As I mentioned earlier, this past weekend I took Wade's fourteen year old sister, Erin to Orange Beach for the weekend. My aunt and uncle have a house there and were gracious enough to let us stay and track sand everywhere.
We left Loganville around noon on Friday and it took about six hours to reach Orange Beach, AL. My aunt and uncle were at a meeting that evening, so we found their house, threw our bags into our rooms, changed clothes and headed to the beach. Erin had never seen the Gulf of Mexico before, and she was certainly amazed at the white sand and blue-green water. The weather wasn't entirely perfect for sunset pictures, but my little camera did capture a few nice scenes.
My pictures probably pale in comparison to those of our budding family photographer ...
Hopefully Erin had a great time!After taking pictures at Alabama Point, we drove circles around Orange Beach and Perdido Key. Erin had never been to Florida, so I drove her there. Took about 2 minutes. We struggled to find any places to eat dinner that weren't crowded. There were massive groups of beach goers, I assume mostly families, since they were all wearing their white shirts and kakhi pants and shorts as if they had just finished taking their family pictures on the beach. Around 8pm local time, we finally settled on Cosmo's on Canal Road. They were on a hour and a half wait, so we opted to order our food to-go, which still took thirty minutes. I had to remind myself that I'm traveling with a teenager, since she ordered a rather expensive pasta dish that I had to pay for! I should have been more specific by suggesting a budget friendly shrimp po-boy.
While we were there, my aunt wanted us to try a Smoked Tuna Dip that she bought at their local seafood market. At first I thought it was rather like tuna salad, but after a few more trys, I was hooked.
Saturday morning we went to the beach. We learned that if you arrive around 10:30am, you won't find a single parking space at the local public beach access. We had to shark park for about fifteen minutes. But finally we were at the beach. Just the two of us with a small cooler and two beach towels. No chairs. No umbrella. No little canopy. We looked like amateurs compared to the sight we encountered. After two hours, we were cooked and decided to go home and shower and go find lunch.
We ended up at The Wharf, where my cousin works. Erin had wanted to go shopping with the spending money her dad had given her. Spending money? Wait - you had spending money this whole time yet you ordered a $20 pasta? Needless to say, The Wharf is a relatively new development in Orange Beach. However it is a little more high-end than Erin was hoping for. We couldn't even walk into stores. I suppose if they had a Hot Topic or similar store, she would have been happier. We found a little pizza joint and inhaled a late lunch. I was just thankful to be inside. It was sweltering! Erin finally settled on a cute t-shirt at The Wharf Store, a trinket of her productive shopping excursion I suppose.
Our initial plan had been to catch a sunset dolphin cruise on Saturday evening. But Mother Nature had other plans. There were big storms rolling through the area and the dolphin tour companies just had some silly hangups about putting tourists on a boat in the middle of a lightning storm on the bay. Erin had to settle for jumping out of my car at the docks to take a few quick pictures. Here she is running from lightning --
So Saturday night was a bust. No dolphin tour. No good pictures on the beach. We retired early and hoped for better luck before we left on Sunday.
Sunday morning we woke up early and were on the beach by 9:30am. Erin learned that you don't sit in the surf and expect to be left alone.
Overall, this was a great little weekend escape. I just wish that we could have stayed there longer!
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