We're Home!

We left Troy this morning and it was another beautiful day for top down traveling.  It was sunny and just a little cool.  We back tracked mostly the way we came in, but missed Inell's in Phenix City.  We decided to continue on and had lunch at a small, forgettable cafe in downtown Warm Springs, Georgia, which is in about the same state as FDR - dead.  From there, the ride was still very nice, and we stopped at an antique store in Woodbury where Kathy found something small enough to bring back!  After that, it was on to McDonough, Conyers, and finally home.   We had a great time and no problems with the car.  The back roads are a great way to travel.  Next time you have a trip planned, check the little box on Mapquest, or on your GPS, that says, "avoid interstates".  The roads are generally good, you'll have less traffic, fewer big trucks, fewer (none) garages or parts stores for little British cars, and interesting sights along the way.

The Fat Lady is Warming Up...

Left New Orleans this morning without incident.  Another beautiful day.  As we made it to the Miss. coast, almost all of sand has been cleared off of the streets.  We gassed up and made a short detour to the downtown area of Ocean Springs, MS.  It looks like a nice, quaint downtown area with lots of shops and restaurants.  We continued on to Mobile and decided to eat lunch again at Felix's Fish Camp, the great place we discovered 4 days ago.  It was just as good this time!  The place seems to be a wildlife refuge, also.  Their resident alligator was there (we couldn't see her before due to high water from the storm) and a red-winged blackbird (I think) perched on the window for quite a while.  You can see the WWII battleship USS Alabama from the restaurant, with it's impressive 16" guns.  After lunch, we continued on, back to Troy, AL where we'll spend the night before heading home tomorrow. 

Felix's resident 'gator!

Another begging bird outside the window at Felix's!

USS Alabama, anchored in Mobile Bay

Another beautiful day

It was clear, sunny and hot in New Orleans.  The car show was fine with several examples of some very nice cars, including a very nice AC Ace.  This is the sports car that Carroll Shelby liked so much, he bought all the factory output and stuffed big V-8 engines in them, creating the Shelby Cobra.

AC Ace

 There was also a McLaren MP4-12C.  This is not a vintage sports car, but a new supercar.  But, it is British!

McLaren

The show was held on the campus of Delgado Community College.  There is a pond on campus and several waterfowl which have become very used to people.  Several ducks wondered up and people started feeding them.

More begging birds!

After the show, we went back to the hotel to clean up a little, then off to dinner at Pascal's Manale restaurant, a fixture in New Orleans since 1913!  This is one of the places on our to-do list for this trip and it did not disappoint.  The service is great and the food was outstanding.  Gumbo, oysters Bienville, steak with hollandaise and crabmeat, flounder with BBQ shrimp and caramel flan.  All delicious.  Then, back to the hotel to relax and plan the trip home tomorrow.

Pascal's Manale Restaurant

It's a Beautiful Day!

And, I'm not talking about the band from the 60's.  Today started out overcast, but that quickly turned to clear, sunny skies and it should stay that way through the weekend.  I spent about an hour this morning cleaning sand, tar and general crud from the car.  We then did the touristy thing and toured St. Charles Ave. from a streetcar and then walked around the French Quarter. 

Scene from Bourbon Street

We got a muffuletta from Central Grocery for lunch, and ate in Jackson Square.  Yummy!  (I also got a jar of olive mix there to bring home.)

Standing in line for a muffuletta!

Inside the Central Grocery

Jackson Square

 We then went to Cafe du Monde where we got beignets for dessert.  We met two women from Dallas, TX while we were both waiting for service and had a nice talk with them.  The "dining room" is an outdoor, covered patio and people were feeding the pigeons, who have become very comfortable with people.

Pigeon eating at Cafe du Monde

 After watching some street performers, we eventually made it back to the streetcar and took a tour back up St. Charles.  We then headed back to the hotel for a reception hosted by the local car club.  There was lots of homemade, local cuisine that was all very good.  A very good day that made up for yesterday. 

The Day from Hell

I didn't get a chance to post anything yesterday because by the time we got to the hotel, it was too late and I was too damn tired!  We left Troy, Alabama and it looked beautiful.  It was partially overcast and cool, and as we started out, we hoped we would get lucky and as we were going south and west and the storm was going north and east.  Maybe we could duck around the bottom of it.  No such luck! 

There is not much to see in rural, southern Alabama but cows, where the number of cows seems to far outnumber people!  As we passed through Glenwood, it was the first time we ever encountered speed humps on the main street through town.  Next, we passed through Brantley, which calls itself the "Front Porch City", and they, too, had speed humps on the highway in town!  This is home to Southern Foods Restaurant which has been serving Brantley for 42 years.  Unfortunately, it wasn't time to eat so we couldn't check it out.  We then passed through Andalusia, home of the Giddy Up 'N Go convenience store.  We then stopped in Brewton for gas and a pit stop and then on to Flomaton.  Just outside Flomaton, our luck changed.  It started getting darker and then started raining.  These backroad byways many times don't have much of a shoulder, so when I saw a driveway, I pulled in and we put the top up.  It was downhill from here.  Every time we thought we were through the rain, it would start raining harder.  We made it through Atmore, Bay Minette and Spanish Fort just outside Mobile.  It stopped raining and we were getting hungry so we decided to look for a place to eat.  We were now on the Gulf (or Mobile Bay, to be more precise) so should be able to get some good seafood.  We saw Felix's Fish Camp and it was busy, so we decided to stop.  This turned out to be the only bright spot in the day.  The people were very friendly and the food excellent.  We'll have to stop here on the way home.  Highly recommended.

