Road Tips

Live Bait - Orange Beach, AL

If you previously read the overview of our trip to the Gulf Coast of Alabama, you'll remember that the weather wasn't all that great for the first couple of days we were there.  We really wanted a drink after we checked into the hotel, but the little poolside cabana bar at the hotel we stayed at was closed due to air temperatures in the 60's coupled with persistent high winds and off-and-on rain showers coming off the gulf.   We decided to head out, get the lay-of-the-land and find someplace where we could wet our whistle.  We didn't have to go far from our hotel where we found a place called Live Bait.  

Live Bait is one of many similar bar/restaurant/music venues up and down Perdido Beach Boulevard - also known as Alabama's Coastal Connection.  Whereas we found a number of bars and restaurants along the beach in the Destin, FL area when we were there a few years back, we only found a couple three places along the stretch of the Alabama/Florida Gulf Coast on this trip.  Most of the buildings along the beach on the south side of Perdido Beach Blvd. were hotels or condos, while many of the restaurants and bars were on the north side of the road.  Live Bait was one of those situated across the road from beachfront property.

Live Bait originally opened in 1995 making it one of the more established local hangouts in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores.  The restaurant/bar - owned by Mike and Rita Callahan - features two live music areas including a dance club, and a tiki bar that hosts karaoke starting at 7 p.m. most nights.  

We pulled in during the late afternoon and found a spot in an already nearly full parking lot out front.  (see map)  We walked into the place and there was a good-sized crowd seated inside listening to a guitarist/singer playing on a stage.  The main dining space had a step-up bar, then a lower level with the stage at one end.  There was an enclosed patio area off the dining room.  

It was a little loud in the main dining room from the music and chatter going on, so we asked the hostess if there was an outside bar.  She took us out to the Tiki Bar.  It was cool outside, but we were sheltered from the strong breeze coming off the gulf.  

We ended up at a table along the wall opposite the bar.  The hostess dropped off a couple menus and one of the bartenders came over to take our drink order.  We saw that Live Bait had their own take on the New Orleans classic Hurricane cocktail - three different types of rum, passion fruit juice and lemon juice.  We both signed up for one of those to get us going.  

The menu at Live Bait was a little bit all over the place.  Of course, they had seafood selections, as well as steaks, chicken, sandwiches, and burgers.  Their signature burger is the Bait Burger as shown on the right.  (Photo courtesy Live Bait Facebook page.)  It features three burger patties with three different types of cheese and a whole bunch of other stuff on it.  In fact, while we were there, a guy sitting at a table near us with his significant other had one brought to him.  I wanted to get a picture of it, but I didn't want to bug him as he was looking at the burger from all different types of angles figuring out where to begin.  His girlfriend (or wife) was just shaking her head. 

On weekends, Live Bait hosts a brunch from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.  (UPDATE - Live Bait is now open 7 days a week at 7 a.m. with a full breakfast menu.) In addition to brunch items such as shrimp and grits, Bananas Foster French toast, and a New York strip steak Oscar, Live Bait has build-your-own omelets, different varieties of Eggs Benedict, pancakes (including red velvet pancakes topped with a cream cheese icing), Belgian waffles (including a waffle infused with Fruity Pebbles cereal), and a country fried steak and eggs.  What caught my attention, however, was their French toast that is dipped in a house-made custard and flat-grilled.  I've heard about custard-battered French toast before, but I had never seen in on a menu until now.  I wanted to come back and try it at some point, but for a number of reasons we never did.  

We weren't certain that we wanted to eat a full meal at Live Bait as we had lunch on the road just about three hours previously.  But my wife thought a couple drinks and an appetizer would suffice on this visit.  They had a lot of fried foods on the appetizer menu including deep-fried alligator.  But they also had oysters-on-the-half shell, as well as charred oysters, oysters Rockefeller, and something they called Bama Bait Oysters served on the half shell with sausage, cooked peppers and onions, then topped with gouda cheese.  That was interesting, to say the least, but we ordered a dozen of the raw oysters instead.  When they were brought to the table, I could hardly believe what was in front of me.  They were all large and meaty, some of the biggest oysters I'd ever seen.  My wife - who is skittish about oysters (and even more so after this vacation) - seemed to like them just fine.  They were rich in flavor and very filling.    

We had noticed a small crowd had formed over by the railing on the far side of the tiki bar looking down into the backwater bayou that was between the bar and The Club, Live Bait's dance bar which also hosts live music from time to time.  When the bartender came over to check on us, my wife asked what was going on over on the other side.  "Oh, we have some gators out there and they're probably looking at one," he said.  We meandered over to the railing and waited for the people to clear out.  Sure enough, there was about a 4 to 5 foot long alligator just poking his head up above the water line.  

The bartender came over and said, "Yep, there he is.  We have a few smaller ones in here and a couple bigger ones.  They come and go from time to time."  

We decided that we wanted to go somewhere else for dinner, but we kept Live Bait in mind for breakfast at some point.  Unfortunately, that never came about as the flu (or food poisoning, as my wife still thinks it was - but not from these oysters) came into play a day or two later knocking us out for awhile.  But I really liked the oysters-on-the-half shell at Live Bait and we got halfway tipsy on the delicious hurricanes they had.  Places like Live Bait that specialize in seafood and full menus are all up and down the highway that goes from Gulf Shores to the Florida-Alabama line.  Some are going to be better than others and I thought that Live Bait was good enough for one of those types of places.  

