Sue in a bedroom at Bellingrath

We woke up Sunday the 28^th in Mobile and went early to Bellingrath Home about 30 minutes south to avoid rain and heat which was predicted to start before noon. We were a month or two past the best of the flowers but the gardens were still beautiful. The best we’ve seen since Brookgreen Gardens.

The home was impressive, especially the dining room. Most prominent was porcelain collection. No doubt one of the finest in the world, but seemed like an awful lot of that stuff for one house. They had a simple but nice restaurant in the gift center near the entrance where we ate lunch before returning to the city.

On the stairway at Bellingrath. The home was large, but not as large as some we had seen.

Of the 5 or 6 historic house museums in downtown Mobile only one, the Richardson DAR house, was open on Sunday so there we went. While we’ve heard of them before this is the first time either of us met an actual Daughter of the American Revolution. There were two of them there to show us through the home and explain its history.

Since most other things were closed, we decided to head on toward Florida the next day. We finished at the DAR house by 3 and headed east. After about 3 hours we stopped a few miles short of Tallahassee for overnight.

Some of the dishes at Bellingrath. One of Sue’s favorite things.

The next day the weather was rainy, but is not such a concern as with boat travel, so we started off around 9 and went the rest of the way to Sarasota. We got here around 5, taking slower routes that I hoped would be more scenic than the interstate. That didn’t work as well as it did in Louisiana. Florida isn’t the same as Louisiana. As we hit the central part of the peninsula near the Gulf coast we were on an expressway. I’m sure every year a few more stoplights have been added. We could have avoided the lights by driving the highways more inland. Near the coast didn’t mean on the coast. We did not see the Gulf, just lots of strip malls and businesses. After this in Florida I’ll follow the route the GPS selects.

A bit overcast but no rain as we walked through the gardens.

I’m thinking that maybe main roads are not on the coast in the upper and central peninsula west coast area might be that Gulf is very shallow for many miles out along the eastern panhandle and down the west coast until just above Tampa. There’s no place I would take our boat within miles of the shore in that area. Because of less maritime business at the coast, there was no reason any main roads would have ever been built there.