Progress

I went by Fairhope Pier a couple of days ago to see how the repairs were going. It looks great! Hurricane Katrina damaged this pier and it has been closed since then, but it looks like they will be ready to open it back up in a month or two. It was awful to see it destroyed, because I have a lot of memories at this pier and the beach around it. My dad loves to fish, so when I was a kid, we would go to this pier after he got off work. We would go somewhere and get something to eat, bring the bags down with us and have a little picnic on one of the benches. My sister and I would do our homework out there too, and when we were finished with our homework, we would go for a walk with my mom while my dad threw his cast net over the side of the pier. We would stay until the sun set, one of the most beautiful sites in the world. When darkness finally fell, we would go home, take baths and go to bed. Since then, I've always returned to this beach when I need peace. There are so many other memories attached to that place. I experienced my first kiss there, on a staircase going down from the bluff to the beach. The stairs stopped in the middle, making a sort of landing with benches, and then continued to the bottom. Because the stairs went down a bluff (and because we are in the South) the stairs were surrounded by kudzu and huge trees covered with Spanish Moss. It was actually very private on that little landing, and pretty romantic too. We always remember our first kiss fondly, don't we? My friends and I would always go to the pier or the beach to hang out, because there was nothing else to do in a small town. There were a couple of piers we would frequent, all in the same general area. There's something about lying on a wooden pier staring at the stars and listening to the waves crashing onto the shore. As I said before, I always go there when I need peace.

It's so good to see that they are making so much progress repairing it. When they finally open the pier back up, I plan to take a walk to the end, just like we used to do when I was a kid.