Combine - East Moline, IL

We had plans to go to an Italian restaurant in Iowa City for my recent birthday dinner, but those plans got way-laid with a late afternoon call that pretty much stopped us in our tracks.  My wife still wanted to go, but the circumstances surrounding the trip had been put on hold and I didn't want to drive an hour over for dinner, then drive an hour back.  Somewhat crestfallen, I then had to choose a local restaurant in the Quad Cities for my birthday dinner.   I sort of had my heart set on Italian food, and while there are a handful of Italian restaurants in the area, they're nowhere as good as the one we were going to in Iowa City.  Finally, my wife came up with an idea.  "Why don't we go over and try Combine in East Moline," she suggested.  "We've always said we wanted to give it a try."  A quick look on-line showed that they were open that evening and I made a reservation on Open Table for a table for two at 6:30 p.m.

Combine is part of the Bass Street group whose primary restaurant is Bass Street Chop House in Moline that closed in 2020 to move to what was the old TGI Friday's location next to the Radisson Hotel in John Deere Commons.  Trying to keep the atmosphere the same as at the original location, managing partner Jeffrey Harrup moved the stately dark wood bar intact from the old Bass Street space just down the street to the new location.  Bass Street Chophouse reopened earlier this spring.  (Click here to see the Road Tips entry on the original Bass Street Chop House.)  

A little over 3 years ago, a development in East Moline called The Bend came in existence.  On the grounds of what was once the International Harvester plant (later Case-IH) before it closed in 2004, developers put in a park with a bandshell, built a Hyatt House hotel, an event center, and eventually apartments and condos were built on the acreage.  One side of a building that had a reception hall in it had room for a full-fledged restaurant and Jeffrey Harrup became interested in the space.  Harrup saw the opportunity to get in on the ground floor of projected growth at The Bend and jumped at the chance to open a restaurant at The Bend.  And he named it Combine as numerous combine harvesters were built on the site over the years.  The restaurant opened in the summer of 2019.  

We made our way over to Combine and got there about 20 minutes before our reservation.  (see map)  Actually, we didn't need a reservation as it was a weeknight and there were plenty of places to sit in the restaurant.  We were taken to a four-seat table in the center of the restaurant and given a couple menus to look over.  Moments later our server for the evening, Tara, came over to greet us.  To start off, my wife got her usual Tito's vodka and cranberry juice (with a twist of lime), and they had Pseudo Sue from the Toppling Goliath brewery in Decorah, IA on tap.  I got a pint of that.  

The interior of Combine is a spacious, well-lit area with a contemporary decor.  The bar area is just inside the entrance off the hallway that separates the restaurant from a banquet room across the hall.  

There is an outdoor patio at Combine that was just off the main dining area.  It was a small area and a little utilitarian in the choice of furniture for the patio.  There was banquette seating along the wall that featured pads for your butt, but it still didn't look too comfortable.

The open dining space features an open kitchen just beyond the banquette seating along a short wall.  A number of tables were in the center of the dining area with large, comfortable booths along the east wall of the restaurant.  We were told that half of their four-seat tables were taken out due to COVID-19 restrictions and would probably be restored once those restrictions were lifted later this year.  I thought that it was cozy enough with the tables they had in place and wondered how crowded and loud it may be with the full complement of tables back later this year.  

The menu at Combine is more American-centric with a Midwestern twist.  Entrees included a cold smoked/grilled salmon, a prime New York strip with Shiitake mushrooms, a duck dish that is slow-braised in a Decoy cabernet, cold smoked/fried organic chicken, and a 12-ounce premium Iowa ribeye with a parmesan-sweetcorn crust.  Combine also featured sandwiches, burgers, flatbreads, a number of salads and some pretty interesting appetizers.

One of the appetizers that caught my eye were the tuna street tacos.  It featured 3 won-ton taco shells stuffed with blackened sushi-grade tuna and topped with Asian cabbage slaw, pickled ginger and drizzled with a wasabi-soy aioli.  I had a couple while my wife had the other one.  They were fabulous.  I could have easily just eaten a couple orders of the tuna street tacos for my main meal and been very happy.  

After we had ordered our meals for the evening, we both got salads to start out.  I got the basic Caesar's salad (shown above right) and it was fine.  But my wife got what was called the Plantation salad.  A number of years ago, long before I moved to the Quad Cities (I've been a resident for 30 years now), there was a restaurant by the name of the Plantation that was in an old mansion on the south side of Moline.  They were known for their fine food, their Tiki-themed room, and for their Plantation salad dressing.  It was a robust concoction that was sort of a sweet and spicy French/garlic dressing made with mayo and anchovy paste.  Well, Combine had their own Plantation-style dressing and that's what my wife got.  As we always have to do when she had any garlic dressing, I have to have a bite or two of the dressing or I can't stand to be in the same room with her later in the evening.  And the dressing was fabulous - I wished I would have gotten the Plantation salad over the Caesar's, and the Caesar's was very good.  

