Orange Beach, Alabama

The drive from Memphis to Orange Beach was pretty uneventful. I tried to see the birthplace of Elvis in Tupelo, but it was closed today. Stopped at a sweet roadside stand and picked up some amazing peaches and tomatoes. It's interesting to see how much further along all the crops are here compared to the Midwest.

I by-passed the "His & Hers Super Party World" (although I must admit I was curious), as well as a place advertising Alabama's "Biggest Flea Market". I rolled through the towns of Shuquolok, Wahalak, and Scooba , and was very thankful for FM 91.1, WMSV (http://www.wmsv.msstate.edu/), which got me almost all the way to Meridian, AL.

I don't have much to report today, except that due to the holiday, I'm not actually starting my volunteer work until tomorrow. I did trek all about the western (and southern) end of Gulf State Park and didn't see anything but some minor sheen washing up on the shore. I talked to another man and his son visiting from Daphne, AL, and he had also heard that there was a chance of the slick hitting the beach today. All the state parks are letting everyone in for free at the moment (usually costs $5 to park at Site 4, and $2 to park if you want to walk out on the big pier). There were hardly any people anywhere. Traffic heading north was very heavy, and I confess at one point I thought, "man, am I driving the wrong way?"

The parking lots of most of the public beaches here have been turned into staging areas for the "hired help". These are companies that have been hired (I am guessing by BP) to be on standby. The staging areas are full of John Deere tractors, porta potties, lights, giant vacuum hoses, and a myriad of other supplies. I promise to report more on this later, some of the workers are here at my hotel (Fairfield Inn & Suites on Orange Beach). The company is out of North Carolina.

For now, the beach I saw looked pristine, the Pelicans, Bonaparte's Gulls, and Osprey, looked healthy and hungry, and the ocean seemed masked in normalcy. The oil booms lurking off shore and the hired guns standing around doing nothing were the only immediate indicators that something wicked this way comes.

Peace.