Today we had a very last minute invite to St George Island, right across the bay from Apalachicola. This had to be our fastest trip ever down to the coast, no wait, second fastest… we once drove down to our Orange Beach marina for Thanksgiving in 2007 only to find out their wifi was not working and then made the 4-5 hour drive right back. We were there for about 60 minutes. This time we were down there for about 20 hours. It was plenty long enough to bake in the blasting heat, read another chapter in the Bonhoeffer biography (which is incredible), take a few pics for today’s Friday Feet, and make it back home.
Hard to believe how long it has been since Deb and I have been down to the gulf. We use to go down there about once a month but it’s been almost two years since we made the drive down there. I was instantly reminded why we use to go down there in December through February. The 100% humidity and 100*F weather going on right now was enough to make you run for cover.
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This is hardly where I spent most of the day on Friday, but then after Catalyst West Coast was over I was so exhausted I decided to drive over to the coast to watch the sunset. I ended up down near the Balboa Peninsula on the PCH and walked out to the beach just in time. I have been in Southern Cal for 4 days, it has been cold and cloudy the whole time (after it was 100* the day before I got here) and late on Friday the skies just opened up. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I had witnessed in a long time and I will make it my Friday Feet post for this week.
For those looking for Catalyst West Coast images… I will start to post some of those when I get back. I am on my way to the airport right now, thanks to everyone at Catalyst and Mariner’s Church that made this week such a inspirational time.
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I finally got around to editing some of the photos from our camping trip last weekend. We stayed at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores Alabama, just down the road from where we use to live in Orange Beach at Bearpoint Marina. This state park is one of the larger ones, but a little less on the “camping” side and a little more on the RV side of camp grounds.
We have visited this park several times before and it is a very well developed area just on the other side of the main road from the beach. It does border the lake that is in the area and there is a golf course in the park as well, but if you are looking for a camping spot on the actual beach this is not it (nor were we expecting it to be). It does have great access to the Gulf State Park beaches which are starting to get a little crowded at this point. If you want an empty beach in the same area, same beautiful white sand, just take a short drive down to the National Seashore in Florida called the Gulf Islands National Seashore (though they don’t allow pets on the beach).
One thing about this area is the hurricane damage that is still present in the tree line. Several years ago a hurricane topped all the tress around here so if you look at what is normally a pretty full pine tree forest type area, you see sort of a tree trunk grave yard. Pretty weird looking but some of the photos below are a few trees that made it among all the ones that were topped, and the smaller ones that have emerged.
We have been to all these beaches and most of the restaurants in the area so many times that we will probably make our way east next time toward Panama City where we haven’t spent so much time. All in all it was wonderful and relaxing as always, and I did get to take a few photos while we were there. You can see the complete slideshow of photos here on flickr.
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Last weekend Deb and I went back down to Gulf Shores for a quick camping trip. Of course, being that we were camping we had no Internet access (at least non-cellular) which was weird, so I have some catching up to do on my blog. I haven’t missed a Friday Feet post since I started it last year so this post-dated version was from last Friday.
Always an interesting weather time weather wise down here where thunderstorms usually start to roll in and winter still tries to hang on. One day it is freezing and the next is it hot. Thursday we arrived to a blustering tornatic frontal system and Friday it was sunny and hot. It was still a great time to relax away from the computer and start thinking about Holy Week coming up.
I have several posts coming up on photos from that weekend, a few book reviews, and many more, stay tuned. Have a great Holy Week this week.
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This is just one of probably 5,000 images I have of an empty beach. People often tell me they can’t find any beaches without big crowds anymore, especially here in the continental U.S., but I beg to differ. More often than not, Deborah and I find ourselves on a beach with less than 10 people in a 5 square mile area. This beach is one of our favorites. In North Carolina you can go to the Outer Banks and find empty beach after beach.
Of course one of the keys to finding an empty beach is going when everyone else doesn’t want to go. This may sound stupid, but if you want to get a tan and lay in the sun, then go where everyone else is going. If you are interested in walking on a place like the photo below, go in the off season, it is great. So far, we have been able to find empty beaches in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and some incredible ones in Alabama.
