Gulf Shores Alabama

Gulf Shores Alabama

Monday morning we left Memphis and traveled to Meridian Mississippi. We didn’t find many camping choices and I’m sure we chose the worst. We were glad it was for the night only. One thing we sure like about Mississippi is the roads, at least the ones we used. They maybe the best roads we have traveled. We left Meridian at 09:00 and checked into Coastal Haven RV Resort in Fairhope Alabama at noon.

We immediately jumped in the jeep and headed to the gulf shore to check things out. We stopped at the fishing pier and watched as fish were being caught with some regularity. It was interesting seeing the equipment that was used to fish from the pier. We saw a lot of homemade carts that seem to hold everything necessary for a day of fishing.

 Beautiful white sandy beaches

Gulf Shores fishing pier

Hotels in the distance 

This guy has everything he needs

 This guy can't read

Just park your cart and belly up to the rail

More hotels along the shore

We drove through Gulf Shores State Park and reserved a campsite for a week beginning this Thursday. It’s a State Park but it’s more of a RV Resort. Snow birds from the north come and stay for the winter here. They have activities, a large pool and rentals that include Segway’s.  

 Nice pool and children's splash area

We stopped on our way back to the RV in Fairhope and ate at Big Daddies a highly recommended spot for the best sea food in the area.

View from the deck of  Big Daddies

The park we are at has lightning fast WIFI so it's nice getting the blog done so easily.

Memphis, Elvis and BBQ

September 27

We left Dubuque and made it to Perryville Mo. We stayed at a nice campground that had an awesome Halloween display. I can’t imagine the amount of work they did to set this up.

  This is just s small sample of the decorations that were scattered throughout this campground

We continued south through Missouri and arrived in West Memphis which is actually in Alabama just across the river from Memphis Tennessee.  We paid for two nights and got settled in. We are again right on the banks Mississippi. It was early enough in the day that we drove into Memphis to find, who else but Elvis, well at least his home, Graceland.

The whole Graceland tour is quite an adventure. Everything is geared toward getting at your money. We did enjoy it however. I was most impressed with the hall of gold in which all of his gold records and awards are mounted along this long hallway. Equally impressive was his collection of cars

Elvis has left the building

Some of Elvis' toys 

After Graceland we decided we would go find Beale Street and get some Memphis BBQ. We found out that every Friday and Saturday nights the street is closed to traffic and people take over. Blues and rock music is everywhere, in the Bars and on the street. Drinks are sold everywhere. It was one massive party.   

Sunday we drove back to town and looked around and explored a little. We returned to our river campsite fixed dinner and enjoyed a beautiful evening.

Fall 2014 Trip

Fall Trip to the Gulf Shore

September 23

Our trip to the southern states of Alabama and Mississippi started with all the usual excitement and anticipation of any other trip except this one started with a 55 mile one way trip in the wrong direction. Our first two days will be spent in Rogers MN at Camping World. We are parked in the rear of the building where they maintain six spots for people having service performed or those just needing a place to park for the evening. We knew that before we could travel again we had to make a change as to the vehicle we would tow behind the RV. Our little Saturn just didn’t have it anymore and we didn’t feel it could take another trip. We have known for some time now that our next tow vehicle would be a jeep and a couple of weeks ago we found the one we wanted. We are at Camping World now because they are installing the necessary equipment required to enable the jeep to obediently follow us around while attached quietly to back of the RV.  

September 24

We woke this morning after a cool rainy night. We had to have the jeep ready for Camping World at 8:30. So we drove around front and gave them the jeep and we walked over to MacDonald’s for coffee. We are now back at the RV where we are grounded until sometime tomorrow. Fortunately we have an electrical hookup which means we have TV.  Update: we got a call at 3:00 saying they were finished with the jeep and ready for the RV. I asked how long they needed and was told that without any problems they would finish with everything by 5:00. They were finished at 5:00.

We decided that it was too late to head out so we decided to spend the night again. We drove over to Applebee’s for super and then back to the RV for some TV and an early bedtime.

September 25

We were very anxious this morning to first see if we could properly hook up the jeep to the RV and secondly to get on the road and get out of town. Everything worked as planned and we hit the road at 7:00. Traffic was very heavy all the way to the Mall of America where it thinned out enough to drive the speed limit. It was a beautiful drive as we made our way down to Red Wing and picked up the   river road. The sun finally came out in southern Minnesota and the temperature climbed to 75, perfect. Many of the trees have begun to change and the colors were beautiful.

We are staying this evening at Miller Riverview Park in Dubuque, IA. We are right on the river with great views.