We had finished our drinks before dinner and my wife was interested in getting some wine.  Tara said, "You're in luck!  It's 2 for 1 glasses of wine up until 7 p.m!"  (It was just past 6:30 at that point.)  I asked if you could order both glasses at the same time and Tara said, "Most people DO order two at the same time!"  My wife was going to get something that would go with a white wine and she ordered 2 glasses of the Pedroncelli sauvignon blanc.  Tara said that since it was chilled, she would just bring one glass to the table at a time.  

My wife ordered a pasta dish that they had on the menu - the Shrimp Rosé.  It featured pan-seared shrimp mixed with fettuccine and a creamy Rosé sauce.  Mixed in with the shrimp, pasta and sauce was chopped lemongrass, basil, heirloom tomatoes, and leafy greens.  My wife declared her dish as delicious.   

Since I had my heart set on Italian food figuring that's what we'd have in Iowa City, they had a dish called "All Day Bolognese" on the menu.  It was a traditional Italian bolognese sauce that is slow-cooked for six hours.  It's then tossed with penne pasta and shaved parmesan cheese.  A couple of grilled pieces of a parsley/garlic bread came on the side.  It was the ultimate Midwestern take on Italian comfort food and it was fabulous.  For my 2 for 1 glasses of wine, I got the Broadside cabernet - a rich and meaty red from the Central Coast of California that I have had a time or two.   The wine was a great compliment with the meaty and hearty bolognese sauce and pasta.  

We considered dessert for a moment, but we were pretty full from our meals.  We were talking with Tara about Combine's affiliation with Bass Street Chop House and wondered when that place would be reopening.  "Oh, we're open now," she said.  "I work at Bass Street during the day for the lunch shift, then I come over here to work evenings."  She told us that they did their best in trying to replicate the atmosphere from the original Bass Street Chop House, and many of the menu items carried over to the new location.  We told her that we were going to definitely check it out.  We asked if they were open on Sundays as we like to go out for burgers and bloody mary's on some Sundays.  "Since we're attached to the Radisson, we are contractually obligated to be open 363 days a year," she told us.  "So, yeah!  Come on over some Sunday!"    

While it was disappointing to me that we couldn't go to an Italian restaurant in Iowa City as we had planned for my birthday dinner, I completely forgot all about it after my meal at Combine in East Moline.  The bolognese/penne pasta dish that I had was excellent and worthy of any Italian restaurant I've been to.  My wife was very happy with her pan-seared shrimp and fettuccine in a creamy Rosé sauce. The won-ton shell tuna street tacos were a great start to the meal, as were our salads including my wife's salad with Combine's take on the original Plantation salad dressing that was so famous years ago in the Quad Cities.  Tara was a great server - outgoing, friendly, and had a great sense of humor.  And it was tough to beat the 2 for 1 glasses of wine that we took full advantage of while we were there that evening.  We had been wanting to try Combine for awhile now and it turned out to be even better than we hoped.  

Suki Sushi - Brentwood, TN

On our trip to the Gulf Coast of Alabama, we made it to just south of Nashville to stop for the evening.  After checking into our hotel in Brentwood, we decided to go look for some food in the immediate area.  We had stayed in the area before and we had eaten at a couple restaurants around the hotel, but we were looking for something different.  Directly behind the hotel were a number of restaurants - only we didn't know they were directly behind the hotel until we drove to them.  Not wanting anything too filling that late in the evening, we took a look at a Mediterranean restaurant, but decided against it.  Walking along, I saw a sushi restaurant down the way.  My wife agreed that sushi would be a wonderful meal that night, so we went into Suki Sushi to give it a try.  

Suki Sushi opened in 2016, part of a complex of a hotel, shops, restaurants and office space situated around the Mooreland Mansion, a Greek-revival old-South antebellum home that was originally built in 1838.  It was part of a business park for a number of years before the city of Brentwood took it over for the multi-use City Park complex a few years ago.  When they built the Hilton Garden Inn in Brentwood in 2016, they incorporated Moorland Mansion as part of the hotel.  

It was just before 9 p.m. when we walked into Suki Sushi.  It turns out that we could have easily walked out the back entrance of our hotel and been there in less than two minutes.  (see map) We were greeted by a young man by the name of Nestor who told us that we could sit anywhere.  We ended up in a booth opposite the bar.  The restaurant featured a lively array of lighting schemes that gave a colorful glow to the place.  There were a number of backlit squares behind the sushi bar along the short wall of the restaurant.  A couple of flatscreen televisions were behind the bar.  

Nestor came over and dropped off a couple menus and asked what we would like to drink.  I needed a beer - or six - after the long drive we had that day.  I ordered up an Asahi and my wife got a water to start out.  She was going to have wine - Suki Sushi featured a full bar with mixed drinks, wine and beer.   Nestor showed up with my beer and my wife's water and wanted to know if we were ready to order.  We felt sort of rushed and my wife said that we needed a minute.  Nestor seemed sort of put off by her reply.  

Then I realized that they probably closed at 9 p.m.  And there is nothing worse than being the customer who comes in at closing time.  I said, "Oh, shit.  I think they close at 9.  I'll bet you he's not happy we walked in this late."  

