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Today’s post showcases the variety of quirky and fun experiences I had while in Mobile, Alabama. It’s a mixed bag, you might say.
Greer’s Market
We don’t want to eat out every night. Neither our budget nor our waistlines could handle that. Since full-time travel is our life, not a vacation, we do need to be creative about our cuisine. Putting together a meal without a kitchen just requires some ingenuity. One night in Mobile, we decided we just wanted simple sandwiches. Our Google search revealed a store one mile away. The fact that it wasn’t a big box store, but rather a small, regional chain was a bonus. We decided to walk the one mile there, do our light shopping, and walk the one mile back to the Battle House Renaissance Hotel.
How’s this for a history lesson? In the early 1900’s American grocery stores sold items on credit and delivered them to the customers’ homes. In 1916, Autry Greer founded Greer’s Market in Mobile, Alabama on the cash-and-carry concept. Shoppers simply paid for their food onsite and walked out of the store with it. What a novel concept!
The market has since expanded into a 28-store chain with locations in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Most importantly, it is still owned by the Greer family today.
We found that it wasn’t our most inexpensive grocery store experience, but the homemade chicken salad was worth the extra dough. Yum! We tried some homemade pimento cheese spread too (mediocre) and a container of cinnamon-spiced & sugared pecans (fantastic) for our dessert. Overall, it was worth the walk to have the chance to shop at a 105-year old market still owned by the same family.
Squid Ink Eclectic Eats
When I saw the name of this restaurant and its tagline, I was intrigued. Once I confirmed that they do not serve pasta in squid ink, I was sold. Perhaps I should explain. This bias is due to a trauma of disgusting proportions while on my first trip to Italy 15 years ago. I will never recover from the sight of watching a messy man eat pasta and squid in its own ink. His face was covered in black goo, and he had to ask the server to bring him two clean napkins, which were covered in black ink in a matter of minutes. It was gross and I didn’t eat seafood of any kind for a month after that night. Sorry, I digress. . .
Squid Ink is in an old building and has a bar and small dining area on the first floor and a loft above that serves as a second dining area. When we walked in between lunch time and dinner time on a weekday we were the only diners on the first floor. Since the international germs are still out there, that was perfect for us.
This place prides itself on being eclectic. It’s even in the tagline: Eclectic Eats and Drinks. No Mobile restaurant would be considered respectable if it didn’t serve seafood, so that’s there.
- Spanish S.O.S. (Squid on a Shingle)
- Mussels Pernod
- West Indies Pressed Sushi
- And more
Diners will also find sandwiches and Po Boys. I can vouch for the Shrimp Po Boy. They didn’t skimp on the shrimp, which many places do. The only small area for improvement was that I would have liked a tad more remoulade sauce. Diners have a difficult choice, though when faced with selections like the Cadillac Coupe de Ville Burger: bacon, brie, plum tomato jam and caramelized onions OR the Chicken Bahn Mi Salad: pickled carrot, pickled daikon, jalapeno, crispy chickpeas, and cilantro. For the evening, there are pasta dishes and lots of custom cocktails to round out the crazy choices, including two that actually contain squid ink. No, I did NOT try either of those. Maybe someday after I’ve completed trauma therapy, I will try them.
The Charles Wood Japanese Garden
This 24-acre park is 100% all-volunteer. Therefore, any criticisms that I have are delivered with that caveat. It is quite an impressive feat for volunteers to plant and maintain a property this large. Therefore, the fact that much of it looked like regular Southern woods to me, is something I say with hesitation, especially since I don’t know anything about botany or landscaping.
I still enjoyed my afternoon stroll and photo opportunity immensely. There are 5-6 large ponds, and four marked trails. The trails are packed earth and some portions contain wooden boardwalk, making this a nicely ADA-accessible park to explore. That’s a huge plus.
There are 12 acres of wooded trails that are not maintained to look like a Japanese Garden, but I did not hike these. I was more interested in walking the 12 acres of Japanese-style gardens and ponds.
The highlight of the property for me and for the other visitors I saw are the two ponds, heavily stocked with Pond Turtles, Leatherback Turtles, Snapping Turtles, and Koi.
Along the boardwalk, one trail has a portion that overlooks a river. The day I visited I watched a man fish in the river.
As I said, much of the property needs a little TLC but that’s because the volunteers that run it are busy little bees. They also run the Japanese Studies Center of Mobile. Here they offer educational programming in the form of field trips for school-aged children. They also offer a huge array of classes in calligraphy, Japanese flower arranging, Japanese-style watercolor painting, Bonsai sculpting and Japanese language and culture.
After the year of the pandemic, I wasn’t the only was who was enjoying this free park. During the two hours I explored, I watched walkers come and go steadily. Apparently, locals are familiar with this touch of Japan in their midst. Kudos to the volunteers in Mobile who care for this property with gusto and altruism.
You can find more information about their ambitious project here.
What kinds of cute, fun or quirky hometown places have you stumbled upon while traveling? Are there some that I should see while I travel the South? Tell me in the comments.
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