Road Trippy - Day 4

This morning I survived a close encounter with heart disease by having breakfast at a Chevron station on Dauphin Island. In addition to the typical fare one might expect at at convenience store, they also had some steam trays of breakfasty goodness for those not satiated by Oreo Bites and Powerade. I went with the sausage patty and eggs on a biscuit and then, to court further cardiac risk, got a chunk of another type of ring-style sausage to see what that was like. The chunk I ate was about 3 inches and so greasy and rich, I'm not sure I would have survived four inches.

After a quick angioplasty, we hopped onto I-10, into Mobile and to the USS Alabama. The South Dakota-class battleship has been on display for a while, but has now been fortified (and righted) since Katrina blew through. Probably the most interesting aspect of the tour was the contrast of high tech (for the era) and low-tech. This is from inside turret #2:

If I learned my naval history correctly, the Alabama has the 2nd largest guns (after the Iowa-class battleships) the navy ever sent out of a ship yard. To rap one's knuckles on the armored turrets is to knock on a granite mountain. Between squawking intercoms, slamming iron hatchways and the report of 14-inch guns, it's amazing anyone got off the boat with their hearing intact.

Lunch at Ed's on the US90 causeway, and then a slow, lazy tour of residential Mobile which varies from the stately grace of civilized New Orleans to the worst of Appalachia.