Thursday we went to Tuscaloosa to have lunch with family and to hang out in Tuscaloosa for a bit visiting one of our favorite places. Roll Tide!!
Thursday night was the wrap up of the Change for Children’s fundraiser at Taziki’s downtown. There was $46,654.56 donated to Children’s of Alabama thanks to everyone that contributed.
We decided late Friday afternoon to get away to the beach for the weekend. So this week we have been from one end of the state to the other. So about 3:30 we find and book a room and by 4:30 we are in the car headed to the beach. This is so unlike us. We usually plan and plan and plan, but not this trip. I think the only thing that we found we didn’t think to pack was sunscreen, but it ended up being a cold rainy weekend.
We stayed at the Island House by Hilton hotel. This was the first time we’ve stayed there. It has recently been updated and was a nice hotel. It stormed overnight and the rest of the time our balcony had standing water so we had to wear our shoes when we went out there. It didn’t warm up enough to fully dry out. The hurricane shutters were up which has a raised track on the floor that is about 2-3 inches high so you aren’t able to brush the water off.
Saturday morning we were able to walk down to the beach. The water was quite cold. There were jellyfish washed up on the shore in front of our hotel, so we had to watch where we stepped. We didn’t see any as we walked further down the beach. There were a few people there who were braving the cold in their swimsuits. While sitting on the balcony wrapped up in a blanket we saw a couple take a skim/boogie board and a round float down to the water. Took a few minutes but he finally got in and attempted to somewhat surf. It took her a lot longer to get in the water but she finally did. We didn’t stay out on the balcony to see if she floated around, tried to ride the waves or what. It was cold out there and we left to go get dinner.
We rode around the area and stopped at some of our favorite places like Island Outfitters and Souvenir City. Some places it’s a tradition to visit. We rode thru The Wharf but didn’t see any store that we really wanted to stop and go into.
This trip we looked for restaurants that we have not eaten at before. We carried granola bars with us for breakfast. For lunch on Saturday we went to GT’s on the Bay. This place didn’t look like much from the outside but it was really big on the inside and the food was really good. They have a raised pool in the middle of the restaurant that had 2 sharks in it. There is an awesome view of the bay from any seat. For lunch I started with a salad from the salad bar, then I had blackened red fish on a bed of grits with a side of mixed vegetables. Jeff had chicken carbonara. The noodles were bigger than spaghetti noodles but were hollow in the middle, he said that he had never had a spaghetti noodle like that before. We tried the Blondie for dessert. It was good. This is a place that we will add to our list of places to eat at when we visit.
For dinner we weren’t sure what we wanted so we decided to try a place called Little New Orleans. It was bleh. I had double cheese mac and cheese from the appetizer menu. It was good but not something that I’d want to go back for. Jeff had red beans and rice. He said that it was good and wasn’t spicy. He said that even the smoked sausage didn’t have any spiciness to it. It’s not a place that we will plan to visit next time we are visiting.
Today we drove over to Mobile to have lunch with Tyler and Amy before heading home. They had been busy and working so they weren’t able to join us at the beach yesterday. We went to Heroes Sports Bar & Grill near the University of South Alabama. The food was good and there were football games on every TV.
After lunch we headed home. When we got close to Montgomery Jeff checked the Waze app to see what traffic looked like headed north and found that there was a wreck at Prattville. It was an overturned and burned 18 wheeler. So we got on Highway 31 below Montgomery and went all the way to the Peach Park in Clanton. We stopped there to swap drivers and of course I had to grab a scoop of canteloupe ice cream. A lady in the parking lot asked if we had been in the wreck traffic she said that it had taken them 3 hours to get thru. Thankfully going Highway 31 only added an hour to our drive.
We have safely made it home and are wrapping up an enjoyable vacation week.