Shopping Cart Heaven

As we were on our trip from New Orleans to Saint Petersburg, we thought that we would take a detour to Mobile, AL to get a look at how the recovery of the BP oil spill was really coming along.  We could all see the propaganda of “Thank You BP” but we wanted to get a better look of what clean-up has happened and what still may have to be taken care of. 

Well, everyone was taking a nap and since I was driving without a navigator, I thought that I would make some executive decisions before waking them.  I decided that I was going to go to Dauphin Island because I figured, it being off the coast of Mobile, it must have taken some hard hits from not only the oil spill, but also Katrina and the other Hurricanes that have hit the gulf over the last seven years.

On our way out to Dauphin Island, we had to cross St. Charles Island and what we claimed to be the place where shopping carts came to die.  With hundreds of shopping carts stacked and lined up on this island so far from any obvious place for a shopping cart, we thought we should stop and check it out.

What this place turned out to be was a place for fisherman to fish without having to fight for a place on a pier or bank somewhere.  There was plenty of room on the shore and if they cared to, they could pay a small fee and go out onto one of the three piers and fish. It was a small business that an ex-fisherman started to give more people the opportunity to fish.  The shopping carts come into play by being karts for the men and women fishing to get all of their gear from their car to the place the fishing is happening.  It turns out that this man running the business found a great way to recycle these carts that would otherwise be found in a landfill somewhere.