Another Beautiful Beach and Haunted Lighthouse

The cold front has made its way down here. Temperatures dipped into the 40’s last night, great for sleeping but it makes for an interesting situation in the morning to see who gets up first to turn the furnace on and start the coffee.

Today is laundry day but we don’t need to leave the park to do it. This is the largest state park we have ever been to, besides the normal state park activities this one has the pool and splash pool, activity building, Segway rentals, beach, golf course, boat and canoe rental, bike rental, volley ball courts etc. You can camp for a day, week, a month or the entire winter season, they have a lot of snow birds that spend the entire winter here.

Gulf Shores State Park Laundromat 

Out the back door of the Laundromat

Out the side door of the laundromat  

Don't have to say it twice

State Parks inland lake

It has really started warming up quickly so the plan for the day, after laundry, is to drive to Pensacola Florida and visit the Gulf Island National Sea Shore as well as one of the most haunted places along the Gulf Coast, the Pensacola Lighthouse.

First stop was Gulf Island National Sea Shore. Because it is part of the National Park System our admission was free with our America Beautiful Card (geezer card). By the time we arrived it had warmed into the mid 70’s but without a cloud in the sky the sun seemed much warmer. I was again surprised that we had most of the beach to ourselves. No complaints however. We had a picnic lunch and Chris searched for more shells, it was a great afternoon.

Sea shore road

Few people on the beach today

I think we will like it here 

OK Pick a spot

A few people fishing

No neighbors this way 

Looking for shells 

Payload

After the beach we drove over to Pensacola Naval Air Station to see the Lighthouse. There is a large Aviation Museum on base but we just went through an air Museum in Mobile and it was getting late so we opted out of visiting.

Snake and Gumbo

He had the right of way

We started the day with a long walk and saw a snake, we believe a pine black snake, on the trail. We are still hoping to see an alligator and an armadillo.

One of the lakes in the State Park

Picnic area at the 2 mile mark

I may have mentioned in other posts that we are next to Gold Beach but that is incorrect we are next to Orange Beach. We went into Orange Beach today to the Alabama Gumbo festival.  Fifteen vendors were competing for the distinction of having the best Gumbo.  We each chose our favorite and agreed that others were not so good. It did prepare us for lunch however. We headed over to LULU’s which sits on the river’s edge. The place is owned by Lucy Buffett, Jimmie’s sister, and is very popular in the area.

Football is large down here, there is always a game on

Back to our site for a lazy day of relaxing in the warn sunshine.

Fort Morgan

We took a walk last night along a beautiful paved bike and hiking trail. We were hoping to see some local wildlife but saw nothing.  It was very sticky and hot with threatening skies and storm warnings, mainly for the area north of us, for the rest of the evening and into the morning hours. 

Morning update:

It remained a very hot and sticky all evening and it was the first evening we ran the air conditioner all night long. This morning it started raining, heavy at times, and it is very warm. We saw on the news that there were severe storms north of us last night. It just started raining again with black clouds out the left window and sunshine on the right side.

These clouds developed into storm storms

I may have to cave in today and spend some time visiting a mall or two, perhaps a movie. It is supposed to clear this afternoon.  

Another update:

Yea, no Malls today, the sun has come out and it looks like it may be a nice day after all. We are off to explore Fort Morgan. Fort Morgan was built after the War of 1812 when Congress realized the need for stronger fortifications along the eastern and southern coastlines. 

Outer wall entrance to Fort Morgan

Main entrance

Dry moat which surrounds the fort

Entering the inner walls 

Making our way through fort

Inner room within the walls of the Fort

White Sand, Heat and Humidity

We had a short drive today from Fairhope to Gulf Shores and were setup by 1:00pm. It is very hot and humid here, we don’t mind the heat but the humidity we can do without.

After setting up Chris made a nice lunch and we chilled out for a while by running both RV air conditioners. After lunch we took the jeep to the beach which is only a mile down the road.  The beach is beautiful and this being off season we had most of it to ourselves. I’m not sure yet if Alabama has any Casinos or not, the buildings we are seeing on the beach are either Hotels or Condos.

Beautiful white sand beach 

Hotel in Gold Beach 

Off season not very crowded

We have the beach to ourself

Searching for shells, 82 degree water

Seaside home 

We took a long walk along the beach and Chris collected shells. We then drove east along the coast to see Gold beach, another community. After a short eight mile drive we were at the Florida Border.

We returned to the RV to make supper, celebrate cocktail hour and prepare for the border battle this evening.