They are certainly nice places still left, you just have to look. This is one of our favorites spots, and it is usually empty all year long with white sand and no trash. It is COLD in the winter winds, but still a great place to spend an afternoon, and today, it is the image of the day.
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We drove down to the coast today. We try to come down to the gulf coast as often as we can since this is where our sailboat is located (see this blog under the category coastal or tagged under sailboat). This is actually getting more of a challenge with the price of gas now close to $4.00/gallon down here, but it is still reachable, just would be nice in some gas friendly car.
Who knows, I may look back at this post in 6 months and the price may be $5.00/gallon by then. Makes our trip to Colorado in late summer a load of fun, gas wise. Either way, we love it down here and we try to come as often as we can (which seems to never be enough). Our favorite time to come down to the gulf coast is in the off season, you never have to wait for a table and the beaches are always clean and empty. Of course one thing we love to do while we are down here on the coast is eat, and Orange Beach and Gulf Shores has no shortage of good places to eat.
There is Some Great Food Down Here
There are several restaurants we love eating at down here. Tonight are going to LuLu’s at Homeport, which is a localish restaurant (meaning it is half touristy and half locals) and tonight should be a great set by John Reno and The Half-Fast Creekers.
The band played longer than we stuck around but they played a nice mix of their own music and the usual known pop most bands play for the tourists. I guess those here for their vacation expect to hear Cheese Burger in Paradise at some point when they come down here. Deborah and I enjoy hearing songs we know, but we do like hearing the original music each band creates, they all have their own flavor.
His music can be defined as trop rock – a mixture of rock-n-roll with an island theme. John Reno and the Half-Fast Creekers have been described as Hoagy Carmichael meets Toby Keith in Margaritaville! -LuLu’s
One reason we love to go to LuLu’s when we are down here is for the live music. It isn’t the most quiet place in the world for sure, and probably not the cheapest, but if you are in Alabama’s gulf coast, stop by and have their open faced crab melt sandwich and enjoy some local music.
Nature in View
Down here there is always something going on. When we got back from dinner we had a nice pod of dolphins that were having a feast on the fish they had pushed into the cove across from our sailboat. We watched them jump, play, and eat for about 30 minutes and then sat in the cockpit of our boat and listened to them until we went to sleep.
There is always the Pelican, Sea Gull, and all the other water birds constantly flying around but we also have a pesky Gray Heron that seems to think our slip is his domain. He squawked at me several times trying to get on the boat and then again as he reclaimed his territory. The dolphins were kicking up so many fish that he was just waiting to pounce and he several nice dinners.
Other Images
A few other images from LuLu’s last night. The Bama Breeze (from the song of the same name, but I am pretty sure this is not the original) is just off the sand mound from LuLu’s and for the previous year we had been coming to this restaurant we didn’t even know it was out there. There was also another photographer there last night, she was shooting some private party but we shot her shooting them (really cool dreds too).
The wait for a table in the summer time is supposed to be very very long, but we have never had to wait for a table, not once. Of course we have been there mostly in the winter and early dinner in summer but, still, no wait at all.
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Now that the cold weather is here this is what you do, sit and knit. It is now to cold to sit outside in the cockpit for any extended period of time but we can still come down for the weekend and enjoy being here. Here is Deb sitting under a bunch of blankets knitting on the boat. Surprised she doesn’t have on her mittens and ear muffs but we did get the heater working this summer, thank goodness.
There will be warmer days but we still had a nice weekend down on the boat. Once again we were treated to wonderful sunsets, right off the transom but it was a little to cold to go outside and do much. What I should be doing right now is getting a list of all the things I want to do on the boat when it gets warmer but who can get motivated in this cold.
We did take several trips over to the beach where I could do some much needed walking and DK could knit, in the shelter of our tent. Photos of that will be coming soon, pictured above are two shots I took with my iPhone, not bad for a phone camera. The first is of Deborah of course, knitting on the boat in the heat, the second was taken from the cockpit, both with my camera phone.
