It was a lovely morning for a drive.

Photographer Colin Hackley and I headed out this morning to sightsee along the east coast of Mobile Bay. We saw a quaint little bait and tackle shop along the Mobile Bay causeway rapidly slipping under the water. We continued down the causeway until we hit a river of water rushing over it. ("I have reverse, and I know how to use it,” Colin declared earlier as he apparently read a trace of dread in my otherwise confident demeanor.)

The rain was something. At times it seemed almost like one of those 1970s-era rock shows with the dry-ice fog drifting across the stage. It was that thick. And it was as if people were standing by the side of the road every 20 feet or so with five-gallon buckets of water, pelting our windshield regularly.

We saw a few downed trees and power lines, but nothing too shocking. A Fairchild cop eventually pulled up next to us and rolled down his window: “There’s a curfew. We’re enforcing it,” he said. A couple blocks down the road, a second cop gave us the blue lights. Sheesh. No respect for the First Amendment around here. We returned to the hotel, although we knew there ain’t a jail in all of Baldwin County, Ala. that could hold us.

The bad news here is rising water. Mobile Bay has overtaken the swamp as well as our parking lot. The “IVAN” buoy is long gone. And the mystery gator, boosted by the rising tide, splashed over the curb and into the parking lot a while back, to the bemusement of a couple dozen guests gathered in the lobby. The hotel manager told Colin he’s never seen the water so high.

We lost power in the hotel about 8:30 a.m., and it’s getting hot and stuffy. And the battery is dying.