Get Lost!!!

What a superb weekend my wonderful groom and I shared this weekend. It started with a great idea... GET LOST! My wonderful groom suggested(, or was it me?) that we take one weekend and just spin a wheel to decide our direction. Well, we did just that. With the spin of a wheel early Friday morning, we started our great adventure! We were perfectly content allowing God to decide our course (for the most part). Amazingly, God led us straight to my wonderful groom's dear children's school just at their lunch time, which turned out to be a special treat for Dad and his dear children (divine intervention). Then, we were on our way, trusting our Navigator with the great adventure... As it turns out, we were meant to head west. I guess the best thing to do would be to take you chronologically through our adventure, hitting the high points.

We, of course, made a point of stopping frequently along the course of our adventure, just for the sake of making sure I cover everything. Our first stop was at a beautiful cotton field, which is a common sight in south Georgia, and I thought it would be fun to have pictures of us in a cotton field (why not?!)We can't help ourselves, we are silly almost all of the time!!! Life is too short! We also stopped by a sunflower field, which looked like the winds of (at the time) TD Ida had gotten to, but I took some pics anyhow. My wonderful groom was checking out the nearby cemetary.We drove the long way south (ending up in Florida without realizing it), until we finally met up with I10, where the wheel pointed us west for 2 hours! We were thrilled. He had secretly hoped for a New Orleans trip, and I just wanted to experience Mississippi on this trip (Don't have a clue why... I know, now, that Mississippi isn't really worth it). So we headed west... stopping for photos along the way, being silly and happy all the way.Another spin and extra driving time for the time change (going into central time zone), we ended up in Alabama.As we moved toward Gulf Shores and the sky continued to grow darker, we decided that this would be our first night's stay. We visited the Wharf, which was dead! We went to see "This Is It", which was not worth the money... sigh. Then, we caught some seafood at the Original Oyster House, which was one of the many places Alabama Mike recommended when we shared with him that we were in his favorite place. Gotta love those last minute reservations during off-season. We were upgraded for free to an ocean front view, which had a nice patio and chairs overlooking the ocean. BONUS! We slept in that morning, and made certain to take some time to enjoy the beach.I particularly enjoyed the back-fan parachute contraptions (well, watching them). I dubbed them Paracopters. I'm not so sure I would want to go up with one, but they were fun to watch.There were two of them effortlessly gliding around the beach Saturday morning.

Back to the spinning... we left Orange Beach and Gulf Shores and made it to Foley, AL, when my wonderful groom discovered this building.Lambert's Cafe, the only home of the Throwed Rolls! We had seen this place on the Food Network and thought it would be exceptional! Well, sure enough, it was. We arrived just in time for the first roll throwing and got a some of Ol' Norm's pass-arounds within the first minutes (before we even had plates). Yes, they really "throwed the rolls", across the room to some folks! I assure you that between the abundant gigantic rolls, the larger the life portions and the bottomless pits of pass-arounds, you WILL NOT leave that place hungry! Not to mention, we had a super entertaining time! When we got back to the interstate, it was left again, and we ended up being directed to (get this) Daughin Island... you know, where TS Ida made landfall in Alabama, before bee-lining to the Atlantic coast and becoming (I heard this this morning).... Nor'Ida! Perfect name. Unfortunately, while we were out exploring, the Atlantic coast was being pummeled and now faces a substantial recovery effort.

Well, we explored Daughin Island some and passed up the $30 ferry ride, even though neither of us had ever been in a car on a ferry before. We would have probably both gotten car/sea sick. The scary bridge leading to the ferry made my heart skip a few beats.Incidentally, you couldn't tell that a Tropical Storm had just passed through.

We left there and once again were directed west! Here we were almost in Mississippi! When we got to the interstate, we spun for another hour of west on I10!!! That would put us nearly in Louisiana!!! Well, we voyaged through Mississippi rather uneventfully and made a decision that being that close to New Orleans meant we had to go there. We decided that was our next plan, or detour... as we called it. While in New Orleans, we visited Bourbon Street, eating my wonderful groom's favorite cuisine, and listening to his favorite music... For breakfast, what other than a trip to Cafe Du Monde for some Cafe au Lait and a pile of beignets!!! Powdered sugar doughy goodness!!!!We did some more sight-seeing and exploration around the French Quarter before making the long trek home.The only evidence of Hurricane Katrina that we saw was the remaining damage to portions of I10 over Lake Pontchartrain. Other than that and some barren areas of land where vegatation had previously been, where we were, you couldn't tell it had happened. What a wonderful excursion!!!! It's so much fun to get lost.

Have a great day!
~Dewdrop