I learn that the gelato shop owner is the same as the bookstore/coffeeshop owner and we discuss literary south, authors, readings, book events, and the scene. That they have no shortage of literary events and readings and authors and are half a year booked in advance and busy, they do not give up and lay dormant like one indie bookshops I met did and who had saddened me greatly at their defeat of a literary scene only a few cities and the same state down. Joe has an understanding here that I have listened to talk of boat engines enough to not rush us to an end.

We stumbled into an antique shop in the middle of the beautiful (and one of my newest favorite places) Mobile, Alabama. Historic buildings…this one in particular has seen better days but I am more saddened while traveling through New Orleans and Mobile and other like smaller places from Miami/Hollywood Florida to Texas how little Galveston Island actually does put the effort in to preserve what should be even easier. I am more saddened that the Hughes building there is no more. And then here I see so many…so many and never going away and so much harder work put in and so much more they have gone through in hurricane and storm and flood and yet standing so gallantly. And as much as I love the island and thought once they did well I see how little is really there, left, and standing and how flat the peoples efforts really fall and yet once had so much more potential but so much of it is already lost…gone. I even see so many other states with so much preservation effort put into the nature side of it and know that there is about one lone woman who works so hard to do all that Galveston offers in that aspect. Without her they don’t care and even with her the city itself is one of her main enemies and with whom she battles against their destruction. I see how other places take care of their tree’s, even smack in the midst of great city and down town’s…from San Antonio to Florida and I know another woman of the island who places her work there but when you leave the island you find that you have missed trees, and funny enough, it is so far the least of the boating community for which we both love and felt we were missing. I am not done there with dreams I have built but I am glad I am broadening these horizons. I honestly don’t know if there will be enough left for me when I come back, able to put in myself. For those who put in…keep it up, you are the islands saving grace. For the city, I ask you to visit San Antonio, New Orleans, Mobile, Alabama and Pass Christian, Mississippi, Hollywood, Florida and Miami and a few conservation and state parks along the way and all in between and too many to count for both city/town and nature conservations and architecture and economy and …life, for a few suggestions of how to do better. Funny enough for resources you have much more at hand than some of these do.

In Backflash Antique in Mobile Alabama only a short few blocks away from what is now the Malaga Inn, that was in the 1940 census the address of my great grandparents and two of their four daughters, one of which was my grandmother, aged 10, I discover the perfect camera bag (thanks to Joe’s good eye) that I have been in search of for months. And I hear the most beautiful name I have ever heard…Charlana, added to a combination with a last of exactly the kind of name amazing people are born with, Charlana Quiovers. And a gentleman there, meek and quiet and a love for antique and history who was amazing at tour guiding us through to exactly what we would like to see. He got us immediately. We aren’t the typical RV’ers. We don’t do it for the BBQing and pools. We do it for the exploring, the history, the learning of the people, the architecture, the discoveries, the antiques and art and literary and music and the food…oh…the food. We exhaust ourselves with the miles we put our feet to in walking all around a town or city, and when in the right place and time, the mountains and hills of the nature a place has to offer, and now even, by boat more often, the swamps with a rest upon our feet but a sharpness for our safety, and our senses. Birds and nature and animals and trees upon the cool waters in the warm air underneath the shade of these grand ancient moss laden trees. But the walking…It is the only way to stop for hours on end in an afternoon and have perfect conversations with perfect strangers. And at times be invited upon a boat for the next several hours and taken out into the open waters, sails unfurled. If you never hear from us again, we likely died happy.

In seven days and four states I haven’t taken one picture. I have simply enjoyed it all. Good thing my storytelling is in words…..more coming on all of that. Within the binds of a book and a story of a character.