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| | Vacation Play by Play
I’ve gotten several requests for the rundown on how our vacation went, so here it is–probably more than you want to know!
Tuesday night I got off work around 7pm - much earlier than I’d expected. Ordinarily this would be a good thing, but in this particular case I’d been counting on us having to work really late (2-4ish) so we’d have Wednesday off. Since that did not happen I pretty much panicked. Luckily my boss let me take a last-minute PTO day off work, so as soon as Keith got out of class at 10, we hit the road. (actually it was about 11 after he got home and we “double checked” that we had everything 6 times)
WEDNESDAY
We arrived in Gulf Shores around 11am, so the trip took almost exactly 12 hours. I hadn’t told Lori we were leaving early…. Our original plan was to hit the road heading to Gulf Shores by 8am, and I was supposed to call her to let her know so she’d have an idea when to expect us. SO I called her when we were about an hour away from Gulf Shores, and pretended like we’d just left Dallas. I answered all her questions just like a politician - enough of the truth to let her believe what she wanted, but not enough to give away the surprise. ;-) When we arrived at the house, unannounced, she was pretty shocked! I don’t remember the particular combination of expletives that escaped her mouth, but it was funny enough I nearly fell down the stairs laughing! Lori, Chris, Adam, Kyle, Jack, and Annie were all there, so it was a great surprise for everybody. [For those that don't know, Jack & Annie are Chris' parents, and they just happen to live about 2.4 miles down the road from the house we'd rented.]
We all carried up our junk from the car, Keith and I ran through the shower (remember we hadn’t showered in over 24 hours at this point, and had barely gotten 2 hours of sleep, give or take), had a couple beers, then we all went out to lunch. Keith already gave a brief overview of the places we went… We ate at Bahama Bob’s Beachside Cafe on Wednesday, and I had a crawfish po-boy, and a Corona or two. YUM! We sat out on the patio overlooking the beach. The weather on Wednesday wasn’t so great - it was overcast and very foggy. But it didn’t matter - we were on the beach, out of Dallas, on vacation with family and loving it!
Geez, my memory is kind of fuzzy now - probably a combination of a lack of sleep at that point and all the fun since then! I think we probably walked up and down the beach for a while — oh yeah and Keith and I took naps. That night we had burgers on the grill. Yum! I swear you can throw a boot on a grill and I’ll love it! ;-) (I’m not saying the burgers were bad, just that grilling rocks) We drank margaritas made in Jack & Annie’s Margarator, then when we ran out of mixed we had more Corona. We started playing a round of cards (liverpool), but called it an early night. Keith and I were pooped, and Jack’s hip was bothering him (he just recently had hip surgery).
THURSDAY
This was a full beach day! This was the day we all got the burns we’re still proud of. lol Yes, we all applied sunscreen, but either we were too tipsy (never!) or it washed off in the ocean or something. Anyway not much to tell - we just hung out at the beach all day, catching rays, walking up and down the beach, playing in the water, and of course nursing a Corona. :)
Planes kept flying over with banners advertising stuff while we were out on the beach - everything from pizza, to jet ski rentals, to dolphin tours. YUP, dolphin tours! We called and they were CHEAP–the first one was only $15! So we decided we must do that.
Thursday night we went to the Original Oyster House. The food was EXCELLENT!! I had “Mahi Down on ‘DA Bayou” - Blackened mahi topped with fried crawfish tails and tasso cream sauce. YUM YUM YUM! Oh yeah and a side of red beans and rice, and turnip greens. I also tried an oyster on the half shell… I’ve tried them before, and have never been a fan - but I thought I’d give it another shot. Adam suggested loading it up with Tobasco sauce, so I did. I just swallowed it like they say you’re supposed to… It was like swallowing a bunch of Tobasco flavored snot!
Keith’s pina coloda
After dinner we walked across the street to a park where there are supposed to be aligators. Jack & Annie swear they’ve seen them, and they’ve been on the news - but according to the Dunns, it’s a family tradition to go over and not see aligators. ;-) So we did, and of course a few people had to give Annie a hard time about “all the gators”, and she got annoyed - but it was all in good humor. Chris and I saw something that might have been a gator popping his eyes out of the water - but then it might have been a turtle or bird or bug… or just our imagination. Who knows?! ;-)
It’s kind of funny how we retired early nearly every night we were there (with the exception of Friday). But we were also up pretty early. I’d wake up around 7, read for a while, get up and go for a walk down the beach, then come back and start getting ready for the day. Sometimes Keith and I walked, or Keith, Lori, and I, or just me and Lori.
FRIDAY
This was the dolphin tour day. We did spend a couple hours or so on the beach, but packed it up early and went back to the house so we could prepare for our “Close Encounters of the Aquatic Mammalian Kind”. ;-) Jack let his fingers do the walking and came up with 3 or 4 different options, and we ended up going with one that was just $17 AND had a full bar on the boat. ;-) It was vacation, after all, and we couldn’t go for 2 full hours without a drink of some kind! lol I guess the tour lasted about 2 hours - they told us to expect that long, but time was one of the last things I worried about on this vacation. We had a blast though! Keith got some really good pictures and a video or two…
Friday night was the drinking night. Well, yeah, we’d been drinking previously… but Friday night it was ON! Believe it or not, Chris pooped out pretty early–I think it was around 9:30 or 10 when he retired. Adam & Kyle were debating religion (”belenovent”, “benelovent”, and “omniPOtent” God), but they checked out around 11 or 12. Keith, Lori, and I sat up talking about everything under the sun ’till the wee hours - I think it might have been 2 when we crashed. Whew! That was a long night!!!
