the Gulf Shores Area

On January 16th John and I drove to Mobile, Alabama to take a tour of the Battleship Alabama and the WWII submarine they had on the property as well.  My dad served on the Battleship New Jersey in WWII so it is always interesting for me to tour battleships and get a sense of what he experienced as a young man of 19 years of age going to war.  Here is a picture as we walked on. One of those smaller guns on the side was my dad's battle station.

Here is a picture of the teak deck with lots of metal patches. It would not have looked like that during the war. I don't know but I image the reason for the teak decks is so that they would not be as slippery when wet.

Here is a picture of the front deck. I remember my dad telling me that in good weather sailors would lay out there to get a tan and often lay out there at night to look at the millions of stars that can only be imagined from most places on land.

Here is a picture of the sixteen inch guns battleships are known for.  It took three powder bags to propel the 54 inch shell. Dad said the blast was so powerful that if two guns were fired at the same time they would roll over the ship. Hard to imagine. Also hard to imagine who loud they had to be.

Above you can see the chains running up the deck for the anchors. Here is a picture of my foot by a link to give you an idea how big the anchor chains are.

Here are a couple of pictures of the inside showing what a massive operation feeding, providing medical and dental car, and provide sleeping quarters for 2000 sailors plus marines going across the ocean was.

Only the Captain had spacious quarters. Here is a picture of his bedroom and adjoining stateroom for entertaining officers and guests.

This is a picture of his bedroom on the bridge. Believe me this is necessary. You climb a lot of stairs get from the quarters to the bridge.

Of course the ship had a barber shop with three barbers, a butcher shop, a bakery, a post office, etc.  It was a truly a floating city. If you ever get a chance to tour one of these ships be sure and do it.

While we were touring the battleship the ladies went shopping at the mall. Naturally they found some sales they couldn't pass up.

On our way back to the condo we bought some shrimp and they boiled them for us. Carlene made a nice salad and some yellow rice. Sue and John joined us and we had a nice relaxing supper at the condo.

On the 17th we just relaxed and made arrangements to have a late lunch at Fishers Restaurant on Orange Beach. Our daughter Annie had gotten Kelly a gift certificate there for her birthday. This time of year the place wasn't crowded and we had a nice relaxing afternoon of drinks and food.

Here is a picture of the restaurant which was a very nice place.  Upstairs is a higher end restaurant but it was not open at this time. We opted for the lower level anyway which was a much more relaxed atmosphere. (Who wants to dress up on vacation anyway.)

Kelly ordered a Margarita with salt and this is what it looked like. The salt was foam, which we had never seen before. Always fun to come upon something new.  I had a couple fancy Manhattans which was great.

This leisurely meal and drinks made for a great ending to our week. When we got back to the condo we bade John and Carlene goodbye. They were great tour guides since they have been coming down here for years. We then packed everything up and loaded the car for the trip home. We headed out at 5:00 a.m. The trip home was a little better than the trip down. It rained a lot of the way and it absolutely poured as we drove through Jackson, Mississippi. Upon hitting the Arkansas border though the sun came out and it was sunny the rest of the way home. We arrived home at 4:15 p.m., stopping only for fuel.

It is always fun visiting a new place.