When I was a teenager, America’s Junior Miss pageant was a big deal for our city. High school contestants from every state descended upon Mobile after being selected in local competitions.

U.S. Highway 98 was initially built in 1933 as a route from Pensacola to Apalachicola. It has since been extended, and now runs 964 miles southeast from Natchez, Mississippi to Palm Beach, Florida. Beginning at the Causeway in Mobile, heading east, Scenic 98 hugs some of the most beautiful coastlines along the Gulf of Mexico to St. Marks, Florida. This is a drive worth taking.

My daddy loved to fish. His mother, my grandmother whom I called Grammy, was better at it than he was, but she never bothered to mention that tidbit as it would discourage him from joining her on the riverbank with the cane pole.

Are thank you notes still custom? Not thank you texts and not high fives on the way out the door, but genuine and heartfelt thank you notes. We mean like the good old fashioned way of taking pen to paper and letting someone know you’re thankful.