{"id":8021,"date":"2018-04-24T23:39:31","date_gmt":"2018-04-24T23:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/?p=8021"},"modified":"2018-04-24T23:39:31","modified_gmt":"2018-04-24T23:39:31","slug":"traveling-south-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/?p=8021","title":{"rendered":"Traveling South Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, on we drove deeper into the south.\u00a0 To places that\u00a0had seen\u00a0the ravages of the Civil War which was not civil at all.\u00a0\u00a0 Thankfully, many of the little towns were bypassed and were not destroyed by the Union soldiers.<\/p>\n

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One little town was welcoming Spring. It seems Spring was late almost everywhere this year.<\/p>\n

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Over tall bridges over rivers running throughout our country.<\/p>\n

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Until off in the distance we saw another bridge we were going to cross onto an island.<\/p>\n

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We are getting closer.<\/p>\n

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Ocean on either side of us.<\/p>\n

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Up and over and we landed safely on the other side!<\/p>\n

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Here we were in Dauphin Island, Alabama.\u00a0 I had never heard of this island until a few weeks ago when David and I were discussing where we were going on our road trip.\u00a0\u00a0 He asked me if I wanted to go to dolphin island. “Dolphin Island!”\u00a0\u00a0 “No, it’s spelled D-a-u-p-h-I-n Island.\u00a0 We can drive to it.” \u00a0“Okay,” I said and now here we were.\u00a0 I did not get a picture of the motel in which we stayed. It was called Gulf Breeze Motel and was your quintessential island home away from home. Painted an ocean blue and white on the outside.\u00a0 \u00a0The bed was covered with a comforter with shells and fish on it. The dresser had shell carvings on its front.\u00a0 Island birds and animals pictures were on the walls.\u00a0 The windows were open with the ocean breezes blowing in. It was indeed magical.\u00a0 Right across the road was the beach, but would you believe, we never got to that beach.\u00a0 Not once.\u00a0 But we did get to a beach. One less traveled.\u00a0 One you had to walk a two mile round trip to get to.<\/p>\n

The first day I made new friends.<\/p>\n

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Just a few feet from our motel’s front door was a little pier and these guys were gathered there.\u00a0 I just happened to have some crackers in the car and they loved them. And they called their friends.<\/p>\n

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Soon we had several seagulls flying around us.<\/p>\n

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They posed for us.\u00a0 Seagulls are one of my top five favorite birds. They are really what I miss the most about the beach.<\/p>\n

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On an island? There has to be a flamingo somewhere.<\/p>\n

We wanted to go to the beach and we were told if we parked at a bird sanctuary on the island we could walk to the beach.\u00a0\u00a0We weren’t told\u00a0it was a two mile round trip, but it was worth it.\u00a0 Although we heard not one bird while walking through the bird sanctuary we did enjoy the peacefulness of it and we seemed to be the only people there.\u00a0 When we finally got to the beach, it was almost empty.\u00a0 David played in the water and I laid on the sand and listened to the ocean.\u00a0 We walked a way down the beach and saw a dead crab, a child’s shovel and a few shells.\u00a0 Away out in the distance we could see oil rigs.\u00a0 Oil rigs surround the island.\u00a0\u00a0 It was so wonderful.\u00a0Not the\u00a0oil rigs, just being at the beach with the sun and the sound of the waves.\u00a0 I have always been in awe of the ocean.\u00a0 But we are northerners with very white skin and soon we were both showing a little redness and remembering horrible burns we got years ago on a South Carolina beach, we decided to head back.<\/p>\n

The second day on the island we left the island and\u00a0drove a few miles north of it to a wonderful place called Bellingrath Gardens.<\/p>\n

Heading there we got on this road.<\/p>\n

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Surely these gardens were not on this road.\u00a0 Miss Garmin!!!!<\/p>\n

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All we saw on this road was this fancy rooster who acted like he very seldom saw other humans except his own.\u00a0 The music from Deliverance was running in my head at this point.<\/p>\n