I slammed my first Asahi.  And I mean - SLAMMED!  I had definitely brought my funnel with me that night, but after a long drive through cool, rainy weather, I needed some beers.  Nestor came back about five minutes after he brought my beer and I showed him that it was gone.  He asked, "Have you guys figured out what you'd like?"

I said, "Do you guys close at 9?"  (It was a bit after 9 p.m. at that point.)

"Oh, no," Nestor said.  "We're here until 10."  

Feeling a bit better about things, I ordered another beer and told him that we were still trying to figure out what we wanted.  He wordlessly walked away.  My wife said, "I don't think he's happy we came in this late."   Nestor brought my second Asahi to the table and walked away without a comment.  I did tell him "thanks" for bringing a much needed second beer to the table.  

The menu at Suki Sushi featured your typical sushi items as well as cold and hot appetizers, fried rice and noodle entrees, hibachi dinner entrees and combos, and tempura and katsu dishes.  But we were there for the sushi.  

By the time my 2nd beer was finished - about 10 minutes after we sat down - we were ready to order.  Nestor was somewhat astounded that I needed a third beer when he came back to take our order.  "You're my kind of guy," he said to me as he picked up the second empty bottle and asked what we would like to order.  What ever indifference we felt from him initially had all but faded away.  We realized that he was pretty much laid back and chill in his demeanor.  We got along well with him the rest of the evening.  

My wife always wants a Kani salad when we have sushi, but they didn't have a Kani salad on the menu.  Well, yes, they did, as Nestor said that the spicy crab salad they had was basically the same thing.  And it was.  It was served in a small stemmed glass bowl and featured crab meat, julienne cucumbers and breadcrumbs mixed together in a spicy mayo.  Only we didn't think it was all that spicy.  Some people may think so, but I guess we're sort of used to spicy at this point in our lives.   But it was still pretty good.  My wife got a glass of the house malbec to go with her meal and to help take off the edge from a full day of traveling.  

For our sushi that evening, we went with a spicy tuna roll; a spicy salmon roll; two pieces of tuna sushi; two pieces of yellowtail sushi; and six pieces of smoked salmon sushi.   Since we were basically the only ones in the restaurant ordering food at that point in the evening, the platter came out pretty quickly.   Like the lighting in restaurant, there was a colorful array of sushi and rolls on the plate.  

And the sushi and rolls were also very good.  I was particularly taken by the tuna.  It was fresh and very flavorful.  In fact, I asked Nestor when he came around to check on us that I wanted to get a couple more pieces of the tuna sushi.  The tuna sushi was just outstanding.   By the time I finished the last two pieces of tuna sushi, I was more than full.  

For a quick, late evening meal, I thought Suki Sushi really hit the spot.  Sushi is great because if you're not full, you can order more.  Or it's a light enough meal that it doesn't sit on your stomach if you eat it late in the evening.  We thought the spicy crab salad, sushi and the rolls at Suki Sushi were all very good with the tuna sushi being outstanding.  Our service from Nestor was good, as well. Especially after we figured out his laid-back demeanor.  And the contemporary decor with the lighting scheme in the place made it a very nice and relaxing atmosphere.  Suki Sushi was a good find for the first night of our vacation.

Mirabito's - North Liberty, IA

My wife's father had just gone through a hip-replacement surgery and was resting at his home in North Liberty afterward.  Since my wife and her sister are still working from home, they felt they could move their workplaces to his condo to help out with his recovery.  For lunch one day, they went over to Mirabito's, an Italian restaurant not far from where they were in North Liberty.  My wife reported that the food was excellent.  I had seen Mirabito's a handful of times on trips up to see my father-in-law and my step-daughter and her family and was always intrigued by the place.  One recent evening, I went over to North Liberty to help my wife move her office back home and while we were there we went to Mirabito's for dinner.  

Gregg Mirabito grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY.  His father was half-Italian and half-Lithuanian, while his mother was 100% Irish.  Gregg's pale skin and red hair stood out amongst the other children of the neighborhood when he was growing up.  Having a mixed culture exposed the young Mirabito to a number of different types of food.  His paternal grandfather was a full-fledged Italian immigrant who married a Lithuanian woman who learned how to make Italian food for her husband.  And Gregg's Irish mom learned many of those Italian dishes from her Lithuanian mother-in-law.  But there was also Irish food served in the house including corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day.  

Gregg ended up gravitating more to the Italian heritage in his family and learned how to make many of the Italian specialties his father liked.  After graduating high school, he went west to go to college at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.  Gregg worked in a number of restaurants working his way through college.  

It was at Kansas where he met Terri Wissman, a young lady who grew up in St. Louis, then moved to Kansas City with her family later on.  Terri wasn't raised with the same culinary diversity Gregg enjoyed growing up and he introduced her to many of his family's favorite dishes made with an east coast flair.  Gregg and Terri ended up getting married after getting out of college, and with the help of a local investor they opened Mirabito's Italian Cafe, a small restaurant in Lawrence that the two ran for about four years before a number of factors forced them to close the doors.  

Pictured right - Terri and Gregg Mirabito.  Photo courtesy Iowa City Press-Citizen.  

Gregg was eventually hired to be a corporate chef for the Marriott chain of hotels.  He worked for Marriott for nearly 20 years eventually going from the kitchen to the administrative offices as an assistant general manager.  Marriott moved the Mirabito's to Iowa City when the then-new Coralville Marriott Hotel and Conference Center opened in 2007.  

