Flotsam and Jetsam – Gulf Coast Edition

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations from the panhandle of Florida and the Gulf Coast of Alabama.

I never knew that the coast of Alabama was so beautiful. Even with all the damage from the recent hurricanes the beauty of the area is apparent. This – of course – is no secret to many other people – seeing how the coast is dotted with high rise condo developments with many more high-rises under construction. If fact between the repair work for the damage from the hurricanes and the new construction – I have never seen so much building concentrated in a single area in my life… It occurred to me that Steve Miller was the original Meatloaf (and I’m not talking about singing styles)… I traveled hundreds of miles – from Birmingham down to Pensacola and over to the Gulf Coast of Alabama and back to Birmingham and in all that travel I did not see a single Waffle House that appeared damaged in any way by the hurricanes. This of course led me to wonder why people don’t hire the architects who did the Waffle Houses to build their homes to make them hurricane proof too… Yesterday USA Today had a survey on “What is Sex?” and 99.7% of females and 99.2% of males said that intercourse constituted sex. I’m guessing that the survey had a margin of error of at least 0.3% for female respondents and 0.8% for males… The amount of college football talk on the radio in Alabama is unreal. I heard more talk about Alabama and Tennessee and college football in general then I heard in my life. The sports talk radio stations do more college football talk in a day then WEEI in Boston does in a month… Alabama is on Central Time? That really screwed me up… I found it interesting that last Saturday the Lowes 500 Nascar race got 7.9 million viewers while the fourth game of the ALCS between Chicago and Anaheim had just 7.6 million… The new condos in Orange Beach, AL are going for between $600,000 and $1.2 million. I think I’ll rent instead… Now I can cross Alabama off the list of states that I haven’t visited. Now all that are left are South Carolina, Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Iowa, Nebraska, Hawaii and Alaska…. So I got to the Gulf Coast of Alabama by flying out of Providence into Birmingham and driving from there. I couldn’t find anywhere closer to fly into that didn’t cost and arm and a leg (the round-trip Providence to Birmingham on Southwest was just $400). Anyone have a better way of getting to the Gulf Coast? I would have flown into New Orleans and driven from there but I don’t think the airport is back up and running like before…