Day 94 - Savoury Home Alabama

Author – Grant
From – Hattiesburg, Mississippi
To – Dauphine Island, Alabama
Via – Mobile, Alabama
Miles Driven - 125

Today's Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/32017704@N03/sets/72157613578582808/

Waking up on Day 94 wasn’t a great feeling thanks to a combination of too many beers the previous night and sleeping less than soundly on a dog pee soaked mattress that no amount of towels could 100% protect us from. Best thing to do, shower well and go get a fry-up. I’m not sure if it was because of the hangover but breakfast at Waffle House was surprisingly good and ticked all the right boxes…crispy bacon, tasty hash-browns, fresh ingredients and, most importantly, plentiful portions. We might even manage to make it to our destination without having to stop for our daily Funion fix…but I doubt it.

Without a real plan, we arrived in Mobile Alabama for a quick scout around and the first thing we came across was Wintzell’s Oyster House which was recommended to us by local Bayou Boy Miles. Like lobster in Maine and crabs in Maryland, it’s weird to be somewhere where an otherwise luxurious, decadent and expensive treat is so damn affordable. For example, my Oyster Stew appetizer (a broth of solely milk and oysters that really allowed the oyster flavour to dominate) was a miserly $3.50. Even our lunch special mains (crispy deep fried oysters for me and a shrimp po-boy for Kate) were just $8 each and came with two sides. The fact that everything was seriously tasty made the price even more unbelievable. I’m liking Alabama already.

The rest of the day was, by design, pretty uneventful as we concluded that we would stay on Dauphine Island which is a crazily relaxing place (if that isn’t an oxymoron) about an hour south of Mobile in the Gulf of Mexico. After exploring the island (something that takes about 7 minutes by car) we did deeply unexciting things like read, watch TV and make plans. I made the throw away comment to Kate that it was a perfect place for a treasure hunt and she spent the next two hours in deep concentration designing some sort of duathlon for me for the following morning. It’s clearly another of her thinly disguised attempts to get me to loose some kilos but I’ll play along.

Tomorrow’s itinerary involves the aforementioned Treasure Hunt (where the treasure had better be edible), a round of golf and some more general lazing around. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…working is for mugs.