But it turned out that what Gregg wanted to do was to get back into the kitchen and run his own Italian restaurant again.  Terri sensed that Gregg was getting antsy to be his own boss again and in 2013 they started to scout for locations for their restaurant.  They found a place in a small strip mall along Highway 965 - the main north-south route through North Liberty - and the next year Mirabito's opened their doors.  

To get to Mirabito's, well, it's a little tricky.  From Highway 965, you turn onto W. Zeller St. heading west.  You can either turn into the Casey's convenience store and go back past that building to Mirabito's; or you can turn south on Sugar Creek Lane and take a left into the small parking lot for the strip mall.  There's a Mexican restaurant on one end of the building and Mirabito's is on the northeast corner of the building facing Highway 965.  (see map) 

We stepped inside and were met by Terri Mirabito.  She told us we could sit about anywhere and we sat at a table at one of the windows in the restaurant.  Mirabito's is not a large place and I didn't know if the tables were purposely spaced that way because of COVID-19 restrictions, or if this was their usual configuration.  After dropping off a couple menus for us, she said that Michael would be our server for the evening.  They were doing a robust "to-go" business during our visit.  

Michael came over to say high and take our drink order.  They had a handful of craft beers on the bar menu at Mirabito's and selected a Zoltan, a Mosaic/Citra-hopped IPA from the Exile Brewing Company in Des Moines.  My wife was going to hold off on getting something until she figured out what she was going to order for food, then order a glass of wine.  

The menu at Mirabito's looks like it came out of an old-school Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, NY.  They had antipasti selections such as steamed mussels, a caprese salad, a meat charcuterie board, and a classic escargot featuring six large snails baked in a garlic and parsley-butter sauce.  In addition to the antipasti selections, they had four salad entrees that you could add grilled chicken or shrimp to for an upcharge.  They had a handful of sandwiches to choose from and a number of typical old-world Italian specialties such as chicken parmesan, linguine with clams, veal saltimbocca, fettuccine alfredo with broccoli, and a baked cannelloni made with beef, pork, spinach, onion, garlic and cheese, then topped with a combination of Mirabito's marinara and alfredo sauces.   

They also had pizza at Mirabito's and my wife said their pizza was very good as that was what they took back to her father when they were staying with him during his recovery.  I was tempted to try the pizza, but I really wanted to try something along the lines of a red sauce dish that evening.

The first thing Michael brought out to our table was a small square of cheese-and-herb-topped focaccia bread with some fresh shredded parmesan cheese served on the side.  Olive oil was provided on the table to mix with the parmesan on a plate.  The bread was light and spongy and sopped up the oil pretty easily.  

We got salads with our meals that evening - I had a house salad with a red wine vinaigrette, while my wife got the Caesar's salad.  The greens and veggies were fresh, cool and crispy.  It was a pretty good salad, in my book.  

For our main entrees that evening, my wife got the chicken piccata.  The pounded chicken breasts came in a lemon, butter and white wine sauce, topped with chopped artichoke hearts, portobello mushrooms and tomatoes, then finished with capers and sprinkles of chopped parsley.  It was all served on a bed of linguine.   It looked delicious and my wife said that it was as good as it looked.  She also ended up getting a glass of the house pinot grigio to go with her meal.

I was in the mood for some pasta with a marinara sauce.  I thought about the chicken parmesan for a moment, but went with the basic spaghetti in Mirabito's house marinara.  For an upcharge, I got a couple of their huge and very tasty meatballs on top of the spaghetti and marinara sauce.  I ended up asking Michael for a side of marinara as I knew what I had on the spaghetti and meatballs wouldn't be enough for me.  The marinara was sweet and tangy, and it had chunks of celery mixed in, along with an herb that was forward in flavor, but not obtrusive.   The large meatballs had a mixture of pork and beef with herbs and bread crumbs baked in.  It was a lot of food for just $13 dollars and I couldn't eat the whole thing.  But it was wonderful.  I also got a glass of wine with the meal - a bold Italian Zinfandel Primitivo.  The taste of the wine exploded on my tongue when paired with the excellent marinara sauce.  

Like any Italian restaurant of its kind, Mirabito's also has a nice little dessert list.  Unfortunately, they were out of tiramisu that night, but had some other things like a house-baked marsala cheesecake, cannolis, and a chocolate torte.  We ended up getting the lemon mascarpone cake served with a raspberry compote and a dollop of house-made whipped cream.  The taste of the lemon mascarpone cake with the raspberries was out of this world.  Adding the whipped cream to those two just made it even more sinful than what it was.  It was an excellent end to what turned out to be a very good dinner.  

Terri Mirabito came over to check on us.  My wife explained that she had been in before, but it was my first time.  "I really wanted to try the pizza," I said to her.  "But on my first visit, I wanted to have something more than just pizza."  Terri Mirabito said that her husband - being from New York - makes the old-fashioned thin-crust pizza.  "Well, that's the kind we like," I said promising to give the pizza a try at some point in the future.  

I said, "I know that spaghetti and meatballs is pretty basic, but it was very good.  I really wanted something like a meat sauce and some penne pasta."

