April Roadtrip, Day 5...Flying Llamas

Day 5

April 5, 2023

     With a nice day ahead of me and plenty of time, there were certainly a great deal of options.  I could have stopped into the U.S.S. Alabama Battlefield Park.  For my $25 fee, I could toured the battleship and the WWII submarine U.S.S. Drum.  I decided to drive on.  Besides, the park wasn't even open for the day yet.  

     Instead, I chose to stay on Hwy 90 and explore as I drove west.  Based solely on a highway sign, the first stop of the day was the Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge.  

    The refuge runs along the coast of of both Alabama and Mississippi and covers 32,000 acres of coastal land.  From the park headquarters, there are two short trails to explore.  The first thing I noticed were the multitude of nests in the towers for the power lines.

     The first trail begins with a mushy walk through the grass and the woods.

     As I was walking the bluejays were calling back and forth.  How do I know it was bluejays?  Easy, there really is an app for that.  It's called BirdNET.  

     The trail would eventually loop back to a boardwalk to an overlook. 

     The second trail was another loop through an Oak Grove.

     While I've been to the Mississippi gulf coast a few times, I had never visited Pascagoula.  On the northern end of town, it's hard to miss the old Round Island Lighthouse.  

    Round Island is actually triangular in shape and sits off the coast of the city.  The first lighthouse was built there in 1833.  Twenty years later, it was found to be unsound and rebuilt.  The lighthouse was knocked over by Hurricane Georges in 1998.  Rebuilding had begun when Hurricane Katrina blew through in 2005.  Instead, the city decided to salvage as much of the original material as possible and rebuild it inland in a city park.

     The roadtrip craving for coffee was kicking in and it brought me to an interesting place called Crazy B's.  

   While the coffee was certainly good, this was my first introduction to something called a Kolache.(pr; col AH chi)  Imagine a pastry the size of an average dinner roll.  Now imagine it being hollow and filled with scrambled egg and cheese, or some other filling of your choice.  Interesting and quite good.  To make them, they simply flatten the dough into a circle, place the filling in the middle and fold up the sides. 

      My next stop westward was Davis Bayou Gulf Islands Seashore.  It was what you expected, short trails out to overlooks of the bayou.

    On my AAA map, there was also a place called the Mississippi Sandhill Crane Preserve. With little information about it, I chose to start at the refuge visitor center.  Overall the preserve had 19,000 acres of land between four separate areas.  

    Across the parking lot there's an easy 3/4 mile loop trail to an overlook of the preserve.  I met a retired couple from Springfield, Illinois.  We were hiking in opposite directions.  They seemed surprised I had actually visited their city.  

       Back in the parking lot, we decided to take our chances in a different section of the preserve where there are two loop trails totaling 1 3/4 miles.  I hit a long red light and they were already out on the trail when I finally found the new parking lot.  

       There were two trail maps at the kiosk.  Oddly, they showed two very different things.  As it turns out, the red trail is actually a loop.

     Once again, an easy walk through the woods...

     Off in the distance, you can see a railroad bridge.  I didn't get lucky this time.  

     I never did see any of the elusive Mississippi Sandhill Cranes.  In the 1970's there were only only thirty left.  Fifty years on the endangered species list and that number is up to one hundred.  

     By the time I rolled into Biloxi, Mississippi, it was already late afternoon.  This brought me to a curious place called Fly Llama Brewing.  They had a very wide selection and they were generous to let people try as many things as they wanted.  This usually means about a half a shot worth.  Not much, but enough to get the flavors.  The wildest thing on the beer list, a Carrot Cake IPA.  I'm not a big carrot cake guy, but did try it.  I would never order a pint, but the flavor certainly was interesting.  

     And what do you expect to see on the walls of a llama brewery?  Yup, paintings of llamas.

     I could have easily hung around a little longer.  But, I still had to get to Bay St. Louis and find the Motel 6.  And I really don't like doing that in the dark.

      It turned out to be a decent enough place.  They spaced people out in the building, which is always welcome.  My one beef with the place, the wifi barely made it out of the lobby. Yeah, I know...first world problems.  

April Roadtrip, Day 4...Around Daphne

 Day 4

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

     Today was an easy day.  There was no threat of rain and I really wasn't going that far, just fifty-five miles.

     Sure, I had to contend with the slower morning traffic.  I didn't mind.  Instead, I was more concerned with the fog.  The further down Hwy 98 I drove, the thicker it became.

