Day 23 -- Saturday, May 23

Last night, I finally found the seafood feast I'd been yearning for since back in Myrtle Beach. In a little town called Apalachicola, about 30 miles back the way I'd come on Hwy. 98, there are three places that would have fit my bill: The Hut and Seafood Reef are both right on the highway as it passes through town, but the Breakaway, which received the most votes in my informal poll of locals, was a bit more remote.

For $9.95, you got shrimp, scallops, oysters, deviled crab, clams, and grouper (unfortunately, they were all fried -- not the healthiest way to eat seafood, of course, but what are you gonna do?) with coleslaw and choice of potato on the side and a trip to the salad bar thrown in for good measure. Now, that's a seafood platter; I wonder why they couldn't pull this off in the other seaside communities I had visited. The prices in most of them had been at least 50 percent higher.

I returned to my little home-by-the-sea quite bloated but happy. It was another night of one million stars, rivaling Hunting Island, but without the breathtaking moon. I was sitting on the beach, relaxed, reflective and close to God, when some Bud drinkers alighted near me, with their boom box cranked up loud and tuned to a local rock 'n' roll station playing Journey. Not really in keeping with my mood at the moment, so I returned to my encampment.

I watched Johnny's last Tonight show, found it even sadder than the Thursday night edition and dropped off to sleep during Dave.

This morning, I briefly considered staying at the beach another night but I was already sunburned from Friday afternoon so it seemed pointless. Instead, I headed north through the Florida panhandle, bound for Montgomery, Alabama. I had intended to visit Birmingham but the friends that live there were away for the three-day weekend and there was little else to draw me. Montgomery was some 120 miles closer and had a KOA for me so that was that.

It's odd but on a lengthy excursion like this one, it's well nigh impossible to be enthusiastic about one's travels every day. Leaving the ocean was difficult for me, and nothing in the first 50 or 60 miles of Alabama that I traveled piqued my interest so I was driving rather listlessly, not looking forward to much in the next couple of days ahead.

Things picked up a bit in a small town called Enterprise, though. There, smack dab in the middle of town, is a monument, comprised of a statue, in classical style and surrounded by a fountain, depicting a woman, attired in flowing robes, holding something aloft, as if in offering to the gods. And just what is she elevating, for all to see and admire? A big, black bug; a boll weevil, to be more precise. A nearby plaque reads,"In Profound Appreciation of the Boll Weevil and What It has Done as the Herald of Prosperity." Say what? Well, it seems that, back in the summer of 1915, the fields surrounding Enterprise, and much of the rest of the cotton-yielding South, were infested with weevils, robbing them of two-thirds of their yearly crop. This disaster forced the farmers to diversify their crops, adding peanuts, potatoes, corn and sugar cane, among other things. So, now, the soil that was almost drained by the cotton crop gave forth a variety of riches, turning around what had been a struggling agriculturally-based economy and adding a lushness to the Alabama countryside. It never would have happened without the Boll Weevil and the good people of Enterprise know this full well. They erected this monument in 1919 and it stills stands today, expressing their gratitude to the little bug they once, no doubt, cursed.


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