Felix's Fish Camp - Spanish Fort,AL just outside Mobile

After lunch, we continued on through the Bankhead tunnel, into Mobile.  The rain started again, even heavier at times.  We pushed on, into Mississippi, going through Pascagoula, Ocean Springs, Biloxi, Gulfport, Long Beach and Bay St. Louis.  Mississippi has just gotten pounded by the storm and along Hwy. 90 that runs along the coast, there were placed where the sand from the beach had gotten blown/washed up on the roadway.  It looked like snow drifts but was sand.  In some places, the road was blocked by the sand and we had to detour around it.  They had "snow plows" (actually, front end loaders, scooping the sand off the road into dump trucks.  At least it had stopped raining for a little while.  However, in Gulfport, a train stopped on the tracks where it crossed the highway so we sat waiting for it to move.  After about 30 minutes, maybe more, we finally decided to see if we could reroute around it.  Along with several other cars, we were able to take a side street and backtrack, then cross the tracks several blocks away, then make our way back to the highway.  The leg today was already longer than the first day, but now we were really behind!

"Snow drifts" along the Mississippi coast.

You can still see the effects of the recent hurricanes along the Mississippi coast.  Where once there were houses and buildings, there are now vast stretches of empty lots.  There are a few very impressive, antebellum looking homes, esp. in Long Beach, but don't know if they are survivors, or new construction.
However, one thing that did rebuild is Waffle House!  They must have gotten a good deal on property after the storm, as there is at least one Waffle House every mile along the coast.  There's not much else, but you will always be able to find a Waffle House! 

After Bay St. Louis, we continued on Hwy. 90, generally following the coast to New Orleans.  There is nothing but the occasional fishing camp along this stretch and it started raining again, even harder.  And, I was running low on gas.  Where do all these people that live out here get gas?  And, where do they gas their boats?  Don't know, 'cause I didn't see any stations.  I thought about stopping at a marina to see if I could get some gas there, but didn't.  Last time I thought I needed gas, I still had a gallon left, so I kept going, feeling sure that we were getting to the outskirts of N.O. soon and there had to be gas there.  Well, we finally did get to a station and still had a gallon left!  So, we filled up and continued on into N.O.  However, the street we were on was being repaved.  They had ground off the top layer of both lanes, for miles, but had not paved any yet.  So, we were dodging holes and manhole covers, in the rain!  Could it get any worse?

We were getting hungry and I needed some alcohol at this point, so we decided to stop before going to the hotel.  We made a slight detour and ate at the Abita Brew Pub, in Abita Springs - home of the Abita Brewing Co., a local craft brewery.   It was nothing special, but the Turbodog beer was good.  We finally got to the hotel and the car is a mess, but decided to clean it tomorrow.  Off to bed, where I was awaken in the middle of the night by tremendous booms of thunder and lightening that lit up the room, even with the shades drawn, and rain that seemed to last for hours.  How could there be any rain left in the sky??!
I got up this morning and the car survived, and not even too wet inside, but is pretty nasty outside.  But, it is clearing up and might be nice the rest of the weekend.  We're off to breakfast, will clean the car, and then go see N.O. before the reception tonight. 

The Abita Brew Pub

What a day!

Made it to Troy, Alabama

Had a great drive today, weather was beautiful, not too cool and not too hot.  No problems with the car as we cruised the scenic byways of Georgia and Alabama, passing through towns like Zebulon, Concord (home of the Concord Country Jubilee), Molena, Woodbury (not much here but antique stores), Warm Springs, the interestingly named Waverly Hall, Ellerslie (blink and you miss it) and Columbus.  Crossing the Chattahoochee River, we entered Alabama, passing through Phenix City, Union Springs and on to Troy.

Woodbury is very small, but there were about 4 antique stores in the two blocks of town.  They looked nice so we stopped for a stretch and to look around.  The lady at the High Cotton Antique Mall had to come look at the car because she had an MGB when she got out of college.  Unfortunately, (or fortunately), we made no purchases as we didn't have room to pack anything!

High Cotton Antique Mall - Woodbury, GA.

 

We decided to eat lunch in Phenix City, AL and found Inell's Country Cooking, where you can have whatever you want, as long as it's a meat and 3!  Was very unpretentious, people were very nice, food very good and reasonably priced, too.  And, they loved having their picture taken!

Lunch in Phenix City, AL

 

 

 

The ladies that fed us at Inell's Country Cooking

The historic town of Union Springs, AL. is the Field Trial Capital of the World!  It's home of the national bird dog field trials and in the middle of the main street is a statue dedicated to the eleven Bullock County residents inducted into the field trials hall of fame.  A life size English Pointer stands atop the 8 foot granite pillar.

Bird dog field trials capital of the world - Union Springs, AL

 

 

Tomorrow, we'll be on our way to New Orleans, via Mobile and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  

On our way to the Big Easy...

Well, it's time again for Midget travels.  We don't have any trips planned as ambitious as our trip to Wisconsin last year, but do have several new ones planned for this year. Our first trip of 2012 is to the New Orleans British Car Day.  We haven't been to this show before, but it's a good excuse to get back near our old stompin' grounds (we both went to school, and met, in Baton Rouge) and to get some good New Orleans food.  (SJ - we'll be thinking about you as we're chowing down on a muffuletto at the Central Grocery and dinner at Pascal's Manale!).   We'll be leaving early to try to beat the rush hour traffic out of Atlanta and to have some cooler weather.  Taking the scenic route, we plan to stop in Troy, AL the first night.  The weather is iffy, but we'll hope for the best.  Feel free to leave comments of encouragement, or derision, as you see fit!

You'd be surprised how much you can get in here when you pack with ziplock bags.

 

Command center - GPS, iPod, and our faithful traveling companion, "the missing monkey"