Quick Stops in Alabama & Mississippi en Route to NOLA

Last Wednesday morning we left Panama City Beach and headed west to New Orleans with a few planned stops along the way.  Our first stop was in Fairhope, Alabama.  Probably somewhere you've never heard of (we certainly hadn't), but it's in one of our trusted guidebooks, 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, and it sounded pretty cool.  So, we opted to stop there instead of Mobile, a city that just looked like a big oil company outpost (forgive me if there really are awesome things about Mobile - we just didn't read or see anything that warranted a stop).

Fairhope is a little town on a bay right off the Gulf of Mexico.  The write-up about it mentions that it's absolutely overflowing with flowers, and it didn't disappoint!  It's a small town with a mainstreet you can walk down in 10 minutes, and it's immaculate and lush with flora.  The people here are so nice and polite, too - even the trash cans say "waste please."

This is what every street and every corner looked like in Fairhope. Beautiful!

We searched Yelp for a good lunch spot and found the amazing Panini Pete's.  This might still be the best meal we've had the whole trip.  Their paninis were AMAZING, and they came with homemade chips and pasta salad.  The best part, though (and what they're famous for even though "panini" is in their name), was their beignets... hands down better than the beignets we had at the famous Cafe du Monde in New Orleans later in the week (but I must say those were also delicious!). 

We scarfed down two of the beignets before we remembered to take a picture.  mmm....

Fairhope has a French Quarter, so between that and the beignets, we could see that the French influence spread farther east than we previously thought.  The pictures below are of the walkway to Panini Pete's and the outdoor garden where we ate.  Everything about this meal was 5 Stars.  Amazing.  And we never ever would have stopped here if we hadn't looked in our book!

After lunch, we continued West into Mississippi.  We left the main highway to drive from Biloxi to Gulfport along the water and check out each town.  One of our friends told us these areas had been hit hard by Katrina, and they were also affected by the recent BP oil spill, so we were curious to see them.  It's obvious that some buildings and piers were destroyed - in both cities there is still evidence of structures that used to be there and many buildings that had been abandoned.  There are also lots of new giant houses (I'm guessing that oceanfront land is still pretty cheap post-Katrina?) and casinos (who knew Mississippi had casinos?!?).

There is a long beach that runs along the highway from Biloxi to Gulfport, and we decided to pull over and check it out close up.  As we suspected, there is still oil residue on the beaches and in the water... after a walk on the beach, we had to wash spots of oil off our feet.  :-(  It's pretty vast, though, and if you ever want more personal space when you stake your spot on a beach, go here.  There are also a lot of military folk here.  Perhaps why there are American Flags everywhere?  We walked out on a pier and saw a bunch of local guys fishing, too.  It was a nice little stop to break up our drive a bit more.

From here, we drove the last leg to New Orleans.  We arrived in the early evening so we had plenty of time to eat dinner and check out Bourbon Street.  I'll put all the NOLA happenings into our next post!