Off to the Gulf Coast

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After a relaxing week at Three Rivers State Park, we continued our journey to the west. Our next destination is Summerdale Alabama. Located roughly halfway between Pensacola Florida and Mobile Alabama. The park we chose was Rainbow Plantation, an Escapees RV Park. Escapees is another RV club we joined when we went full time. They tend to cater towards people that live full time or extended time in their RV. This park is only open to Escapee members and was our first time staying in one of their parks. At just under $20 per day for full hook-up 50 amp, it worked out well for us. They had all sorts of activities from line dancing and exercise classes to euchre and mahjong. If we had been staying here for a couple months, we probably would have joined in on some activities.

We haven't been planning our stops in an attempt to be somewhere specific for events we might like to attend. So sometimes we will hear about upcoming events a few weeks after we leave an area and other times we pull in just after some fun festival happened. This time we lucked out and were here for the weekend of the 70th anniversary of the Blue Angels. They are based at the Pensacola Naval Air Station. The amazing thing is that the event and parking are both free! It wasn't until the weekend before we left, so stayed tuned for the next blog post for pictures and more from the show.

There were many other things to see in the area. One was the Gulf State Park. As you might guess, it is along the Gulf only about 20 minutes south of us. The park itself had the added benefit of being a geocache rich zone. Maybe we should have considered the campgrounds at the park? The day we headed there was a bit cloudy but got better as the day progressed.

Our first stop was at the pier. Turns out you need to pay just to walk out on the pier. Not much, but still. There were many people out fishing off the pier and they even had to pay more for the privilege. The winds were really whipping up the waves.

Pier at Gulf State Park

Next we tried to get to the hiking trail we wanted to try out. Rosemary Dunes trail is part of the Hugh S Branyon Backcountry Trail. We initially pulled into a parking area that happened to be another pay spot. We told the attendant what we were looking for and he directed us a bit further down the road to a trailhead with small free parking lot.

It was a nice walk but far from what we would consider as true "backcountry". The trail is paved and easily wide enough for a car. Plus with all the high rise condos visible from the trail, the views didn't start out that picturesque. Eventually the trail heads away from the developed areas and we started to see some decent scenery. We even saw one very small gator in a little pond.

One of the Condos Near Backcountry Trail

The Sign for the Gator was Nearly as Big as the One We Saw

Small Gator Peaking Out of Water

We headed up and around Little Lake and took that trail back around to our original trail. We found most but not all the geocaches along the trail and lucked out that a long boardwalk/bridge had just opened allowing us to complete that loop without getting wet or muddy or eaten by gators. The alternative would have taken us around Middle Lake and added another couple miles to the hike.

Looking over Little Lake at Gulf State Park

We happened to be staying here during the elections. Traveling from state to state over the past several months, we have seen so many commercials from the various senate, house or even local races. Maybe I should have written down the ones that were somewhat intriguing to be able to go back now and see how they turned out. We had a slightly rainy morning on election Tuesday so decided to head to the Foley Library. Of course the library was adjacent to the polling place so the parking lot was packed and the geocache we had planned to do in a quiet little sitting area was now 20 feet from the continual line of people waiting to cast their vote. After sitting on the bench and taking a quick and unsuccessful look for the container, I thought better of looking for it and arousing suspicion.

We went to Graham Creek Nature Preserve in Foley AL. It had a few geocaches and a disc golf course. It wasn't clear if we were having a good day or if it was an easy course, but we both did fairly well. I actually think I hit par on more than half the holes! Normally if I have par on one or two holes I'm happy.