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. 

City of the Rocks State Park New Mexico

This is one of our favorite stops in New Mexico. The approaching storm in the background never did materialize.

Retirement homes and Skydivers

We left Yuma Saturday March 30^th and set our sights on Tucson. While en route we decided to alter our plans and stop in Casa Grande. We found one of our half price RV parks and paid for a couple nights. Sunday morning we drove into town to explore a bit. We enjoy looking at retirement communities so we stopped at Mission Royale Golf Course and Community by Meritage Homes.  These communities all have their model homes available for showing and they are all professionally decorated and landscaped. You can really see the attraction they have for folks that are looking for either a winter residence or year around home. While there we spoke to a couple who had just purchased a home. They asked if we had looked at Robson Ranch community as a comparison to Mission Royale. So we set the GPS and off we went to visit Robson Ranch. This was another fantastic golf community with outstanding amenities. What has come out of all this visiting we do is that if we ever win the lottery we know that one of our homes will be down here.  

After we got our heads out of the clouds and our feet back on the ground we continued looking around again. We knew of a very nice RV Resort in Casa Grande but never thought too much about it because of the price for a night’s stay. We decided to go over and take a look around and see why this place is so expensive. First off it has a beautiful golf course which adds to your bill and first class amenities as well. The place was beautiful with its palm trees, green grass and flowers everywhere. Again they had an area where they also had park models on display so we had to look. While talking with one of the sales associates we found out we could get a deal to stay here. First time visitors get a 2 for 1 deal so we paid for a week and we are now here for the next two weeks.   

Main Gate

Flowers along all the walk ways

Very nice golf course

Lush gardens

Looking at the sales building on left and activities building on the right

Main pool area

Main patio

Today we drove to Eloy Arizona to watch an attempt for a world’s record. A skydiving group is out to set a worlds record for the largest free fall in the US.  222 divers from 28 countries will attempt to set the record by making two formations in a group jump before deploying their parachutes. Their first attempt was tried yesterday (Tuesday) and will continue until this Friday. They jump from 10 ten planes flying in a V formation at 19,500 feet. If successful they will shatter the previous record which was set in Florida with 111 divers. It was something to see when they all appeared overhead trying to land safely, which it appeared they did.

Skydivers packing their chutes

Indoor skydiving chambers

Landing area and first plane taking off

Ten planes before jump formation

The sky was full of jumpers

More jumpers

Still more

First jumpers down

They just kept coming down

Hard to believe there were no accidents

Last man down