Summer is a time for scattered showers and scattered people. As we move into August, I hope you are enjoying changes of scenery and routine and the last fluid activities that the end of summer often brings.

If you think you’ve had the best seafood ever, think again: if you haven’t tried dining at Felix’s, you haven’t had the full-fledged experience of dining like a royal.

I thought I would open this article by poking fun at the peculiar fish that is the Atlantic tripletail, with its ugly disposition and curious habits. But after speaking with Lance Slater and Sam Glass in Spanish Fort about the Tripletail Classic, I took the causeway back to Mobile. 

The University of South Alabama campus in Mobile is close to my childhood home. I remember when the campus construction was first announced, in 1963. I was a young boy, and the implications didn’t really register at the time, but I did watch it grow in both size and stature over the years. My respect for South Alabama grew substantially when, early on, a close family friend, Dr. Neal Rowell, was hired as a professor in the physics department.

If the Mobile-Tensaw Delta is America’s Amazon, then the Causeway is its gateway. If the Causeway is the gateway, then the 5 River Delta Center is the gatekeeper. It is one of those places that you may not know what goes on there, but you are glad it exists, hopefully working to protect and support the place for which it is tasked with overseeing.

If brunch is one of your favorite meals of the day, you’re in luck: The Ruby Slipper Café, located at 100 N. Royal Street in Mobile will fit the bill nicely.

“We could be in San Diego,” my friend Ellen said. “Blue skies, low humidity, and eating lunch outside.”

Located at 1808 Old Shell Road, the Dew Drop Inn has survived hurricanes, recessions, inflation, and a pandemic. There’s a reason it is Mobile’s oldest dining establishment: it’s just that good.