soapbox

…Alabama!

Yeah, it was a good weekend. Had a nice, albeit all too brief, trip back home with Sara to visit my family from Saturday, 10/28, to Tuesday, 10/31. Ate way too much good food and enjoyed some good quality time with folks I wish I could see lots more often. The weather cooperated, even though it tried it’s best to keep me grounded in Boston on Saturday with some hellacious winds. (We had a 100 knot headwind from Logan to Charlotte, NC!)

Further details and links to pictures after the jump…

Saturday and Tuesday were mostly travel days, but after arriving on Saturday afternoon, we went out to eat at Jesse’s, in Magnolia Springs, AL, my folks’ favorite restaurant.

Sunday began with the early service at St. Paul’s in Magnolia Springs. It continued with lunch with the extended family at my grandparents’ house, where all the fruit trees seemed to be bearing bumper crops. Yes, those are lemons; the grapefruit are much bigger and rounder, and the persimmons are orange, but so are the satsumas. Plus, there was barbecue pork, homemade mac and cheese, coleslaw, potato salad, and baked beans for lunch, with mandarin orange cake and lemon pound cake for dessert. I ate way too much…

Monday began with a brisk early morning walk around downtown Fairhope followed by a late morning trek through the parklands of the Weeks Bay Estuary, including the pitcher plant bog and the boardwalk trail through the wetlands of the northwest end of the bay. Lunch with my folks was at Felix’s on the causeway near Mobile, AL.

That afternoon, we returned to Fairhope for a more leisurely walk through town with my folks. Sara brought “Batman Begins” on DVD, which neither her nor my parents had seen, so that was watched on Monday night. Entertaining for everyone, even the second time around for me. Reminded me how good that movie was and how good a well-executed superhero tale can be.

A big breakfast of homemade blueberry pancakes with berries from my parents’ backyard completed a most excellent weekend and served me well by providing me with enough energy to make it through most of the day’s travels without getting too hungry. (The “lunch” I had of Reese’s pieces and some dried fruit trail mix from the news stand in the Charlotte airport wouldn’t have been near enough if not for my awesome breakfast…)

While it sucked having to say good-bye to Sara and my family until the holidays, the trip back here was improved by some great reading materials: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. Although I only got about a third of the way through it during my flights, I look to finish it in the next week or so, and it’s just spectacular. So glad Sara loaned it to me and that I’ll get to read it before the film opens, which is alos looking to be pretty darned good.

Yeah, it was a good weekend…

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 2nd, 2006 at 2:45 am and is filed under books, food, from the road, movies, pictures, weather. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.