Vacation Adventures

Driving home at once seems to take a longer and shorter time than driving out. It feels like we are covering more ground faster, but then you look at the clock, and it's not moved much.

As we approached our favorite Cracker Barrel restaurant, just before Mobile, I noticed that the traffic was stopped ahead of us, on the other side of the on ramp. It looked like it went on for quite a distance, so I was glad to stop for lunch.

While we ate, Sweetie asked about an alternative route to get around the traffic on the interstate. The nice manager did us a good deed, which probably will not go unpunished.

He told us about the alternate route, all right. We ate, shopped, used the facilities, and then continued up the same road to the T intersection, where we took a left. That road, he told us, would take us several miles up, on a nice little highway, 4 lanes and 55mph. We could hook back up to the interstate at several points along the route.

We drove past a couple of small towns, and, amazingly, seafood restaurant after seafood restaurant, all packed to the gills. Wow. Just a couple of miles off the highway, among the inlets of Mobile Bay, there are a plethora of places to eat.

Yes, we love us some Cracker Barrel, but we also love us some seafood restaurants, especially busy ones. That poor manager may have cost his company a meal or two from us on future trips. We will probably still stop there for souvenirs, though.

I followed this road, which turns into Battleship Parkway (that might be the name of it the whole way, I'm not sure), as far as I could, and got back on the still packed, stop and go Interstate 10 at the last possible place to do so before the tunnel. Apparently, the traffic was backed up from the tunnel all the way to Daphne, a good 14 miles or so.

I will never be able to wrap my head around why the people of Mobile, after all these years, still feel the need to bring traffic to a screeching halt because of the tunnel. Maybe if I lived there I would get it, but I doubt it. I've lived in Louisiana a long time but I still don't get why some people here drive the way they do. I get why the little old ladies driving large late model cars have the right of way at all times, but I'm still stumped by why Friday afternoon's rush hour starts on Thursday morning.



Today is

America's Kids Day

Elfin Music Festival -- Fairy Calendar

Festival of 1 Lithe -- Hobbit Calendar

Festival of Manifest Destiny

Hard Core Pub Crawl Day

Morat Commemoration Day, Switzerland

National Chocolate Eclair Day

St. Acacius' Day (patron against headaches)

St. Nicetas' Day (patron of Romania)

St. Thomas More's Day

Stupid Guy Thing Day

Zeppelin Day


Birthdays Today:

Eric Stretch, 1980
Donald Faison, 1974
Carson Daly, 1973
Mary Lynn Rajskub, 1971
Kurt Warner, 1971
Amy Brennenman, 1964
Dan Brown, 1964
Freddie Prinze, 1954
Cyndi Lauper, 1953
Meryl Streep, 1949
Lindsay Wagner, 1949
Todd Rundgren, 1948
Pete Maravich, 1947
Ed Bradley, 1941
Kris Kristofferson, 1936
Joseph Papp, 1921
Billy Wilder, 1906
Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1906
John Dillinger, 1903


Today in History:

Ptolemy IV of Egypt defeats Antiochus III the Great of the Seleucid kingdom, BC217
Bilbo Baggins returns to his home at Bag End, (Shire Reconning), 1342
The Jewish quarter of Prague is burned and looted, 1559
Galileo Galilei is forced by Inquisition to "abjure, curse, & detest" his Copernican heliocentric views, 1633
A poisonous cloud from Laki volcanic eruption in Iceland reaches Le Havre in France, 1783
The British Parliament abolishes feudalism and the seigneurial system in British North America, 1825
Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee procession in London, 1897
The Flag of Sweden is adopted, 1906
The Flag of the Faroe Islands is raised for the first time, 1919
Erwin Rommel is promoted to Field Marshal after the capture of Tobruk, 1942
The Cuyahoga River catches fire, which triggers a crack-down on pollution in the river, 1969
The Canadian House of Commons abolishes capital punishment, 1976
Charon, a satellite of the dwarf planet Pluto, is discovered, 1978
The largest hailstone ever recorded falls in Aurora, Nebraska (7inch diameter, 18.75 inch circumfrence), 2003
Eastman Kodak Company announces that it will discontinue sales of the Kodachrome Color Film, concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon, 2009