Turkey and Football!!

It has been a beautiful, warm, sunny Thanksgiving Day with lots of turkey and all the trimmings of course for us. And then there are the football games which we both really enjoy to watch and getting all wrapped up in during the day.
We did take out a little time earlier in the day (before the 'feast' and the 'phootball') to visit one of the historical sites in the area, Fort Morgan, a Civil War encampment established by the Confederates to prevent Union blockades of Mobile Bay. The initial fortification occurred at this site in the 1500's under the Spanish explorers; then major construction began in 1819, and was finished in 1834. The large brick fort serviced the Confederacy, then later, the Spanish-American War, and both world wars. It played a major role during the Battle of Mobile Bay in August 1864 when Confederate and Union forces fought for control of the harbor entrance. This Battle of Mobile Bay was where Admiral David Farragut gave his infamous command, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" There are a number of brick and concrete breastworks and gunnery emplacements. It was an interesting side-trip.

(This is a picture of a picture (air shot),
in the museum of Fort Morgan today)

There is the Mobile Bay Ferry that runs between Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines (located across the 8 mile bay entrance on Dauphine Island); and due to time constraints (hey, we gotta have our turkey and football, eh?) we did not take the ferry trip this time.
We did come across another interesting site - the Indian Village Achuse, which is the site of the oldest Indian sighting and visitation (1530) in the U.S. This was even long before the pilgrims landfall in the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts.















From Gulf Shores going west out to Fort Morgan, you are driving for about 18 miles on a paved two-lane road through very lush growth, with water on both sides (it is about 200 to 800 yards wide). There are a number of real nice beach homes along this drive as well.

It has been a great Thanksgiving Day for us (with the exception of missing our family and many of our friends of course), and we have many things to give thanks for, not only on this day, but on all our other days also.

And as you will note, there are some rather interesting signs along the way down here also. Those gators don't have a thing to worry about at far as we are concerned. They can have all the room they want, and live as peaceful as they wish.

But then I guess there are some people that need to be told for their own safety...










A VERY HAPPY THANKSGIVING DAY TO ALL!!





> The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway (at Gulf Shores -
looking East); The restaurant in the lower left
corner of the picture (with the teal-blue roof) is
"LuLu's". It is owned and operated by Lucy Buffett,
the sister of Jimmy Buffett.