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| Gulf Shores, AL |
October 31, 2012- Leaving Nashville, headed for Orlando, FL. We got a later start than we wanted... This is how a lot of my travel journal entries start. For one reason or another something always seems to delay us. Today, it happened to be the freshwater tank. I knew it would be a long two and a half day drive to Orlando, so I asked Chris to put just enough water in the tank for the journey since we would be dry camping (no sewer) until we got to FL. Well... He accidentally overflowed the 100 gallon watertank! Oops. After draining quite a bit of the water, we were on the road. Chris and I headed South on I-65. It had just started cooling off, and the trees were full of beautiful colored leaves. We originally were headed straight to Orlando, and opted to head south on I-65 instead of across 24 because the East Coast was getting hit with Hurricane Sandy aka "Frankenstorm". This route was about 65 miles extra, but allowed us to avoid the snow East Tennessee was getting, as well as the traffic of Atlanta.
Tennessee was such beautiful country, and full of trees, and then... We crossed into Alabama. Not sure what happened in those few miles, but the trees were gone, people started driving different, the road itself changed, and every mile there was a Waffle House! We stopped for fuel in Northern Alabama, and Chris came out saying, "about half the people in that gas station had on camo. And it wasn't working very well because I could still see them!" Alabama wasn't off to a good start, but hey, we were just driving through, right?
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| Waffle House + Camo = Alabama |
As we are driving down I-65, Chris says to me, "I feel like we're missing the Gulf Coast". And just like that we changed our route! We ended up staying six weeks in LA, that's Lower Alabama, between the beautiful beaches of Gulf Shores and Pensacola, FL, and the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay. Our park was in a quiet, relaxing rural area, and just what we needed after a busy few weeks. We found ourselves splitting our time equally between the beach, and the small bay town of Fairhope, AL. The Gulf Coast beaches have the finest, whitest sand I've ever seen. This is also an amazing place for wildlife and bird watching. Here in Alabama, I got over my lifelong fear of birds. The pelicans, cranes, and ibis are such amazing animals. I never thought I would be content just sitting on a beach watching birds! Huh. Does that mean I'm getting old?
We spent quite a bit of time in the bay town of Fairhope, AL. Riding our bikes along the quiet Eastern Shore, we enjoyed the relaxing Southern lifestyle, eating lots of fresh seafood, and visiting the boutiques and galleries of this small town. I have a hard time putting into words how memorable this town was, but here is a link to an article http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/My-Kind-of-Town-Fairhope-Alabama.html
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| Biking the Eastern Shore |
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| Seafood at Big Daddy's in Fairhope, AL |
Chris really enjoyed visiting the Naval Base in Pensacola. This is where the Blue Angels are based, and there is an amazing air museum here. If you ever get a chance to see the Blue Angels, definitely do it. Although, we didn't get to watch them fly on this trip, we have seen them before, and it's quite incredible. Hopefully, we can return, and watch them practice from the top of nearby Pensacola Lighthouse. From above, you get a completely different view, and the planes frequently "buzz" the lighthouse.
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| Chris in a Blue Angels cockpit |
We also got to meet up with my cousin Kreston, who is going to school in Pensacola. He showed us around the town. His parents and sisters came down for Thanksgiving, and Chris and I got to hang out with all the "K Family" at what Kreston called Chicken Bone Beach. This is close to Ft. Pickens, an old civil war fort near Pensacola. While at the beach we saw lots of rays swimming by, and jumping out of the water. You don't see that back in Kansas!
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| Southern Style Thanksgiving with the "K's" (Ken, Karla, Kreston, Kaley, and Kelsey) |
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| Chris and Ashley, Pensacola, FL |
I must admit I truly enjoyed our stay in Alabama. I have to savor these relaxing days, before heading to fast-paced Orlando.
