Sweet Home Alabama - 2013 - 6

Braking with my right hand



Still on a high from the zip line adventure.  Muscles in the arms and shoulders were a little tender the day after the zip line course.  I'm also nursing a sprained ankle that happened as I was getting unharnessed at the last zip tower.  Grandma needs Advil today!!

We went to visit the grand Swift-Coles home in the historic fishing village in Bon Secour.  It began in 1882 as a four-room dogtrot, a style of home in the South.  There were two rooms on each side of an open "dogtrot" or breezeway.  Two knowledgeable volunteer docents provided the history of this carefully preserved and furnished tidewater mansion which is now a 16-room premier historic home.  The home was added on to accommodate 11 children.  It encloses 6,000 sq. ft., has 10 fireplaces and 3,500 sq. ft. of porches.  We could not believe they let us enter most of the rooms, walk on the carpets, and even touch period clothing laid out on beds.  Any other museum or preserved mansion docents would have been horrified.  Although we were not allowed to take any photos inside the house. 

Swift-Coles Tidewater Mansion
 

The last owner of this home was an antiques dealer who furnished the mansion with many of his period pieces.  Nick Coles long admired this estate and was able to purchase this house from the Swift estate when the last member of the Swift family to live in the house died in 1976. He restored the home to its original grandeur.   He bequeathed the house and its furnishings to Baldwin County Historical Society. What a save for this area!

Spanish moss in the heritage live oaks

Beer and pizza was a nice break from all the shrimp I have been eating.  The Mellow Mushroom Pizza Bakers opened in 1974 by three college students  serving pizza, calzones, hoagies and salad. We tried a "Philosopher Pizza" with a garlic and olive oil base, grilled steak, Portobello mushrooms, artichokes, Kalamata olives, feta, and mozzarella on a hand tossed crust -- Feta cheese and Kalamata olives...greek ingredients, as in Greek Philospher? 

Planet Beach is automated massage therapy. I tried these services -- a luminous facial, saunatox, dry hydro therapy, and red light therapy and a hydro therapy capsule.