Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Exploring Gulf Shores

One of our favorite things to do is to go out in the area, drive around and just see what's out there! The weather is in the seventies here, above normal for November. And it's very humid, that's probably normal! We decided to head out Fort Morgan Road towards the ferry.....we wanted to just see if it was running-it was. From what people told us, it seems that it's necessary to check often if the ferry is running, there must be a lot of times it isn't!  The ferry goes from Gulf Shores over to Dauphin Island, and we might do that on a nice day this coming week. We didn't go see the fort today, might do that another time.....we were out for a driving tour......

Then we drove along the beach highway road to look at all the pretty houses that are vacation rentals. They were beautiful and very colorful!

We drove to a public beach along the shoreline and stopped for a bit to look at the beautiful beach....

We stopped again to see the pelicans on the pipe at the Lee Calloway Bridge..Guess lots more of them come in to roost in this area as the winter progresses....


And the pretty orange/red butterflies that were flying all around the sand and the dunes.....
By this time, Sparky was getting hungry....(And when Sparky gets hungry, you gotta feed her SOON or she gets grouchy!) There are LOTS of good places to eat in Gulf Shores and the surrounding areas, it's hard to pick just one. So we decided to try.......
Hm-m-m-m, this guy looks familiar! He sure is cute!

....Good food at the Oyster House and nice view out the restaurant window!

While we were out and about, we checked out some more RV parks--Fort Morgan RV park was old and filled with old RVs, it was dark, and we would never consider staying there...very small and not for big rigs.  Doc's RV Park was very small, tight, almost all 5th wheels and park models and no sites on the water.  It had the feel of sitting in a county park parking lot.  Bay Breeze RV Park was another very small park. One lane in and out of the park, about 25 sites or less at the end of the road in, but it was a clear view to the bay for the RV sites.   Island Retreat RV Resort was probably the nicest park we saw of these....There's one more we drove into and around and that was Johnny's Lakeside RV Resort, formerly known as Palm Lake RV Resort. That was a very nice campground as well. It's interesting that the photos on the web look very little like the actual campground once you drive in for a lot of these places, especially the ones that are older. It's almost like they spiffed up the website, chose the most attractive building on the premises, then carefully shot the photo with the building and some pretty foliage nearby. This campground was gravel sites with very small concrete patios at the site. Sites were not too close together. It seemed pleasant enough for a day or two, but we bet there is a lot of road noise as highway 59 sits right outside the park.

You can check RV Park Reviews for more specific information about these parks. Hands down, Gulf State Park and Emmaus RV Park beats them all for the money, in our humble opinion.

It was a relaxing day....a nice Sunday drive....No plans for Monday yet, but you never know where Eldo will want to go........

3 comments:

  1. Really great pictures. I love the photo of the two beach houses. We have been out exploring quite a bit too here along the gulf, it seems the beach houses are moving more and more to soft pastel colors. I really like them.

    John
    connectedtothevinephotography.blogspot.com

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  2. We loved those houses when we first saw them. That is just a fun area. Glad you are enjoying yourselves.

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