"Oh, we could have done that for you," Terri exclaimed.  "We have an Italian sausage bolognese that we could have made up with penne pasta for you."  I don't want to say I was disappointed when she told me that, but it made me want to come back and try that dish at some point.  

Mirabito's was better than I expected it to be.  For a little "mom-&-pop" operation, it exceeded some full-fledged Italian restaurants I've eaten at over the years.  Mirabito's atmosphere is pretty basic, so don't go in there thinking that you're going to have a quiet and romantic dinner.  But the service was very good, and I thought the food was outstanding.  Even their basic spaghetti and meatballs with their house-made marinara sauce was excellent.  My wife raved about her chicken piccata and how wonderful it tasted.  With relatives in the North Liberty area, I won't be so hesitant in the future to accompany my wife to see them - only if a trip to Mirabito's is part of the deal.  

The Gulf Coast of Alabama

Last year, my wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary sitting at home due to COVID-19 restrictions.  We had hoped to go to California, but that didn't pan out.  Since we generally go somewhere during our anniversary, it was sort of up in the air this year due to some work obligations on my part that weren't cleared up until the 11th hour.  My wife was wanting to go somewhere to put her toes in the sand and enjoy the ocean.  She had suggested at some point about heading to the Gulf Coast of Alabama - particularly the Orange Beach/Gulf Shores area of Alabama.  It was literally a last minute planning/reservations/packing session as we took off in rainy Iowa weather for what we hoped would be a few days of sun, sand and surf in southern Alabama.  

What it ended up being was, well, something else.  It was one of the worst vacations we had ever experienced in all our years together.  

First of all, we drove.  But it really wasn't that bad of a drive.  My wife got a "new" used car a couple weeks prior to our vacation and was willing to put some miles on it.  The weather between Iowa and Nashville - our stop for the evening - was rainy, cool and gray most of the way.  Driving in rain is much more taxing than driving in sunny and clear conditions.  

We got up early and took off for the final leg of our journey to the Gulf around 8 a.m.  We had hoped to be there by 3 p.m. knowing that we'd have to stop for gas and bathroom breaks along the way.  The weather had broken and by the time we had made it to Montgomery - about 4 hours south of Nashville - the weather was warm with big white puffy clouds.  The sun was coming in and out of the clouds, it was a bit breezy and the temperature was around 85 degrees.  

By the time we got to the Gulf Coast, it was cloudy, spitting rain, temperatures in the upper 60's and a stiff breeze out of the east.  There was a red flag warning in effect that day which meant that only strong swimmers should be out in the ocean.  However, the stiff winds - during the day they were sustained at 25 to 30 miles an hour during our time along the Gulf Coast - necessitated a double red flag warning later that day which closed the ocean to swimmers.  Small craft advisories were issued and riptide undertows were prevalent up and down the coast.  The above picture is the view out of hotel room right when we first got into the room.  

Speaking of the hotel, we stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn in Orange Beach, AL.  Since I haven't been traveling for work, my Hilton Honors points have dwindled significantly through using points on trips my wife and I took during the past year.  I used a combination of points and money for the rooms on our trip.  It wasn't as nice as being able to book a room 100% via points, but it was still not that bad in the long run.  I had booked a room with a king bed with a sliver of a view of the white sand beach and ocean.  

When we got to the hotel, we were greeted by an amiable front desk clerk by the name of Douglas.  I asked if there were any upgrades available for Hilton Lifetime Diamond members, like myself.  He looked in his computer and said, "Well, I can put you in a room with two queen beds."  I looked at my wife and she shrugged her shoulders and thought that would be OK.  The extra bed gives us a chance to lay out our bags on the unused bed.  Douglas gave us a top floor (6th floor) room with the view of the beach and ocean that you see above.  

The problem was, it was so windy coming off the water while we were there we couldn't really sit on the deck and enjoy the view.  Even keeping the sliding glass door open to hear the waves at night wasn't as enjoyable with the wind blowing as hard as it was - even during the first couple of nights we were there.  

OK, OK - yes, we sort of knew what the weather would be before we got there.  We knew it would be breezy, but we were talking with some locals while we were there who said that while it can be breezy from time to time, this breeze was much more strong than normal.  We were on the fringe of a storm system to the west that was dumping rain on Louisiana (we had discussed going to New Orleans for our anniversary - we're glad we didn't) and bands of showers would flow on from the ocean, rain for 15 minutes, then stop.  But it was that damned wind that kept blowing.  

After getting checked in and acclimated to the hotel, we decided to go out, look around at some of the sights, get the lay of the land, and find some place to eat some oysters on the half-shell.  We drove to the east and headed toward the Florida-Alabama border.  It was right inside the Florida border that I saw a place that I'd heard about before and was intrigued to check out - a roadside bar/restaurant/package liquor store by the name of Flora-Bama.  

Flora-Bama has been around since 1964 and was purposely built on the Florida side of the Alabama border as Baldwin County, AL was a dry county at the time, while Escambia County, FL was not.  As more people came to Perdido Key via a new highway that connected Gulf Shores, AL with Pensacola, FL, Flora-Bama flourished, adding on to the building and eventually building a package liquor store across the street, as well as a restaurant on the north side of Perdido Key with a parking lot that strandles the Alabama/Florida border.

