Come to think of it,
don’t we all need a quick escape?
Our friends Chris and Christie have three boys. Brennan and Marshall were in middle and high school and Connor was an infant when we began regular weekend trips to coastal Alabama.
Our first trip was prompted by an exchange-student program that Brennan’s school participated in. Bob and I rented a condo with Chris, Christie, and the boys at Gulf Shores. The exchange student, Anton, was French. The boys didn’t like him. So, Bob and I took him most of the way home, plying him with rudimentary French. He must have thought we were simpletons who didn’t know our names or what time it was, for those questions were the extent of our conversational French.
It was May 1997, Mother’s Day weekend. It ended with a rendezvous in a parking lot with Christie jumping out of the car before it had completely stopped. Connor was crying and Marshall was throwing up.
Then we discovered the laidback atmosphere of Dauphin Island, which sits on the nearer side of Mobile Bay. Gulf Shores is a kids’ place; Dauphin Island is for grownups. Nearly 15 miles long and two wide, it’s a quaint fishing town with no rides, T-shirt shops, or water-sport rentals. There’s only one way on and off the island—the three-mile Dauphin Island Bridge
“Wheeeee!” Bob would cry, as we crested the 85-foot-high span and descended roller coaster-style across the bay separates the Mississippi Sound on the west from Mobile Bay on the east.
***
The spit of land has a deep history, beginning with 1,500-years-old shell middens that can be traced to the Mississippian Mound Builder culture. In 1519, the Spanish explorer Alonso Álvarez de Pineda mapped the island with remarkable accuracy.
It was, however, the French-Canadian explorer Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville, who in 1699 made a lasting impact. He anchored his fleet nearby on his way to explore the mouth of the Mississippi River. Claiming the barrier island for King Louis XIV of France, the tiny enclave became the capital of the Louisiana Territory, which, at the time, made up about two-thirds of the United States.
Originally named Massacre Island because of human skeletons discovered there (which were later determined to be unearthed graves), it was renamed for the king’s great-grandson and heir, the Dauphin.
The Pelican, a ship chartered by the king, arrived in 1704 with 26 young ladies, known as the Pelican Girls, to marry the colony’s settlers. Mobile was called the birthplace of the colony and Dauphin Island, its cradle. Disillusioned when their husbands disappeared to spend time with their Indian “wives,” the girls staged a protest, denying their husbands sex and food. The Petticoat Insurrection was successful in forcing the men to provide better lives for them.
Fort Gaines, on the eastern tip, was occupied by Confederate forces until 1864 when it was captured by Federal troops during the Battle of Mobile Bay. It was here that U.S. Admiral David Farragut is said to have proclaimed, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”
***
“Damn the workday,” Christie and I would say in anticipation of a get-away weekend. “Full speed ahead to Dauphin Island.”
Beyond its storied past and uncrowded beaches, the retro-style resort town offered only leisure activities, so we often brought a kayak and rented bicycles.
Birdwatching was popular. Besides being the first landfall for a huge number of migratory birds heading north from South America, resident birds included shorebirds, osprey, and brown pelicans. By some accounts, pelicans outnumbered seagulls by at least 1,000 to one. We took wonderful pictures of them at sunset. Dauphin Island, after all, is the Sunset Capital of Alabama.
And, of course, there was dolphin watching.
Many people mispronounce Dauphin Island as Dolphin Island. Yet the mistake is ironically accurate. Dauphin is “dolphin” in French, and the sea mammal is prominently featured on the coat-of-arms of the Count of Vienne, the original dauphin. On a map, the island does look like a dolphin, with Fort Gaines as its bottle-nose and a string of islands as a dorsal fin.
As plentiful as sand crabs, as many as 1,500 bottlenose dolphins tumble endlessly against a blurred backdrop of oil and gas rigs several miles off shore. Marshall liked to take a kayak out to frolic among the dolphin pods. As curious and gentle as they are with humans, however, they are apex predators, who feed on fish and squid.
With plenty of both in the surrounding waters, a handful of unpretentious restaurants served up outrageously delicious local seafood. Our favorite was Seafood Galley, with old rocking chairs on the outside and characters named Bubba, Gus, and Booger on the inside.
There was also a gas station / grill / convenience store where we sometimes picked up supplies. One weekend, following a hurricane, the restaurants were closed and we had to make do with what we could buy there for dinner. While scrounging around, Marshall grabbed a can of Spam and held it aloft.
“I sure would like some of that there pawtted meat,” he said, ripping a damned good imitation of Billy Bob Thornton’s character Karl in Slingblade.
Tropical storms have played a huge role on the island. In 1717, an extreme storm blocked the entrance to the harbor and trapped the ships, prompting the French to move the capital to New Orleans. In both 1906 and 1916, people lashed themselves to large oaks to stay out of the reach of alligators. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina split the western end into a separate isle.
***
To initiate the weekend, either Christie or I would call a rental business and reserve a house with two master bedrooms. Since beachfront properties rented at a premium, a cottage or two in was fine. The houses all had campy names, like Island Time, Dune Tunes, and Beach Break.
At one point, we imagined getting our own permanent getaway that we could rent out when not in use. We named the fantasy bungalow and thus, our weekends, the “Quick Escape,” aptly using Christie’s last name for the adventure.
A typical escape began with Christie, Connor, and me driving two hours on a Thursday afternoon to open the house and get settled for a lazy weekend. Bob, Chris, and the boys would join us on Friday after work and school.
We usually took I-10 to Tillman’s Corner, Alabama, then Highway 193 to the island. After looking at a map, however, we decided to try a shortcut on Highway 188. Our not-so-quick escape had us meandering Alabama’s coastal byways, wildlife refuges, and finally, in the dark, Bayou La Batre. While the seafood town showed up humorously in the 1994 film Forrest Gump, we were stumped by the lack of highway or street signs. At last, we saw a sign for Dauphin Island.
By this time, we had been on the road about four hours. Connor, who at four-years-old had played an endless game of “I spy,” now had to go to the bathroom. But there was nowhere to stop.
“We’ll be there soon,” Christie kept telling him.
And sure enough, we were there soon, but when we pulled up to the house, it was all lit up with music and laughter floating through the screened windows.
“The house isn’t available this weekend,” the landlord told us apologetically when we knocked on the door. He and a couple of buddies were enjoying a few beers. “We deliberately didn’t list it for the weekend because we have repairs to do”.
“Please,” Christie begged, “can my son use the bathroom?”
“Come on in,” he said, inviting us in to use the bathroom. He offered us a drink while we called the rental office. The manager there was also full of apologies and got us another house nearby, right on the beach. After unloading the car in the dark, we ate some crackers and cheese, and tumbled into bed.
When we awoke the next morning, we quickly realized we had lucked out. No one occupied the adjacent houses and the front porch opened onto the beach. There was nothing between us and the Gulf except clean sand and light breezes.
“From now on,” I said, “if we’re going to trek out here for a weekend, we need to stay on the beach.”
Christie immediately agreed.
Grateful for this wonderful solution to an inconvenient problem, we sat for hours reading, sipping cold drinks, and watching Connor play. It would be hours before the guys would arrive. Until then, we had the entire beach to ourselves.
That is, until two middle-aged women in sunhats strolled along the shore between us and the water. As the interlopers crossed our view, they smiled.
Christie looked up, annoyed by the quick interruption.
“I can’t believe someone is on our beach,” she said, and went back to her book.
This is an excerpt from Chick Stories: A Memoir of Adventure Lived, Laughter Shared, and Lessons Learned with my Girlfriends, by Patti M. Walsh, due out in November 2025.
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