Sunday, September 15, 2013

Packing up and heading home.

Sunday, September 15, 2013
Gulf State Park
Gulf Shores, AL
89*, a beautiful, sunny day

I haven't written a blog post in quite a few days because nothing really exciting has happened that would fill up a whole post.  We've had a few little moments of excitement or of interest, but nothing worth a whole post.  Wow, it's already been a full week since my last blog post.  Time sure flies when you're relaxed and having fun.
Since we head for home tomorrow, though, I thought I'd fill in with all those little things today.  This whole week, there have only been one or two other RVs in our area of the campground.  But Friday night, they started rolling in and Saturday, this is what it looked like in our section. There are still other areas of the park, though, that were completely empty.  I guess it will be kind of a "ghost campground" until November 1, when the Snow Birds start rolling in.

Although we still haven't spent any
time at the beach here, we have been swimming in the Campground pool several times.  The beach is just too steep and has continued to be fairly rough and has had jelly fish every time we've gone to check it out.

Today, while we were checking it out, a man walked along this board walk and across the very soft, hard to walk in sand with 2 large white pillars.  We wondered what he was doing as we headed back to our car.  As we got in our car, we saw the same man getting something else out of his car and a woman got out of the car carrying 2 huge flower arrangements with lovely bouquets of varying shades of reds.  We aren't sure, of course, as we didn't stay around, but it looked like they were setting up for a wedding or at least a photo shoot of a wedding.  It would have been a beautiful day for it.   The weather this entire week has been lovely.  Sunshine all week.  The forecast has called for possible storms all week, but they never materialized.  It has been hot, but not as humid as the first couple days we were down here.  Apparently being in the swamps is not as good for my allergies as being at the beach near a desert, though, as I've been stuffed up a lot and needing my inhaler.  So just the ocean breezes apparently aren't enough if I'm living in the middle of a swamp, LOL.  Mr. C says there's probably too many mold spores in the air, which is one of my worst allergens.
Speaking of where we are staying and the middle of a swamp, we have seen several animals while we've been here, besides the beautiful Corn Snake in the last blog post.  We've seen a flicker in the huge old pine tree in front of our campsite.  We've seen a bunch of what I think are  nuthatches playing tag in the sycamore tree right next to our trailer.  There are 4 of them and they run up and down the tree and chase each other, sometimes right side up and other times upside down, they are so funny.  We saw a raccoon ambling along one day, as well as a couple deer on our bike rides.
Mr. C has continued to take nightly bicycle rides.  I haven't joined him as much as we both would have liked, but my tailbone feels bruised (to put it politely) and I can hardly sit right now, let alone ride my bike.  Plus, Mr. C really likes to go after dark (or right at dark) as he sees more critters that way and I'm just not comfortable enough yet to like riding after dark.  After one of our evening rides we got back to the trailer just after dark and as we started to go into the trailer, I saw something moving up the side of the trailer.

I thought it was a lizard from the way it was moving but when I shined (shown?) my flashlight on it we saw this bright green tree frog.  Mr. C climbed up on the steps and got as close as he could and got this close up photo.  I wanted to catch him and bring him home, but he was too shy.

On Mr. C's night rides, he has seen deer, bunnies, and his favorite, a couple more snakes.  He saw this Water Snake one night.
 Another night he saw this little snake, he says it was just a baby, it was only about 16 inches long and blended right into the road he was lying on.  This is a Hognose Snake. Mr. C was thrilled to see and photograph these snakes, LOL.















I started to say we have been swimming at the campground pool several times.  They have a fantastic pool here.  The first year we were here in the early spring and although we looked at it, it cost a daily fee to swim and it was chilly out, in April, and the pool did not appear to be heated, so we never used it.  There have been enough complaints about a charge to use the pool that Gulf State Park has dropped the fee for people camping here.  Since we didn't want to go into the Gulf with the Jelly Fish, we chose to use the pool.  This is the
most interesting pool I have ever seen.  It is probably about 100 feet long x 18-20 feet front to back in the main part of the pool and then there are 2 short arms coming up off the main rectangular pool, making a squared off U shape.  Each of the arms of the U are about  18 x 18 ft.  One of the arms has 2 sets of stairs into/out of the pool which starts at 2 1/2 feet at the bottom of the stairs.  The other arm has a set of stairs and a ladder (on either side of the arm) and starts out about 3 ft deep.
Across the bottom of the squared off U, the water on one side (with 2 sets of stairs) starts around 3 feet deep, slopes gradually to the center which is about 4 1/2 feet deep and then slopes gradually up to the other side at about 4 ft.  There are ladders along the bottom of the U and at the 4 ft end.  The first day we swam, the water was wonderfully WARM.  The other 3 times we went, it was not quite as warm, but once you got in was quite pleasant and didn't require a lot of effort to "make yourself" get in, so it was not warm, but was not cold either.


There is also a fenced/gated area with a splash pool for kids.  This was a large area with LOTS of fountains spraying toward the center.  There is no depth to speak of, but the surface is a rubberized surface with either air or water trapped underneath (maybe an inch "deep" at any particular place) which moves with the kids so they can run, fall, splash and play without any fear of getting hurt.  There is a very large deck area with three shaded areas and TONS of lounge chairs.  We enjoyed it very much.

There are great views of the lake and ocean and Gulf State Park from the pool area, also.

Meanwhile, back in the trailer, when we're not doing other things like eating, cooking, roasting marshmallows etc. I have been working on canes.  I have completed 3 canes while here in Alabama and have 9 others about 1/3 completed.



It has been a wonderful 3 weeks, but I have to admit, I'm greedy and would like it to be more.  I am so ready for Mr. C to retire and for us to start RVing full time.  We have a lot of work to get our house in a sell able condition, though, before we can even consider going full-timing.

So, ready or not, tomorrow we head back to Illinois to take up our real, everyday lives.  Until I have more to write, I'll leave you here.  Have a great Autumn, where ever you happen to live or be.  Thanks for coming along on our journey.  Smiles, Sue C

2 comments:

  1. I like the big cane at the end that is very nice...

    ReplyDelete
  2. awesome! love the pool, and wildlife!

    ReplyDelete