Buying bikes down here is turning out to be one of our better ideas. We had a couple of good bike rides in Gulf Shores. On the main drag, the bike lane is separated from the cars by a rumble strip. Riding around the lake on the campground road, we saw this heron. Always a good sign. Lunch with Georgette and July on the way up from the beach had lots of southern foods on the table at one time: catfish, turnip greens, okra, cornbread...And of course we stopped at the Burris Farm Market with its big fans moving the
air over the tables of fresh produce, producing the perfect sensorium, kind of a white noise for your brain that says nap time home nap time home nap time.
Today we had our morning coffee at Java Grotto on the Mandeville lakefront down the street from Jinx & Peg's house, then rode our bikes to Covington on the Tammany Trace. Something I never thought I'd see in Louisiana is a tunnel that lets the trail cross under Hwy 190. Peg says they had to redo it a couple of times to get it right. The air is thick with wild ligustrum and honeysuckle. We stopped for lunch in Abita Springs at the Brew Pub. Mighty fine day. PB&J's old Mandeville neighborhood is just full of cute cottages and gardens. 
Three graduates in the family this May: nephew Sean in computer science from LSU, niece Michelle from USL, and sister-in-law July from South Alabama University. July's last school project was a paper on effects of service dogs on their human partners. She and Georgette made a video showing their amazing dog Bogus doing things like picking up things July had dropped, opening doors, bringing you the remote or cell phone, etc. We may have to fly them up to Maine for some work with Wing and Scout.
|
