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Mobilian Memories, Vacation Chapter Two

Saturday we woke up with friends in Houston, scooted on to I-10 and straight out of town. Not much to note about this part of the drive besides the fact that we had the most dreamy traffic kharma you could imagine.

Like just outside Houston, True started squealing that he had to go to the bathroom and it might be a poop. Oh man. I darted right off the road at the next exit, came up a hill to see the entire interstate in park for the forseeable expanse. I drove 70 on the open feeder past 15 miles of backed up cars, to a place where they were hosing off the road, on to the following entrance ramp, to the very next exit which happened to be a rest stop. It was amazing. I never even slowed and we passed hundreds of people who probably spent an hour at least just parked right there on the interstate. Freaky lucky, ya know?

Traffic is frightening out there these days. I can't believe how populated the same ole shitty two lane highways are. We saw so much crazy insane crap out there, you should all be ashamed. More about that later, but from this missing the massive traffic jam incident in Htown to getting off scot free on that speeding ticket ten miles from home, our driving kharma was just out of this world.

Sometime around seven that night we rolled into Mobile, Alabama and it took our breath away. If you are unfamiliar, there are a series of tunnels that take you under the Mobile River (I thought it was the Mobile River, but I can't find that anywhere).

The kids creamed their little pants. Driving under a river? Get out of here! It was like the craziest, coolest thing that they never imagined they might do. Of course, in America, cause we rock. The good vibes and the gulf flowing above, I guess, stirred their nether regions, because halfway through the tunnel both boys had to pee.

And I, seeing Mobile for the first time myself, had no idea what treasures still lie ahead. I pulled to the right lane of the tunnel and took the first exit once we ascended to land level again. The exit was Battleship Park. What luck. We needed a place to duck off the road and pee and lookie what we found totally by chance...

The USS Alabama. Awesome. A bonafide WWII battleship. I have to say, there is a fine collection of planes and tanks out there in the dark and we drove around quite a while taking pictures that didn't really turn out. The boys wanted to sleep right there in the parking lot gazing at that battleship but I promised them we'd stop on the way back and we mosied on down the highway.

The boys were basically as high as kites on coke, honey coated granola and candy, stuff they normally wouldn't be allowed to eat but somehow eased our collective roadrage like soul food for the long southern roadtrip. The stick factor was yilko disgusto back there in the boys' area by the end of day two. Beautifully quiet and dark as pitch we pulled away, driving down 90 all by our lonesomes leaving that beautiful battleship in the tiniest spot in the middle of the rearview mirror.

And as we rode off, True, exhasperated with excitement and riding that chocolate high, blurted out, "I love Mobile, it is the most awesome city in these United States, no offense to any of the other cities. It's just so beautiful. It reminds me of how Italy used to be, a long time ago, before it sank."

Posted by shoe at March 23, 2007 08:01 PM | TrackBack