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And David would NEVER admit he was lost. Until we came to a dead end and had to turn around.\u00a0\u00a0 But we did find the garden so all was well.<\/p>\n

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Land purchased by a Coca Cola CEO in the 1930’s held only an old fishing shack, but he and his wife built a magnificent house and planted\u00a0wonderful gardens\u00a0on 65 acres and opened the gardens to the public.\u00a0 The gardens were opened to the public off and on until Mr. Bellingrath died in the 1950’s and has been open to the public ever since. What a gift they have given to all of us. For a fee you can tour their house(we didn’t because we knew it would take us all day to see the gardens even though we were told it all could be seen in a couple of hours) and tour the gardens spread out along the Fowl River.\u00a0 Here are some of the flowers we saw….<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

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These look like cyclamen, but I am not sure. I was entranced by them because I have never seen flowers like this.\u00a0 So sweet.<\/p>\n

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Orchids in the green house.<\/p>\n

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Even pineapples were growing.<\/p>\n

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Fountains all around.<\/p>\n

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The smell of roses filled the air.<\/p>\n

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A little mermaid.<\/p>\n

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More live oaks dripping with Spanish moss.\u00a0 That always says the south to me.\u00a0 Always.<\/p>\n

Mrs. Bellingrath was a woman of faith and had a chapel built on the property.\u00a0 Weddings are sometimes held there.\u00a0 The windows were exquisite.<\/p>\n

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Everywhere you looked there was eye candy.<\/p>\n

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The house was indeed grand and overlooked the river.\u00a0 But it took us hours to go through the gardens.\u00a0 I’m not done yet.<\/p>\n

There was a wooden\u00a0walkway you could walk around an estuary.\u00a0 Of course it took us a while to walk it as we had to look at everything.<\/p>\n

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We were surrounded by scenes like this.<\/p>\n

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A lookout built above the estuary.<\/p>\n

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Lots of fish. This guy looks about right for frying up in a skillet!<\/p>\n

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And look at the claws on this guy.<\/p>\n

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Bamboo grew abundantly.<\/p>\n

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Two old lions making friends.<\/p>\n

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Trumpet flowers falling on my head!<\/p>\n

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David called this the Medusa log.\u00a0 Looks like Medusa’s head, doesn’t it?<\/p>\n

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We saw this plaque on the way out.<\/p>\n

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It’s Rebekah at the well giving water to\u00a0a servant sent to find a wife for Isaac.\u00a0 \u00a0 It’s a story in the book of Genesis.\u00a0 Another of Mrs. Bellingrath’s homages to scriptures.<\/p>\n

It was a totally wonderful day and it did take us hours to go through the gardens.\u00a0 Everywhere there were people working on the gardens planting new flowers and mulching. It’s a never ending job.\u00a0 The only part I found that seemed to not belong was an Asian garden. I don’t think\u00a0it’s original to the gardens.\u00a0It was poorly kept and had\u00a0very few if any flowers. I don’t know if it was under construction or something\u00a0or was not as popular as all the rest.\u00a0\u00a0It just didn’t fit in.\u00a0 But all in all, if you are ever in this part of the country, Bellingrath gardens is really worth seeing.<\/p>\n

We went through the gift shop and David bought me the prettiest umbrella.\u00a0 I had been complaining to him a while back when it was raining, that I could never seem to find an umbrella.\u00a0 Now I have one of my own.<\/p>\n

On our way back to the motel we passed this.<\/p>\n

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\"DSCN7097\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An old fashioned tent revival.\u00a0 I would have liked to have gone, but David was tired so we passed on by.\u00a0 Next, we visit a Civil War fort and head back north. Bye.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, on we drove deeper into the south.\u00a0 To places that\u00a0had seen\u00a0the ravages of the Civil War which was not civil at all.\u00a0\u00a0 Thankfully, many of the little towns were bypassed and were not destroyed by the Union soldiers. One little town was welcoming Spring. It seems Spring was late almost everywhere this year. Over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8021"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8095,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8021\/revisions\/8095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snicklefritz.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}