Mailbag: traffic on the Pass, the goat question, and 'is it true the Bama is haunted'
This is the first mailbag column, an idea we stole from every good local newsletter ever made. Reader questions, our answers. Email or submit through the site and we’ll get to it.
Q: My family is driving down from Birmingham next week for a long weekend. Is the Pass bridge construction still happening?
The Foley Beach Express bridge over the Intracoastal is fine; that’s not what you’re thinking of. The Perdido Pass bridge on Hwy 161 is not under construction — that’s the moveable-span concrete bridge over the Pass. What you might be thinking of is the resurfacing project on Perdido Beach Boulevard, which is in the planning stage and will eventually be a thing but isn’t this weekend. The Friday afternoon traffic over the Pass coming into OB will still be bad, just not for a construction reason.
If you’re trying to time the drive, the move is: cross the Pass before noon or after 7 p.m. on a Friday in season. Sunday afternoons going out are equally rough. Saturdays in between, mostly fine.
Q: What’s the deal with the goats at Pirate’s Cove? Are they real goats? Whose are they?
They are real goats. Yes, they live on a tiny island just off the dock at Pirate’s Cove in Innerarity. Yes, you can wave at them from a boat or from the deck. No, you cannot land on the island and pet them — the goats are not a petting zoo, they are the goat-equivalent of independent contractors who keep the island vegetation trimmed and serve as the bar’s most photographed amenity. They have names and they belong to a person and the person is private about it. Don’t try to feed them; people do, the people who run the bar would like you not to.
Q: I had a really weird night at the Flora-Bama and someone at the bar told me the building is haunted. True?
A bar that has been in continuous operation since 1964 — through countless hurricanes including one that knocked it most of the way down (Ivan, 2004) — and has been the site of every variety of human experience known to the southeastern United States is bound to have a few stories. Is the Bama haunted in a way that would be confirmed by a paranormal investigator? Probably not. Is the Bama haunted in the way every Gulf Coast institution that’s seen forty years of weddings, funerals, divorces, songwriter sessions, mullet tosses, and Sunday brunches is haunted? Sure.
What is the more likely explanation for your weird night at the Bama? Bushwackers. The Bushwacker is the official frozen drink of the Bama (or the Sandshaker, depending on who you ask — that fight is the actual haunting). It is much stronger than it tastes. Two of them is two too many. Three of them is a story you tell your friends. Four of them is a Lyft.
Submit more. We’ll do this monthly.
— Kathy