Fishing

I went fishing this morning with Phyllis, Glen and Mike. I had a great time. Phyllis has a pontoon boat, so she took us out. She lives on Roberts' Bayou which eventually feeds into the Dog River. We actually fished in the Dog River.

This first picture is the Bayou behind Phyllis' house. Can you see the white Crane taking off from the water?

Glen is the one on the left and Mike is the one with the sunglasses. This is not a good picture of them, but I didn't tell them to look up, oh well. Glen is a deckhand on a Mississippi tug boat that pushes the barges up and down the River. Do you remember the barge that was hit last month and spilled fuel oil? Glen's company owned the barge. But it wasn't one he was working.

This is Phyllis. She had just caught the Croaker. We caught some Red Fish, but they have to be 14 inches long, and none of ours were that big. But we caught several Croakers. They actually "croak."

I know this Croaker did not look that big, but it was a keeper and I got a little bigger one later. They are apparently good eating, but I am not a big fish fan. Glen kept the fish.

We stopped for lunch at a place right where the Dog River dumps into Mobile Bay. I had a Shrimp salad. I was tired of feeding all the shrimp to the fish. So I ordered some for myself! The food was excellent. Phyllis had fried okra with her fried oyster po'boy sandwich (a very southern sandwich).

When Phyllis bit into one of her fried oysters, she bit something hard. She found this pearl. I thought that was pretty amazing.

I loved this spider's web that was in Phyllis' yard. It looked so perfect. That spider had an attention to detail.

I Am Now Official

Yesterday I finally took the time to go to the licensing commissioner's office and the DMV. I now have an Alabama driver's license in my wallat and an Alabama tag to go on my car! I had tried once to do it, but I didn't have the right paperwork. In fact yesterday I had to actually go twice because I still didn't have the right paperwork. But I finally finished the process. I am planning on going fishing with some friends on Saturday and the cost of an out-of-state fishing license is almost double that of an in-state license. So money was the final factor to force me to make the change. I still haven't put the new tag on my car - a little bit of laziness, but some reluctance as well. With the out-of-state tag, people are a little more forgiving when I make turning blunders (like going the wrong way down a one way street). I also have had the same New Hampshire license tag for 22 years! I know my tag number, in fact a lot of people had my tag number memorized. Now I am going to have to work on memorizing a new number.

One thing I do like about my new tag is that it says "God Bless America" on it and the American flag forms the background for the tag. I am so grateful to God for allowing me to be born and raised in America. I pray that He continues to bless America. I have not watched the Democratic National Convention because I do not align myself with their idealogy. But I still am so proud of our Country to be able to nominate a person of color to possibly be the next President of the United States. I am not going to vote for Senator Obama, not because of his skin color, but because of his idealogy. But I think Martin Luther King's dream was somewhat realized last evening. I applaud the Democratic Party for choosing Senator Obama as their candidate. It was an historic moment and may God continue to bless America.