Hulls..

 

The road to Hulls starts off with a generic fifteen-minute drive down Interstate 95. Then the “Old Dixie Highway/Tomoka State Park” exit takes us through a 2,000-acre Florida State Park located along the Tomoka River, three miles north of Ormond Beach. Majestic oaks draped in Spanish Moss interlace their fingers overhead forming a tunnel of shade mixed with bright flashes of sunlight. God’s strobe lights. Twenty minutes later, the road opens up to a neighborhood strung along the intercoastal waterway. Take a right turn one block before the bridge to go straight into the parking lot behind Hulls.

Broiled Rock shrimp, lightly battered and fried soft-shell crabs, sautéed zucchini & summer squash, corn fritters that are crispy on the outside but still dangerously hot on the inside. Break them open and blow. Cold sweet tea made fresh with real sugar.

An excellent seafood store next door offers piles of fish that were swimming earlier in the day. Live lobster tanks, cold and dark, paper bags half full of mean blue crabs ready to pinch the hell out of your finger if you aren’t careful, live soft-shell crabs with eyes on retractable stalks…

All of it is my vision of heaven. When I die, I want my ashes scattered here, maybe into dirt at the base of the palm trees by the back deck, so my ashes won’t blow onto that platter of fresh Mahi that’s going by. 

It’s already grilled to perfection, doesn’t need to be blackened by me. 

I probably wouldn’t taste so great.