reliving Friday

Overcast over 7H porch this morning, and to the east, south and west. Moon sailing high in and out of clouds, huge planet to the far left, northward, of the moon. These past several days, weeks, clouds are not as photogenic as earlier. No matter. Davis to Courtney:

A relaxing and peaceful visit to Apalachicola yesterday. There are two hotels, motels, right on the river and we’ve only stayed at one, Apalachicola River Inn, which in our mind is the Rainbow. We stayed there a night or two when we first arrived in town from Pennsylvania the last week of July 1984. Told here before, we were on the first floor, which evidently had recently been flooded, as the carpet in our room was wall to wall soaking wet, and the first night we were there an alligator ate a cat in the motel parking lot. The night before, we had stayed in the lovely inn at Wakulla Springs. We were a family of three, Linda and I 48, Tass 12, and Trinity’s rectory was our home for the next fourteen years. 

When visiting Apalachicola since then, we’ve stayed variously at the Gibson Inn, at Coombs House, once at an inn on StGeorgeIsland, and at the Rainbow but always only on the second floor. Just to try it, we made a reservation for a couple nights the end of May at Water Street Hotel, which is newer and has an elevator. On the river, it’s not really, but on Scipio Creek. For our wedding stay in October, we’ll decide between the two. 

For a change from Owl Cafe, which is always good, we had lunch at Up the Creek Raw Bar, outstanding “steamed” oysters 

and Linda had crab cakes, the first crab cakes I’ve tasted since living near Chesapeake Bay that were 100% crabmeat and no turkey dressing, beyond perfect.

After lunch we parked on the river while Linda browsed her shops as I watched river traffic of diving pelicans and shrimp boats. 

Then we drove across the bridge for the first time in many years for a delightful visit to reminisce with parishioner friends from long ago. As we were leaving I glanced in a bookcase and admired a model Lincoln car, which he promptly took out and handed to me saying “happy birthday.” 

As we exited the bridge onto Market Street, I thought “ice cream” and said it aloud and we stopped at Apalachicola Chocolate Company for scoops. I had strawberry laced with chunks of strawberries, and a scoop of tupelo honey ice cream. Linda had green, pistachio, and a scoop of caramel.

We arrived home to 7H late, exhausted, happy with the Friday. Rather than open a new bottle of red, I had one finger of Laphroaig with a cube of ice and watched a two hour movie on YouTube, Panfilov's 28 Men, a Russian war film with English subtitles, in color, Russian company of soldiers with limited weapons and ammunition, which included bottles of vodka made into molotov cocktails that caused tanks to burst into flame, in bitter Russian winter of 1941 reduced to a platoon after the first attack, then turned back a vastly larger force of German tanks and infantry and the final subtitle read “communist heroes are patriots.” But it was not an ancient film: all the soldiers had 21st century hairstyles, the subtitles included modern American cliches of speech including a reference to recycling the ruined out German tanks, and the credits ran at the end instead of the beginning. 

Leaving the cafe via elevator not stairs:

A sound night’s sleep.

DThos+