    Hwy 182 after making the turn west towards the fort...

      

      Fort Bower was the first on this site.  It was a hastily built structure of earth and wood.  It's job was to protect Mobile Bay from British attack during the War of 1812.  The British navy attacked the fort with three ships, one of which was sunk.  For the second attack, they sent nine ships as well as a larger land force that overwhelmed the small fort.   

      Construction began on Fort Morgan shortly after the war.  The fort is named after Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan. He was a member of the Virginia Militia at the start of the Revolutionary War.  His first task was to recruit and lead a group of ninety-six riflemen six hundred miles to Boston.  The city was occupied by the British and they were there to take it back.

      In October, 1780, he was given the task of leading six hundred men to harass the British in the south, but avoid a direct fight.  Gen. Cornwallis got fed up with it and send Col. Banastre Tarleton to track him down and put a stop to it.  Some of Morgan's men had fought Tarleton before.  He tended to make snap decisions and felt fighting militia was beneath him.  

      Based on what he learned, Morgan decided to disobey orders and provoke a direct fight.  He dug in and set up a defense in a place where cattle was bought and sold, thus the name Cowpens.  His sharpshooters had rifles with longer range with better accuracy.  They would engage first, followed by the militia.  They would then pull back, effectively suckering Tarleton in.  In less than an hour, two hundred British soldiers had been killed and over eight hundred captured.  

       As for Fort Morgan...

     Fort Morgan was captured and occupied by Confederate forced days before Alabama officially seceded, and remained in their hands until late in the war.  It would fall only after a two week bombardment.  Its captured allowed Union forces to enter Mobile Bay at will.  

     The next battle took place just north of Daphne in a place called Spanish Fort.  When France founded Mobile in 1712, they built a trading post.  Britain took control after the French and Indian War.  Spain considered Mobile to be part of West Florida and fought Britain for control.  They built a presidio on the site of the trading post. Thus the town's name, Spanish Fort.

     When it was captured, focus was shifted a few miles north to Fort Blakely.  It was defended by 4,000 Confederate soldiers.  With Spanish Fort in their control, a Union force of 16,000 was able to concentrate on just Fort Blakely.

     

    Knowing they were vastly outnumbered, the defenders did everything they could to slow the Union advance.  In the end the fort fell and the defending troops surrendered.  With Robert E. Lee's surrender a few days earlier, the Confederacy was all but over.

    This is now part of Blakely State Park. In addition to the fort, there are plenty of hiking trails.  The one I chose was an easy three miles.  From the parking area, the trail takes you down to the Tensaw River, named for the Taensa Tribe who once lived along its shores.  

    

      

       

    Eventually, the trail loops back through the townsite that was once Blakely.  Established in 1813, it soon became a successful shipbuilding community.  After the Civil War, it's fortunes changed.  It's now a ghost town inside the park.

    An easy twenty minute drive south of the motel is the town of Fairhope.  That's where you'll fine the Fairhope Brewing Company.  Great place with a friendly staff.  I only mention it because of something I saw hanging on the wall.  Some of you will get this...

 

April Roadtrip, Day 3... An Unexpected Early Start

Day 3

Monday, April 3, 2023

      The day certainly began in a promising way...  

     The Waffle House was all police officers when I walked in.  Okay, there were six.  But, they were the only customers that early.  There was no rush to get out and I had planned another walk along the river before departing Columbus.   

     Sipping my second cup of coffee, I checked the weather.  After quickly paying the bill and packing up the room, I beat feet out as fast as I could.

     For reference, I was leaving Columbus and making a brief stop in Dothan, Alabama.  With good traffic, Dothan is an hour and forty minutes drive.  Can you really blame me for the quick exit?  

     Fortunately, traffic was flowing smoothly.  When I stopped for gas I could hear the thunder rolling in the distance.  This is the radar when I pulled into Dothan.

     Dothan, Alabama was established as a farming and trading community in 1885.  They chose the name Poplar Head after a local spring.  After the Civil War, the timber industry moved in, bringing sawmills and turpentine factories.  With the town growing, someone pointed out there was already a Poplar Head in Alabama.  They would have to change their name.  Dothan comes from Genesis 37:17,"For I heard them say 'Let us go to Dothan.'"

     The arrival of the railroad grew the city even more.  The true growth came by way of Dr. George Washington Carver.  His experiments with peanuts was a boon to the industry.  Dothan now calls itself the Peanut Capital of Alabama and hosts the annual National Peanut Festival.  I would miss the festival by three weeks.  

