Settlin' In....

Gulf Shores, AL     High:  67    Low:  48

Sparky REALLY wants to go swimming in the huge Olympic size pool here at Gulf State Park, but it's too dang cool outside and in the water-- both still about 64 degrees...The weather is not supposed to warm up till Friday, temps in the low seventies, maybe she can go swimming then.

In the meantime, it's take care of business today--laundry and some errands...Ever see so many machines available in a campground laundromat? Two dollars to wash, 1.25 to dry...a common price in campgrounds that we have been in.

Next we headed up to Camping World to get a zero gravity chair, one of those chairs where you push back on the lower bar and it moves back into a nap position :-). It's a little pricey but nice. We looked them all over very carefully and this one was the most well made, the most comfortable, had the best locking levers and seemed like it would hold up the best. We purchased the warranty with it for two years..normally, we don't do that, but sunlight really does a number on fabric chairs even with protective UV stuff in the fabric. The grommets start to pull away from the fabric as the UV rays beat down on the fabric, weakening it, the elastic starts to give and shred after awhile. After rethreading our last chairs twice, and the grommets ripping, we were ready for a new chair. Why not paid a few extra dollars for the protection plan and get a new chair if something goes wrong? Eldy goes through his rocker chair about every two years, so it's been well worth it to get the warranty plan. Sparky loves the chair and will be spending more time relaxing in it...(HA! We'll see if that happens, but that's part of the reason we got the chair, to make Sparky slow down a bit, explains E.)

We've been riding our bikes around the park...It's so big that if you go around all the streets in the park, you get about 6 1/2 miles for a bike ride just riding in the park! It's one of people's favorite things to do here in the park....We like riding around seeing if there are any fellow "Hoosiers" here (that's people from Indiana). There are a few, but not as many as you would think in a park this size. Tons of Michiganders, lots of people from Illinois, LOTS of Canadians--Ottowa, especially, and smattering of Kentuckians, Vermonters, Illinois people, :-)  and of course Alabamians. Eldy enjoyed  riding around so much yesterday, he says he might try to ride the park every day. You heard it here, first, folks..(Great...says E., with a BIG sigh..) Nothing like a little loving, encouraging pressure to help our guys stay in shape, right, ladies?

Love the little animals around the signs in the park....

There are definitely quite a few walking trails within the park....

And quite a few alligator warning signs, "DON'T FEED OR AGGRAVATE THE ALLIGATORS"--REALLY? Like somebody would be dumb enough to aggravate an alligator? (Uh, Sparky?.......) Who, me? Naw......I'm not THAT crazy....

But Sparky hasn't seen a single alligator in the park....Just lots of birds and this little tree frog, if that's what he is.

Hope he stays outside and doesn't want to come in, like the last little dude Sparky encountered staring at her from the bedroom floor while going down the road a few months ago. That last little frog, no, wait, he was BIG-- jumped onto the fridge with his sticky little webby feet, and Sparky just about had a heart attack and screamed, and Eldy just about slammed on the brakes with all the commotion going on in the back of the rig. That was the "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON BACK THERE??!!" story in case you missed it. The little hitchhiker was safely disposed of by trapping him in a paper cup and let outside as soon as it was safe to do so......

That's it for now.....see ya later.....

At the Gulf....In Alabama!

Gulf Shores, AL     High:  79    Low:  54

We've landed in Gulf State Park, in Gulf Shores, Alabama, after a 188 mile drive from Montgomery, AL today..Gulf State Park offers 496 spacious campsites with full hookups, 50 amp. It's a 6,150 acre big rig friendly park with lots of trails and walking paths. The roads are paved and the sites asphalt pads. There's an 18 hole, par 72 golf course owned by the park, 44.00 with a senior discount, a little too pricey for us. The park's fishing pier reaches 1,540 feet into the Gulf of Mexico....

When you come to Gulf Shores, it's first come, first served. You can make reservations, but if you are wanting to stay longer than just a few days, as it heads more into the winter season, you need a reservation to get in. It's that popular!  If you make a reservation it just guarantees you a spot, but not a specific one. We liked the park so much last year during a short stay, we went ahead and reserved for the season, just to keep our options open for the winter. Things change over a year's time, and we decided we will only be here the month of November. So when we checked in, we looked the map over, and picked a spot. We started out one site for 471.00 for the monthly rate. (Monthly rates are only available from October (?) thru March.)

Sparky decided after viewing our first spot, it was a little too secluded...a little too barren. Really blocked off by tall barren, dried out shrubs and dead trees..hardly anybody was in that wing of the park when we came in..She likes to be around people a little more...or at least a little scenery....If you don't like your site when you first come in, you have to leave your rig on the spot, then go back in the car and let them know you want a different one, so we drove around in the car and picked out this spot...It's a LOT prettier...and because it's near the water, it's a little more. For an additional 27.50 for the month, we have a beautiful view on a narrow lake on a roomy site.

This is a wonderful, BIG park with full amenities....

Fantastic Olympic sized swimming pool, 5,000 square feet! along with a splash pool..They also have a nice nature center and a boat ramp AND the beach is across the way...two miles of white sandy beaches...Too bad the pool is not heated..it's only 64 degrees right now...Too cold even for Sparky! She's afraid she will get leg cramps swimming laps...(There's always the ocean, right across the turnoff for the state park campground, Sparky. It's 74 degrees! reminds E.) Yep, and you just have to worry about sharks and stingy thingies, says Sparky. We'll see...Sparky doesn't like swimming in salt water much.  Picky, picky!

We'll be posting lots more photos daily about Gulf State Park...It's awesome!

Tomorrow we are headed to the Blue Angels Homecoming show...Whoopee! See you there....