June 24-30, 2001

June 24-30, 2001

We spent another week on a Gulf of Mexico beach with my family. We flew into New Orleans rented a car and drove 2.5 hours east on I-10. Just south of Mobile, AL we stopped at Bellingrath Gardens, an attraction my father recommended. It is an historic mansion and beautiful gardens set on 65-acres. It was the family estate of an early Coca-Cola bottler. A young girl working the ticket booth makes some comment comparing me to “her daddy” immediately making me feel old. We spend a couple hours walking among the beautiful flowers and touring the house.

We take a bridge south to Dauphin Island, one of the many Gulf barrier islets, and then a car ferry across to Fort Morgan. My relatives have rented a beach house just to the east. Most of the week we spend on the beach or by the pool or playing golf. But we do take a morning away and visit the historic fort we passed near the ferry terminal. This antebellum 1834 structure is actually a pretty big star-shaped fort on the end of the peninsula that sticks out into the mouth of Mobile Bay. Mobile was one of the last confederate ports to fall largely due to Alabama seizing this fort before they seceded. Late in the war the fort was taken and the port closed by Admiral Farragut. At the start of the battle he told his fleet to ignore the minefield in the bay and run past Fort Morgan with the famous words, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead”.