Flora-Bama is famous for having live music 365 days a year and hosts a number of beach concerts, beach rodeos, and their annual Mullet Toss beach party.  Flora-Bama is also one of many venues along the Florida/Alabama coast that hosts the annual Frank Brown Songwriters' Festival that showcases over 200 singer/songwriters.  

We actually parked in Alabama and walked into Florida across the parking lot.  Once inside, we were immediately in a gift shop full of t-shirts, hats, mugs, glasses, bottle openers, shot glasses, cookbooks, and various other overpriced items.  And, of course, the shop was packed.  The place reeked "tourist trap".  

As we walked through the place, we heard live music in two different areas.  I thought about getting a beer while we looked around, but the lines at the bars to get drinks were 8 to 12 people deep.  And this was on a Tuesday.  In May.  With crappy weather outside.  I can almost imagine how packed and crazy this place would be on a nice weekend day.  But by that time, I'd had enough.  I wanted to get out of there faster than I came in.  

We had been reading up on some of the area attractions and the Wilbourne Antique Rose Trail in Foley, AL - about 8 miles north of Gulf Shores - caught our attention.  We grow roses at our home and we're always up for a walk through a rose garden to get ideas for what we may want to add to our 2 dozen rose bushes that we have around our yard.  The description of the Wilbourne Antique Rose Trail said it was a mile-long path through the city that had "5,000 fragrant and hardy roses".  This we had to see.  

Dodging off and on rain showers, we went up there one day and found the entrance to the path.  It was promising when we saw a number of different rose bushes at the southern entrance to the path.  However, as we walked along the path, we noticed that many of the rose bushes were similar, and that many of them were neglected.  As we continued along the path, we got up to the Foley Public Works department that bordered the path and the rose bushes, well, they sort of petered out.  It was well less than a mile walk from where we started.  To say the Wilbourne Antique Rose Trail was disappointing is an understatement.  

That same day, we decided to drive out to Fort Morgan where Mobile Bay meets the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile Point.  Built in 1834 as the first line of defense for Mobile Bay, Fort Morgan is a national historic landmark and is open for walking tours during most days.  Fort Morgan is situated 22 miles to the west of Gulf Shores on a two-lane highway that also takes you to a ferry that crosses the mouth of Mobile Bay to Dauphin Island, located just south of Mobile.  By the time we got out there and were in line to pay to drive in, a pelting, wind-driven rain had just started.  We also noticed that the water was too rough for the ferry to operate that day.  Looking at one another, we decided to ditch Fort Morgan and head back toward Gulf Shores/Orange Beach.

Then an all-time low experience for any vacation we had ever been on happened the next day...

After a very nice meal for our anniversary dinner, my wife woke up in the middle of the night with stomach pains.  She ended up having the flu.  And it was bad.  She was miserable as she passed between the bed and the bathroom for much of the early morning hours and into the next day.  

Me?  I felt fine.  Well, I think I was a little hungover from a combination of beers, lemonade and vodka drinks, and a bottle of wine we shared with our dinner.  At least, I thought I was a little hungover.  But I felt fine enough to go out to a store to get my wife some saltine crackers, applesauce and a Sprite to help calm her stomach.  Upon returning, she was still lying in bed moaning that this was the worst case of flu she had ever encountered in her life.  (I seriously doubted that as I gave her a helluva flu bug nearly 20 years ago where we were both nearly incapacitated for two days.)

She thought it was possibly food poisoning from the meal we had the night before.  But, as I explained to her, we both pretty much had the same thing, sharing bites of our seafood entrees as we usually do when we go to a nice restaurant.  So, if SHE had food poisoning, why didn't I?  She chalked it up to my ironclad stomach.  

On top of all this, the sun had come out and it was actually the nicest day since we had arrived along the Alabama Gulf Coast.  The wind was still brisk out of the east-southeast, but away from the beach it was very nice with temperatures in the mid-70's.  My wife actually told me that I should go out and do what I wanted to do for the day, but I decided to hang out with her and make sure that she was going to be OK.

And it was a good thing that I did.  About 11:30, I started to feel rotten.  I ended up getting in bed and pulling the covers over the top of me.  My stomach was upset and I was getting chills.  I realized that whatever my wife had, I now had.  The rest of the afternoon featured periodic trips to the bathroom getting sick for the first time since I was in France about 7 years ago.  And when I wasn't in the bathroom, I was lying in bed shivering.  

All the time that my flu was raging, my wife was starting to feel better.  She took a shower, got dressed and along about 2:00 p.m., she decided to take the car and go get some other supplies for me.  It was a miraculous turnaround for her while I was in the throes of a full-on attack of the flu.  She even went out and got a sandwich that evening while I laid in bed not wanting anything to eat or drink.  

I woke up at 1:30 in the morning and was thirsty.  I had a bottle of water on my side of the bed and I sat up to take a drink.  Hmmm...  My stomach didn't hurt any longer.  No more chills.  I felt dehydrated and the water was helping me with that.  I was just like my wife - after about 12 to 14 hours after I started to feel rotten, I was fine.  It was very strange.  (We're still debating whether or not it was the flu or food poisoning in conversations we've had with people regarding our vacation.  She thinks it was food poisoning and has been staying away from seafood - especially oysters - since we got home.  I think it was the flu as we weren't sick at the same time like people get with food poisoning.)  

