Sweet Vacation Alabama

 

January 14, 2012

We are spending our last night in Alabama tonight in the hotel room watching the playoffs, which has been exciting to say the least. The previous two days and nights we have been in Alabama and it has been a nice place to escape the cold weather.  It has been unusually cold here as well, but I have been comfortable in a light jacket and it’s sunny.  The first night we spent in Mobile in a cheap motel. 

The next day we got the oil changed and had the geek, Daniel, at Mobile Best Buy check our car stereo because it keeps shutting off.  He did this for free and said it looks great, however, it did shut off again.  Not sure about this problem but it doesn’t happen all the time and it turns right back on - so we’ll see.  Then we went and parked in downtown Mobile to walk around for a little while and have lunch.  The Fort Conde visitor center is very helpful and there is an interesting street next to it that looks like a movie set of a Southern city. After lunch we drove back east underneath Mobile Bay in the tunnel and down the coast to Gulf Shores.  We stopped on the way down at Clear Point Park and walked out to the end of the pier.  We arrived in Gulf Shores where the wonderful welcome center had free coffee and cookies.  The ladies there were also very helpful.  Next door to the welcome center was a Pirate’s Island Mini Golf Course, so we had to play.  Jon gave me 9 strokes for the Jean Lafitte course and I only needed 6 because I got 2 holes in one and won us a free game so we are going back tomorrow to do the Blackbeard course.  Should I still take the 9 strokes?  Yesterday ended with a barefooted sunset on the beach.  It was cold but the sand was so soft and white; so we both went barefoot.  A tri-colored heron, a sandpiper, and a plover of some sort all spent the amazing sunset hopping around the beach with us.

Today, we tried to have an active day and we biked around Gulf State Park on the Rattlesnake Ridge Trail.  A lot of this area was tidal and forested but much of it seemed to have had prescribed burning.  The trails had many people utilizing them today, on foot and bike.  We did yoga this afternoon as well, which was a little easy for my liking but a nice class over all.  For sunset we drove to Fort Morgan and since it was so late in the day they let us in for free - score!   The fort was used mainly during the Civil War and had very steep stairs.  There was also a scout group spending the night and probably telling ghost stories and eating smores - yum. The Patriots seem to be kicking the Broncos butt, but I know what happened to the Steelers last week.  Tomorrow, we head to NOLA, one of our favorite vacation destinations.  Check back in a few days.

Fort Monroe

The second

Looking through

Heron

Not too cold to go barefoot

Burned