On the way to GulfQuest we drove through some lovely live oak shaded Mobile neighborhoods. This was a big day for Mobile with two Mardi Gras parades and the Senior Bowl. We were stopped at one point by the motorcycle and siren blaring police cars accompanying the fan buses being transported from the center of Mobile to the stadium. Southern fans are serious about their college football but before today we didn’t even know what the Senior Bowl was. We called Will and asked – it’s the country’s best senior collegiate players and top NFL draft prospects on teams representing the North and South.
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As we were about to make our final turn into the GulfQuest parking lot we were stopped at a railroad crossing and waited while a two engine and 153 car train transporting mostly Liquified Natural Gas passed by.
Speaking of southern oddities (who was???), you can’t buy either diet soda or ginger ale in most grocery stores. At the end of a hard day of touring we, for some unknown reason, crave ginger ale. This has been a hardship -- first world kind.
One thing unrelated to the maritime theme of the museum is its geographic position in between the skyline of Mobile (pronounced "mo BEEL") and the port of Mobile. This makes it an excellent place to view the entire city of Mobile from a great vantage point.
GulfQuest is a new Museum having opened in October 2015 -- although it has been 20 years in the making. It is described as an interactive maritime museum. Inside it looks and feels like you are on a ship. There are currently 90 interactive exhibits and more to come. Some exhibits use good old-fashioned buttons and wheels in creative ways. Their technology based exhibits were as innovative as their applications. For example, the multiple video projectors lighting a large glowing sphere to visualize shipping routes and even planets.
There are just so many days in a row that you can eat shrimp with wanting a bit of variety so we had dinner tonight at a Trip Advisor recommended pasta restaurant near the hotel. You first chose from the list of freshly made pasta and then you chose the sauce and finally, shrimp, chicken, sausage etc. To paraphrase Burger King – Pasta your way.
Trip advisor and their hotel, restaurant and attraction reviews and Google maps have made travelling of this sort stress free. No more worries about how to get where you are going and that once you get there you will be just where you want to be.