Woke to cool, but cloudy skies. Took a load of dirty clothes to the laundry and as soon as I returned to the RV, the skies opened up and it rained and rained and rained. Ended up walking back and forth in the rain, balancing an umbrella and the clothes. Doing laundry is the one thing I really dislike while we are on the road and doing it in the rain borders on hateful.
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| Artwork at entrance to Museum |
Today's schedule is to visit the GulfQuest - National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico. The building is shaped like a ship, but with glass on the outside
with views of the Bay.
We had fun trying to tie nautical knots, learned how speed became measured in knots, walked through how to identify stars and constellations for navigation, interactive tutorial on how to read nautical charts, and how to differentiate a bad storm from just a quick pass-by. Fun plaques explained that many of our idioms come from nautical history. Such as, "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" originated from the term Devil used to identify the gap between the deck and the side of the ship. When a deckhand was sealing that gap being hung over the side of the ship, he was Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. There must have been at least fifty of these everyday sayings!
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| Knot Practice - I was definitely NOT a boy scout - it took forever to tie just one knot! |
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| Weather section of GulfQuest |
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| Dynamic display of how our recent hurricanes developed from three elements - ocean temps, thunderstorms converging and air currents. |
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| These "containers" house one of the five floors of exhibits in GulfQuest |
Mobile is where the concept of container ships was developed - changing the unloading of a ship from 72 hours to 7 hours! Mobile's economy revolves around the port - ship building and cargo and all the supporting industries to support them.
The Hunley was built here - so Mobile built it and we (Charleston) sunk it! They had a small exhibit about it here.
We spent about 5 hours here - Do NOT miss this if you are ever in the area. One of the very best interactive museums we have ever seen.
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