With one day lost in our already short time in Orange Beach/Gulf Shores, we decided to stay an extra day in the area rather than drive up to Birmingham where we were going to take in what we had heard was a thriving craft beer scene in that city.  In hindsight, it turned out that we probably should have gone on to Birmingham.  

Our make-up day consisted of walking along the beach and taking in some of the sights in and around the coastal area.  We had noticed a pier that was part of Gulf State Park, a state park with two miles of white sand beaches in between Orange Beach and Gulf Shores.  After pulling into the parking lot, I walked over to the machine to pay for parking, a young man, his wife and their two kids came up to us and he said, "Hey, I have almost two hours left on this parking pass.  You guys can just have it."  We thought it was very nice of him to do that (we saved a couple bucks) and very odd that they were leaving so soon.  Then when we went out on the pier, we sort of realized why.

First of all there was a charge to get on the pier - I think it was 4 bucks a person.  But then getting out on the pier, the wind was still howling and it wasn't pleasant to be hanging around out there.  The waves were crashing into the supports and it was causing my wife to be somewhat queasy as we stood on the pier.  She doesn't like bridges all that much to begin with and the waves were sending sea spray up on the pier.  

The pier, itself, was still undergoing repairs from the extensive damage that was caused by Hurricane Sally, a category 2 hurricane that made landfall at Orange Beach on September 16 of last year.  The nearby Lodge at Gulf State Park, a nice beach front-hotel under the Hilton banner, also suffered substantial damage from the 110 mph sustained winds and had recently re-opened.  A number of buildings in the area were still under construction over 8 months after the hurricane hit.  On top of the destruction caused by the winds from Hurricane Sally, it also caused localized flooding as the storm was not a typical hurricane that races on-shore and then turns into a tropical system inland.  Hurricane Sally moved at a 2 to 3 mile per hour pace dumping over 20 inches of rain along the coast.  Combined with the high winds, the storm surge and the flooding, it was the worst hurricane to hit the area in over 20 years.  

We tried to get a room for the extra night at the Hilton Garden Inn in Orange Beach, but they were still undergoing renovations from the storm and many of the rooms were not available.  And all the renovated rooms had been sold out at the hotel the extra night we wanted to stay.  We ended up at a Hampton Inn in Gulf Shores, about a mile from the beach.  My wife was OK with that.  "We can hang out around the pool this afternoon," she said as we pulled into the parking lot there.  However, when we looked out at the pool, we saw that it was closed.  "You've GOT to be kidding me," my wife said in an exasperated tone.  "Well, that clinches it.  This is a shitty vacation!"  It was at that point when we realized we should have gone on to Birmingham.  

We did go out later on and hit the only brewery in the area, Big Beach Brewing.  We tried their flagship beer, the Hundred Daze IPA, but we ended up liking their Area 251 hazy IPA better.  We hung out on their patio enjoying a late afternoon craft beer.  

The brewery is owned by dentist Jim Shamburger and his wife, Julie.   Dr. Shamburger's daughter got him a home brew kit about 10 years ago and he immediately loved brewing his own beers.  The little kit turned into a full-blown hobby for Shamburger who started to brew beers between the stilts under their house in Orange Beach.  It turned out there wasn't a brewpub or microbrewery in the area and the couple saw the need for one.  In October of 2016 the Shamburgers opened Big Beach Brewery.  Like many places around the Gulf Shores/Orange Beach area, Big Beach Brewery features live music three or four nights a week.  

After dinner that last evening, we ventured back out to Hilton Garden Inn in Orange Beach and they let us use their access to the beach for a sunset walk.  The wind was still brisk, but not as bad as it was earlier in the day.  It gave us one last chance to enjoy the sand and surf before we had to head back north the next day.  

Oh!  And here's a tip if you want good ice cream.  My wife kept seeing this little place on Gulf Shores Parkway, less than a mile from the beach called Matt's Homemade Alabama Ice Cream.  She finally talked me into stopping one evening when we were driving around Gulf Shores and I'm glad we did.  The ice cream was fabulous.  It was pricey, but in my estimation, it was worth it.  Look for Matt's (they have two locations on Gulf Shores Parkway) if you make it down to Gulf Shores.

We took off after breakfast the next day and drove in heavy traffic along I-65 between Mobile and Montgomery, then again from Montgomery to Birmingham encountering stop-and-go traffic at times in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason.  We did stop at a Whataburger on the north side of Birmingham - which turned out to be an ordeal in itself that then turned out to be the worst experience I've ever had in the over 40 years of seeking out Whataburger restaurants.  The burger gave me a stomachache, so much that I couldn't even eat dinner that evening when we got to Paducah, KY.  But it was typical of the vacation that we had.  We did eat at a few good places while we were there and I'll have write-ups about those places.  But my wife summed it up perfectly as we took off from Gulf Shores to head back home.  "You know, there are times where we've cried when we had to leave some of the vacation spots we've been to over the years," she said.  "But after this vacation, I just really want to get back home."  

Yep, that pretty much sums up our vacation to the Gulf Shores of Alabama...