Deep South Roadtrip: USS Alabama

Picking up from last time, after we left Montgomery, we drove south to Mobile, straight to a hotel. Monday's drive = About 9 hours, about 525 miles.

We had volunteered to take all the leftover booze from the Savannah rental house, because we were driving right to Houston for another weekend of partying, which made a lot of sense. Except, we had to take it in and out of all the hotels and such, because it was just so hot outside, we didn't want the beer and wine to go bad. Two 12 packs of beer, 3 oversized bottles of wine, and lots of half empty bottles of liquor. Ugh.

Anyway, I collapsed in the hotel feeling all kinds of crappy, but Dan ran me a bubble bath and went out to get dinner (awwwwwwwww. I know right?) We planned to get up the next morning, pack up the car and head out to tour the USS Alabama, which is permanently docked in the Mobile Bay. We ended up having our breakfast, going to the ship and coming back to the hotel to pack up and change. Pat on my own back for good decision making because it was SO HOT that morning. We were at the ship at 9:30, and on the ship for about 90 minutes and were pretty much drenched in sweat. There was no shade to park in, all the booze would have gone bad.

Priorities!

The USS Alabama has quite the history of service, which you can read about here if you would like. It has been a fixture in the Mobile Bay since 1965, open to visitors - along with a submarine (the USS Drum) and several different planes. The Alabama has three different self-guided tours that you can follow, and you can go pretty much anywhere on the ship, which is why we wanted to go. Like I mentioned - super hot, very sweaty, but incredibly interesting. I also learned for sure that I would never want to live on a battleship.

Dan as a sailor. He's still smiling because this was right at the beginning of our wanderings, and he is not yet ridiculously sweaty.