     But, this isn't why I came to Dothan.  They have another claim to fame.  Yes, it's the world's smallest city block.

     With the early start, I realized I had a lot of time on my hands.  So, I went off in search of a coffee shop.  That's when I noticed all the murals.  This is by a woman named Katie Hughes.  I poked around the internet and found multiple artists named Katie Hughes.  This didn't seem like any of their styles.

     Sherman Rose grew up in Oklahoma and moved to Alabama to attend the Tuskegee Institute under the Civilian Pilot Training Program, graduating atop his class in 1939.  He remained with the institute as an instructor.

     

    Rose would become one of the principle instructors for the Tuskegee Airmen throughout the course of WWII.  After the war, he joined the private sector for ten years.  From 1955 to 1974, he was a part of the Army's Civilian Flight Instructor program.  This time he was also teaching new helicopter pilots.

      Johnny Mack Brown was a high school football star in Dothan and went on to play for the University of Alabama.  His athletic skills and looks even got his picture on a Wheaties box.

  

     The Wheaties box got him a screen test.  After a string of support roles, Brown got his first starring role in the 1930 film, Billy the Kid.  After a short string of starring roles, he was cast in the film "Laughing Sinners" in 1931.  You won't see him in the clip though.  All his scenes were reshot with MGM's new up and rising star, Clark Gable.  After losing out on the role of Tarzan for now being tall enough, his career took a dip.  

     After doing a few low budget westerns, he was hired by Universal Studios and would crank out twenty-nine B-movie westerns over the next four years, including The Lone Star Trail.  This was also one of Robert Mitchum's early roles.  

     Just to the right is a mural of Chief Eufaula.  His tribe of Creek had been removed from their land in Georgia and moved to Alabama, eventually being relocated again to Oklahoma.  The text reads, "In these lands of Alabama, which have belonged to our forefathers and where their bones lie buried, I see where the Indian fires are going out,  Soon they will be cold.   New fires are lighting in the west for us they say and we will go there."

 

     On the wall of a bank...

     After a nice stop at a coffee shop named Bird and Bean, it was time to head back out.

 

      The sky to the north was still leaden with some residual rumblings.  My route out of took me by the fairgrounds.  It's still three weeks to the peanut festival, but there was plenty of activity.  

     Dipping south into Florida to pick up I-10 west, the gray sky cleared and out came the sun.  Seen at a Florida highway rest stop...

      I’ve been to Salisbury, England to see the real Stonehenge.  I’ve been to Virginia and seen Foamhenge, been to Alliance, Nebraska to see Carhenge and made a side trip through Odessa, Texas for their replica.  There was no way I was going to pass up Bamahenge.

    Dairy Magnate George Barber had previously hired artist Mark Cline to create life size dinosaurs for “lawn ornaments."  When he heard Cline was the artist behind Foamhenge, he asked him to make one for his marina outside Elberta, Alabama.  

      Taking tropical weather into account, Cline chose to build it out of fiberglass.  Each standing piece is anchored by an eight foot pole sunk in concrete.  

     Finding the place was an adventure.  I encountered detours that seemed to go to dead ends.  Only when I saw a sign for Barber Marina, did I finally find the place.  There's a small gravel parking area on the right of the entrance road.  If you see the Triceratops, you've gone too far.   A short path into the trees and you encounter Bamahenge.  

    

      If you make a right from the parking area, it's a very short drive to the triceratops...

     And, if you look carefully, there's a T-Rex lurking in the trees.

    My home for the next two nights was the Microtel Inn and Suites in Daphne, Alabama.  Decent enough place but they definitely need a bigger sign at the street.  It's across from a slew of restaurants. I chose a place called Top of the Bay Music Hall.  It's a bar, restaurant and music venue.  They had a nice selection of craft beers from around the area.  But, their kitchen is closed on Mondays.  I asked, and they're fine with people bringing in their own food.   I picked up a decent chicken philly at the Wild Wind Station up the street and settled in.  

      I wound up in a conversation with a local guy who asked where all I had been.  So, I told him about Bamahenge.  He had never heard of it.  Meanwhile, two guys were having a heated discussion about the weekend's WrestleMania event. They just couldn't understand how come professional wrestling companies kept hiring such clueless referees.  I didn't have the heart to tell them.