RVing With a Purpose

Tuesday, January 17, 2023

Our last week in Gulf State Park was mostly a beautiful week.  The first few days you could not have asked for better weather.  We spent our time on long hikes, walks on the beach, beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and great bike rides.  Of course, we visited the eagles again and finally caught another “shift change” by the parents.  We are pretty sure that we have eaglets in the nest because we saw one of the parents bring in a fish and watched what appeared to be feeding of the little ones even though the eaglets are still so small we could not see them above the rim of the nest.  We also made our “required” visit to Foley.  Anne usually makes that visit early in our time at Gulf Shores but she made sure to visit the outlets before we left.  Of course, since we found a new to us shop – Stacey’s Olde Tyme Soda Fountain – while in old town Foley, we had to give it a try.  They make their own waffle cones – so very good.  Don’t think it will be our last visit.  We also had some surprises toward the end of the week.   First, the weather got cold again.  So, we began our time at the park back in December with record low temperatures and then ended our stay again with below freezing temps (not what we were expecting when we scheduled our little vacation.) 

We had an exciting surprise in the form of a message from Anne’s cousin Tom, telling us he was just down the street from us.  He and wife Tammy were at his mother-in-law’s condo.  They live in Indiana, so we don’t get in-person visits very often although we try to have a family zoom meeting about once a month.  We had a great lunch together on Friday before we had to return to Fred to prepare for our Saturday travel day.  It was such a treat to visit with Tom and Tammy and meet Tammy’s sweet mom.  It was a great ending to our Gulf Shores visit.

We pulled out of Gulf State Park Saturday morning at 6:30 since we had a long drive day to Webster, Florida.  Oak Alley RV Resort will be our home for about 17 days.  Wouldn’t you know it.  When we arrived about 5:30 Saturday evening, we were asked to leave the water faucet dripping and use our tank water for the next two nights as the prediction was for low temperatures of 31 degrees.  We are in central FL, not far from Tampa.  We are not supposed to have freezing temperatures in Florida!  Hope our RVing friends are having better luck finding appropriate temperatures this winter.  Oh, well.  The forecast for the week is looking good so we will try not to complain.  We will get some pictures and tell you more about Oak Alley next week, but our initial impression is really good.

Praying you all stay safe, warm and healthy.  Love you all.

Monday, January 9, 2023

Last week was a great weather week in Gulf Shores.  It was cool several mornings but warmed up later in the day so biking, hiking and walking on the beach were on the agenda each day.  It was also Max’s birthday week so we had some good food and good times.

We enjoyed a talk by the naturalists on carnivorous plants.  We were familiar with the white pitcher plants that are common in south Alabama but also learned about some others as well.  We went to the nature center to meet Archimedes, an eastern screech owl.  Unfortunately, Archimedes was hit by a car when he was very young and lost vision in his right eye.  As a result, he could never survive in the wild so he now lives at the nature center.  While at the nature center, we also met Homer the box turtle.  Homer is free to roam the building and seems to want to meet the visitors.  He was very interested in Max’s camera.  Max returned another day to attend a presentation on snakes that inhabit south Alabama.  Anne decided to skip that presentation.

The very best days of the week were Saturday and Sunday because Donna and Barry came for a visit.  We spent the time biking and hiking a lot of the trails in the park, walking on the beach and photographing the eagles, ospreys, alligators and any bird that would let us get a good picture.  We also enjoyed some great seafood and sunsets but mostly we just enjoyed our time with dear friends.  We miss Barry and Donna but hopefully we will be back through Blount County again soon.

Sunday, January 1, 2023

WOW, it’s 2023.  How many times will we now write 2022 in error?  A bunch if previous years are an indication.  We are still enjoying our time at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores.  Since our NOMADS project for ECHO, a wonderful agency that teaches farming skills to small plot farmers worldwide, had to be canceled due the hurricane damage in the North Fort Myers area we have some extra time here.  The weather has greatly improved and we are having much more normal temperatures. Tuesday we attended another naturalist presentation, this time on turtles.  Of course, we shared with her our story of Aunt Jean’s box turtle who is now 51 years old.  The park has one that is about the same age – they aren’t sure of his exact birthday, so they say it is between 50 and 60.  Friday was a stormy day with heavy rain, but at least it was warm.  We have been enjoying shrimp and other seafood, walks on the beach, hiking and biking along with some great sunsets.  We also met some friends from Blount County while walking around the park, and we met another Blount County couple who saw our Blount tag and just stopped to chat.  Today being January 1, the state park sponsored a “First Day Hike” which we joined.  It was a two mile hike on a flat paved path but it was fun.  We saw an alligator and birds and flora and fauna.  Later while photographing the eagles, we met another couple originally from our area who have retired to Foley. Thanks for checking in on our ramblings.  May God bless you and hold you close during 2023.

Sunday, December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends and thank you all for following along on our journey this past year.  We hope you have had a great Christmas season and remember the reason for the celebration.  We have had a quiet but unusually cold Christmas in Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores, AL.  While it’s been warmer than north Alabama and way warmer than our family and friends farther north, but it’s still been very cold for here.  One night was a low of 18 and we have had pretty icicles at our water hydrants since we were told to leave the water dripping beginning last Thursday.  We are glad the forecast for this week is a little warmer.

Our last entry left off with our return to Alabama from our Polar Bear Photography trip.  The next morning we headed back to Johnston, South Carolina to Randy and Debra’s house.  We did a quick change out from Beyond Blessed (van), back into Fred (Class A) and on Saturday drove to Gaffney, SC to Freightliner for Fred’s annual service.  Fortunately, all the work was routine and no problems were found so we were back in Johnston Monday afternoon.  We had a great Thanksgiving week with Randy, Debra and their family.  It was also great to see nieces and nephews and their children who were able to come visit while we were there.  We made a quick trip back to Red Bay, AL to get other work done to Fred and then returned to Johnston to begin a deck project. Randy and Debra have a large deck on the back of their house and we helped them get started on rebuilding it with Trex.  We had several “weather days” when we couldn’t work outside so we had time for some games, puzzles, cooking, and just enjoying our time together. We also celebrated Anne’s birthday with Randy and Debra and of course it included some yummy ice cream.

We have now been in Gulf Shores for a week.  After getting settled in here we finally got out our Christmas decorations.  They may have to stay up later this year since we just got them up.  We have enjoyed the many trails in the park when the weather allowed.  We spotted an alligator at one of the usual places they hang out and went to a good raptor presentation by one of the naturalists. The past three days we have been inside a lot due to the strong winds and cold temps.  Next week will hopefully be better and we can get our bikes out.  We will let you know.  Stay safe and warm everyone!