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Mobile - Part 3
Written by: Dominick A. Miserandino
Photography by: Margherita Miserandino
Like the reality that every major city must have a "Rather Tall Restaurant", they must also have an interactive science museum. They’re all the rage and if your city doesn’t have one you’ll be made fun of, when all of the other cities get together and play.
Fortunately, the other cities can’t make fun of Mobile for this, as they do have the Gulf Coast Exploreum Museum of Science. Considering the museum is geared towards kids it’s a bit torturous to expect a child to remember the six word title, let alone say it.
"Mommy I want to go to the Gulf Coast Exploring thing..."
"You can’t go until you can say all of the words in order."
The museum has it’s own Imax theater and was showing an exhibition on Dinosaurs. While we were there a few kids were true dinosaur nuts, and were making the appropriate growling noises.
After the museum it was time for lunch and we headed away from the city center on Government Street to Saucy Q Bar B Q restaurant. Everything that’s anything is on Government street, which is a very pretty tree lined street that has well, everything and anything.
Saucy Q Bar B Q is a barbeque lovers dream. This is for professional eaters only. Amateurs should stay clear. The first sign of their intensity is behind the counter- the statues of the pigs. They seem to say, "Yes, this is what we’ve slaughtered for your belly’s amusement." Pigs beware, we will eat you.
On each table is hot sauce, more hot sauce and a stick with a roll of paper towels. No, don’t even think about napkins. You will get messy and you will enjoy it. Don’t ask for the fine linens, simply ask for the ribs. It’s down-home cooking which seemed to make Margherita revert back to her southern girl mode. She ordered her macaroni and cheese, collard greens and of course the ribs, and as lady-like as ever, cleaned the ribs quicker than... well, think of a metaphor for something really quick and that’s how fast she cleaned the ribs.
We grabbed some paper towels, cleaned up, and then headed out to see the Bragg-Mitchell Mansion. Fortunately, we had perfect timing. The Bragg-Mitchell mansion is host to many weddings and we came in as they were preparing to set up for one.
I admit that at this point in my writings I’ve gotten a bit bored of old houses. You hear the story of the owners, you see the furniture which they struggled to get back to the time period they were hoping for, and Margherita gets lots of decorating ideas which will inevitably cost us a good deal of money. Maybe it’s simply the negative reinforcement of the money that will be spent, or it could be the fact that we’ve seen so many. I will now try to focus on the uniqueness, to relieve my monotony and yours.
I hate to admit it, because it’s not the manly thing to do, but this house was really pretty for a wedding. Yes, I used the phrase "really pretty". It has the prerequisite long stairway. The flowers were everywhere, the ballroom looked big, which is good for a ballroom to look. They had woodwork everywhere in another room, which really looked cute.
After the Bragg-Mitchell mansion we headed out to the Oakleigh Historic Complex. The complex is a set of houses with the main building a typical southern mansion, built up where you enter on the second floor where you have parlors and long windows. What I liked here though was the Mardi-Gras museum. It reviews the history of Mardi-Gras in Mobile and reminds you again and again of the fact that Mobile started Mardi-Gras celebrations in the south. In fact, they say that in the early 19th century, they went over to New Orleans and taught them about Mardi Gras.
They remind you that their Mardi Gras is much friendlier.
"What should be covered, will remain covered." The tour guide said. Girls Gone Wild would not like Mardi-Gras in Mobile. Grandma, your kids and grandkids would love it here.
We left Oakleigh and again went back to the hotel to change and go to dinner. We were supposed to have dinner on the Joshua, a traditional wooden schooner.
I did say supposed to. We got to the Joshua. We saw the boat. We learned how Captain Carol built the boat by hand with a group of friends who believed in her dream. We learned that it took nine years to build the boat and yes, we thought that the boat was very pretty.
I said "supposed to" earlier because we also learned the term Waterspout referring to a tornado over water. It’s the effect when the water spirals up creating small mini, water tornadoes. We learned that this wasn’t really the best weather to ride a boat in. For some reason the captain felt that sailing in this weather would cause the boat to break into a few thousand bits. Margherita felt that it would also give her a nasty case of sea-sickness, let alone the other impending dooms of a tornado over water.
We didn’t eat dinner on the Joshua.
We grabbed a bite to eat and headed home.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
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