Gulf Coast Getaway, Day 7

Birth Day

Saturday May 29, 2010

Copyright(c) 2010, Jim Beachy

"Happy birthday!" I say to Kitty. Her birthday is always around Memorial Day, and frequently on Memorial Day weekend. We'd decided on our last visit to the Mississippi family that if they couldn't come to us for a birthday party, we'd take the birthday party to them. And thus we found ourselves wondering almost 1,400 miles on our Gold Wing through the back roads of South Carolina and Georgia, then along the white sand beaches of the Florida Panhandle to Kevin's house in Mississippi. Today is Kitty's birthday and it's Party Day.

But first, we're off to the Discovery Center, a wonderfully creative fantasy house where the kids can variously transform themselves from train conductors into ticket agents into ladies at high tea into hotel guests into lobster-fishermen into crane operators into mountain climbers into barbers or barbershop customers into grocery shoppers into grocery store owners into tree-house dwellers. Amidst all these venues are some cleverly designed scientific "experiments" from which I myself learn a few things, notably that a golf ball rolled down a variable-pitch incline will beat the one rolled down a straight incline every time, even though the starting and ending elevations are the same.

And then lunch, after which Papa is exhausted and needs a little nap, while others go to a kid's birthday party at a place I think is called Kangaroos - some kind of bounce house where apparently all the venues are related to bouncing onto or off of something. Way too exhausting for the likes of me!

As a heavy black thunderstorm rolls through the area, we head for dinner at Back Bay Seafood Restaurant where we'd eaten a few weeks ago when Solo Guy visited the Mississippi family. I'd ridden the Wing by myself to a crawfish-eating escapade in Vicksburg, Mississippi with about 75 biker friends, and afterwards streaked 200 miles southeast to Gulfport to spend a day there. I'd made a GPS waypoint decided then that I wanted to return to this restaurant, and that's what Kitty has chosen for her birthday dinner. It's a moderately priced place with a large menu of seafood prepared in a bewildering variety of ways. By the time we're finished eating, the storm has, for the most part, passed to the east. We sit by the window watching the orange setting sun as it paints an orange sky shot through with the remnants of the storm clouds, and kisses the rippling waters of the bay with shimmering orange highlights, while the poles of the fishing piers become silhouettes of soldiers standing at strict attention in the fading evening light. On the way home we see a rainbow.

And thus home for the birthday party. Kitty is temporarily banished to the kids' play room while the party gets set up. Danica has been the chief planner for Kitty's party unless, of course, you were to account for some help from Kristal. After the banners and streamers are hung and the balloons are tied to the chair of honor, Kitty is called in and everyone yells "Surprise!" I have to laugh in spite of myself at the absurdity of it, since Kitty has known since March that this is our primary excuse for coming here. Even so, she's a bit teary-eyed while everyone's kazoos trumpet "Happy Birthday!", and it's a great little party with just the family.

I'm glad we could spend this birthday with our family!