Rain, Biscuits, BBQ, Quebecans(?) and More Rain

My son and I attended a Montgomery Biscuits game Thursday night. Not much offense, a good bit of rain, a 9th inning RBI single, and the Biscuits beat the Huntsville Stars, 2-1. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. My boy had never been to Dreamland BBQ (a terrible failing on my part...I was a bad dad) so we shared some ribs before the game. He's now a Dreamland fan.

Are these Abrams tanks? Or some other armored, propelled gun on the train behind the left field fence?



Yesterday, the wife and I took my son, his wife and my gorgeous baby granddaughter to The Shed in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. We met some family and friends there and chowed down on a ton of great food.

The trip down to the coast was nasty. Heavy rain would blast us every 15 minutes or so like clockwork. We stopped at one point to rest a minute and I told started walking over to some motorcyclists to see where they were heading. My wife told my son that I do this every time I see bikes. After meeting the riders and thoroughly enjoying my conversation with Marie, I told my wife, "That's why I always talk to folks. You never know what you might miss if you don't speak to people."

Marie, 2nd from right, told me they were riding from Quebec to New Orleans. They had 14 days to travel and had been riding a rain-soaked Blue Ridge Parkway the day before. Marie was riding a Kawasaki, her dad and mom were on a Yamaha FJR, and their friend was riding a new Harley. Only Marie spoke English. As I failed to notice the Quebec license tags when I first spoke to them, I had been a little confused by the fact that no one spoke, other than Marie. They just smiled a lot. Marie served as interpreter and I enjoyed every minute of our conversation.

I felt terrible that they were encountering so much rain, since, prior to this past week, we'd had so much beautiful weather. We discussed the merits of different rainwear and the failure of her dad's rainsuit to do its job properly. I have yet to test my new Frogg Toggs suit. I finally got fed up with the heavy suit that I'd had (you tend to sweat so much in most bike raingear that you may as well not wear anything), so I bought a Frogg Toggs set. I'd met a couple on a Gold Wing years ago who had on these light, thin suits and they told me they worked well. They were FTs, so, when Bass Masters had a sale, I grabbed a suit. Guess I need to head to Tampa or the mountains soon and give it a workout.

After parting company with my new French-Canadian friends, we continued to plow through torrential rain. The 4Runner was packed to its limit, with baby, mom and dad, my wife, and the rear loaded with baby's needs. We had a good time the whole day, in spite of the rain. Arriving at The Shed, just off I-10 on Highway 57 in Ocean Springs, we saw that we hadn't been lied to by friends who'd been there before. The place is a conglomeration of tin, scrap wood, and Christmas lights! Cool as hell. And Buddy Guy will be there next month (or Sept?)as part of a Shed Bluesfest. I may have to go back. Especially if this employee is working:

We ordered a huge pile of food and went nuts. My wife and I shared a slab of babyback ribs slathered in a sweet, brown sauce. Actually, shared may be the wrong term. She ate a couple of ribs. I ate the rest. A Red Sox fan at another table gave up trying to eat all of his order and gave me his unopened baked beans, cole slaw and potato salad to add to our feast. Hell yeah!