WE MADE IT TO THE OCEAN!
Got our feet wet for the first time in the cold Gulf of Mexico waters off of Dauphine Island, AL on March 24, 2009
Arrived in Mobile Alabama on March 23rd and decided to stay for 3 nights at an “urban” RV park in the suburb of Chickasabogue. It actually had nice, big spacious sites, lots of trees between sites for privacy. It was pretty quiet there (no screaming children) even though it’s spring break for some Alabama counties but you could hear the traffic and sirens....when the rain wasn’t pounding on the trailer. Different, but it served it’s purpose as a decent base camp and the price was right. Had the weather been better there was actually a beach and lots of trails to hike and bike but Mother Nature didn’t cooperate.
We did some touristy things....we wanted to go somewhere to walk around for a couple of hours so we ended up deciding on Bellingrath Gardens, the big draw being the boardwalk where you might see a gator, not necessarily the flowers. The gardens were beautiful though, Mom would have loved this place Dad...especially since all the Azaleas were in bloom. There’s a pic in the album we took just for her! And, surprisingly enough, we actually saw our first gator there so Dave was happy!
These gardens are really impressive, and so is the house on it...anyone wanting more info on the history of this place can go to www.bellingrath.org
Dauphin Island is about as far south in Alabama as you can go and since we were only about 15 minutes from it, we decided to check it out after the garden. Glad we did because it was well worth the drive. The island landscape is incredible,,,,white, white sand....blowing across the road like snow. No vegetation at the end where all houses on stilts are. It’s just flat white sand, water and houses. Some of the homes out there were massive, check out the album for a few of our favourites.
We also stopped to watch some surfers try to catch some waves....they actually got some decent rides and I got some good pics. Way to cold for us to be in the water, just getting our feet wet was enough for us. We settled for watching and wishing it was warmer because it would have been the perfect place to learn. Terry we know you would have been out there though and loving it.
The next day we went into the historic downtown part of Mobile and to be honest, we weren’t impressed. Parts of it were pretty run down and it was a bit creepy walking thru the parts that were boarded up etc. Some of the stores they had marked as “places to see” in their promotional flyers weren’t anything special. We saw some gorgeous old, HUGE houses on the drive there and back though.
One of the main reasons we went to Mobile was to look up my cousin Tom who I thought lived there but that wasn’t the case. Had we been organized enough to get that info before we left, I would have known he was nearer to Montgomery AL, where we were 5 days ago when we were at Prairie Creek. Live and learn the hard way. Managed to talk to Tom’s wife Michelle yesterday and we might hook up with them later on this week at Topsail Hill Preserve State park on the Florida Panhandle. If that doesn’t work out, we’ll try and meet up with them when we get back from Costa Rica.
On to Florida! Bye y’all
MORE PICTURES FROM THIS STAY - CHECK OUT THE ALBUM