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Exploring historic Mobile.

We spent the day casually wandering the shady streets of several of Mobile's nine historic districts.  Some were more interesting than others.  Of particular note were the Oakleigh Garden District, which contains the beautiful Washington Square surrounded by gorgeous southern homes of various styles and Dauphin Street, which is the main downtown entertainment district.  Mobile has many beautiful well-kept/restored  historic homes but they are pretty low-key about it and only have a couple that are open for tours.  Mobile has a 300-year history.  In fact, they have the oldest Mardi Gras celebration in the US.  It seems if they worked on it they could be more of a destination.  There were not many other tourists around and the lack of shops (and decent postcards!) on Dauphin St. is quite noticeable.  But it was just as well for us!

A very pleasant lunch break was spent at what seemed to be the most popular place around called "A Spot of Tea."  Here, we enjoyed homemade soups and sandwiches at an umbrella-covered outdoor table located right on the park.  As tasty as the food was, the best thing on their menu had to be the huge glasses of their signature strawberry iced tea (sweet, of course!) - deeeee-licious!

Our last tourist activity of the day was a visit to the historic Bragg Mitchell Mansion.  It was a lovely old plantation-style home but unfortunately they had enclosed most of the wrap-around porch on the back of the house.  In our (completely unqualified) opinion, this was a huge mistake.  But then, we are suckers for a good southern veranda!  The most notable thing about the tour was how many times our guide Charlie mentioned that he was a retired fire captain and a Christian.  It's a toss up which he mentioned more.  He even tried to get us to come to his church on Sunday!

Caroline was still full from the slab of prime rib she ate on Monday, so we had a light dinner at a very casual seafood place on Dauphin St.  We slurped a dozen oysters and ate a couple of side salads with our Miller light drafts.  The oysters rivaled those in Tomales Bay (CA) in size and flavor/freshness and were only $7.49/doz.  You can't beat that with a stick!  Caroline loves the south!