Mississippi, Alabama & Florida:
We continue our Southern Safari through the south, visiting new states with our MoHo. Today we drove through Mississippi, we skirted the town of Biloxi, looked like a very nice coastal town, several BIG casinos and a very attractive coast line. We then cruised on into Alabama; we found an exceptionally nice campground just out of Mobile. Our site was just off a huge pond, a lot of big old beautiful trees. The sort of place one could easily spend a week, just drink mojitos and enjoying the slow southern life style.
Sunday, April 3rd, we are finally into Florida – a very nice drive along the panhandle, we stopped for the night in Warrington, at the local ELKS, just outside of Pensacola. The “BOYS” got their spa afternoon. Nigel was in bad need of a trim, and Guinness also benefitted from a nice bath and pedicure. While the canines were otherwise engaged we had a great lunch at McGuire’s Irish Pub. Brother Chuck had told Mike about this place and it did not disappoint. We ate and drank until we thought we might explode. They brew their own beer, so Mike sampled that, and I of course had to over-do by drinking an Irish Wake, don’t ask, a lot of rum and fruit juice. The food was delicious, we had one of the best filet mignon steaks, boxter potatoes (fried garlic/cheese mashed potatoes rolled in bread crumbs; OMG!), finished with a piece of choclately ice cream pie and a large to go box!
The Gulf Islands area is our newest experience, beautiful part of Florida; we crossed over several long bridges and enjoyed the coastal drive. We spent an hour or so at Tou Cans, a quirky beach, bar and restaurant in Mexico Beach. We sampled their liquid refreshments and enjoyed their décor, lots of our favorite kind of birds, even bought a couple of tee shirts, jacket and a baseball hat to remind us of our visit. Our stop for the night was a boondock in a nice parking lot off of a church not far from Tou Cans.
We have officially made it EAST, we are now are on Eastern Day Light Savings Time. We drove through more beautiful coastal and green areas today. Much of the roadside was covered pine, palms and oak trees, very dense and lush vegetation. Our stop for the next 2 nights was Crystal River. We enjoyed a manatee snorkel, where we actually got a good view of 3 of the gentle giants (broke our wild life curse – if we pay to go see something we generally don’t). The water was fairly warm; 72 degrees or so and Crystal Springs were beautiful to swim around in, so clear. In the afternoon we drove to Weeki Wachi and saw the world famous Weeki Wachi Springs Mermaid show. It was a bit hokey, but very entertaining, none the less. The mermaids started performing back in 1947, quite an impressive run. There were 7 swimmers who performed an entertaining show in an underwater theater. The story was Hans Christian Anderson’s – The Little Mermaid. The youngsters in the audience really were enthralled by the performance; even these “oldsters” got a kick out of it.
We are heading south along Florida’s Gulf Coast; the weather is quite warm, the scenery beautiful, and memories for a life time.