SATURDAY
We all slept in a bit longer on Saturday… Maybe because of something we ate? lol What did we do on Saturday… Oh yes - we went to the beach! It wasn’t as sunny as Thurs & Fri, much more like Wednesday… But we went anyway, because the ocean was calling us. The waves were bigger this day than the previous days, so everybody but Kyle (who was too hung over to come to the beach) played in the waves. After about 10 minutes of Brian vs. the Gulf of Mexico, I was pooped and had greatly exceeded the recommended daily allowance of sodium, so I hit the beach towel and soaked up some cloud-obstructed rays for a bit longer. We only stayed out for a few hours, maybe ’till early afternoon, when it started getting cooler and the sun took the afternoon off. We went back to the house and lounged, watched a movie, and napped.
Saturday night we got all prettied up (and overdressed, I might add) so we could check out a bar called Flora-Bama. You’d never guess why they named it that - but I’ll tel you that it’s because it’s situated right on the Florida/Alabama border. Clever, huh?! This place was built for spring breakers!! Annie warned us it was a biker bar and that we should be careful where we park - but it was a pretty cool place.
Flora-Bama view from the balcony
Adam “double fisting” two drinks at Flora-Bama
Pictured above: the Flora-Bama scene & decor (note that those are bras hanging down from the ceiling), and Adam getting his drink on. Cathy & Big Earl (aka “Jack”) were the live entertainment, and boy were they a hoot!!. (We bought his CD, “Big Earl’s Romantic Love Songs”) Then the storm came. Let me describe the interior… Apparently the recent hurricanes were not very kind to this place, and they’ve had to rebuild out of scraps. The main part of the building is nothing more than a frame (skeleton) of PVC pipe DUCT TAPED together, and covered with a big tarp. Not joking - serious as a heart attack. LOL So when the storm started coming in we decided it was either time to leave, or drink some more. You can surely guess what we did, right? Being the intelligent, logical beings we are - we ordered another round! But then it got really bad so we ran like puppies with our tails tucked.
Back to the house where we had more burgers for dinner, and continued drinking while we packed. The Dunns made a trip down to Jack & Annie’s house to say their goodbyes, and we loaded the car so we’d be ready to go in the morning. It was shortly after 10 when I crashed that night.
Our beer bottle collection on the deck
SUNDAY
Bright and early at 4am I woke up, WIDE awake! I tend to get really anxious when something big is coming up (that’s why I slept so little in the days leading up to our trip), so there was no chance of going back to sleep. I finally got up a few minutes before 5, and got Keith up so we could get things rolling. I wanted to be on the road ASAP, but just couldn’t bring myself to leave before everybody else, so we hung out and helped where we could. We snapped one last group picture–actually the only picture all weekend with all of us in it–then said our goodbyes and parted ways. :(
This was hands-down one of the best vacations I’ve ever had. We didn’t worry about time, we had no agenda, and we all were pretty much on the same laid back page the whole
time. Not once did I think about work, and I only worried a couple times about money before remembering it was VACATION and I had to stop! ;-) This is definitely a new tradition we will try to keep going from now on!!
A couple random sand creatures Lori & I ran across on one of our morning beach walks
Today was REALLY REALLY hard for me, coming back to a job that’s not all I had once hoped it would be, coworkers that never bothered to ask how my trip was–let alone acknowledge I was even there…. And of course add to that the usual blues after returning from a vacation (which of course are much worse for me, being the emotional roller-coaster I am)… But I’ll get over it; the family is hundreds of miles away, and life goes on.
Some of the shells we collected
On a side note - my car makes this really high-pitched noise on really windy days at high velocity. Usually it happens when a strong gust of wind hits the car… I’ve had it in once and of course they couldn’t find anything wrong with it, even though I had dug up several online discussions about how other people have fixed this by resealing the windshield. Well on the way home we drove down a stretch where the wind was strong and constant, and REALLY annoying — well just watch this video we recorded. I sent it to my guy at the Toyota dealership and he’s scheduled an appointment for me Wednesday to drop the car off to have the windshield resealed.
More pictures:
Kyle & Chris on the beach
FOG
Looking off our deck
Margarita glasses (not posed!)
Tern
Houses on the beach
High rise at sunset
Jelly fish
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Dolphins!
Keith on the upper deck of the dolphin tour looking down on us - Chris, Lori, Me, Kyle, & Adam
What a dork!! I need new sunglasses.
Probably Thursday - I’m not burned yet. Chris, Lori, & Me
Chubby
I don’t remember what kind of bird this is 
Adam’s crab
Sun trying to break through on Saturday
Lori smooching on Kyle at Lulu’s
Footprints in the sand - mine & Keith’s
The Group Photo. We all look pretty tired, huh?
April 17th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Looks like a lot of fun! What was the name of the beach where you stayed? I want to go next year!! :)
-karlisa