Another wonderful trip to Gulf Shores has quickly
passed us by. Our third trip to this beautiful beach town in Alabama
went too fast, but was again filled with plenty of good times and
memories.
We ventured South on
I-65 with our good friends The Clawsons on July 5. This year we’d be
staying at a different house on the beach, during a different time of
year. We immediately found out how different G.S. is during the “high
season” of visitors. Traffic was a bear and getting into restaurants
wasn’t quite as easy as it is in May.
Lunch is always an adventure for the kiddos.
Regardless
we forged ahead and somehow found a way to have fun! The vacation
started with a bang as Kari got stung by a jellyfish within the first
hour of being in the water. A quick search on the internet stated we
should put vinegar on it and that would calm the swelling right away. It
did. We also learned after Kari's ordeal that the beach warning flags displayed not more than 200 yards away from our house would have predicted an encounter with dangerous marine life. Shortly after this, Nolan (K’s 7 year old buddy) was crawling
through the sand innocently playing when he was cut by something sharp. Turned
out this injury was much more serious and required a trek to Urgent
Care and 4 stitches. This also kept him out of the water the rest of the
week, not an easy thing for him. This year’s house did not have a pool,
so the kids were “forced” to have to get in the ocean. After some
initial hesitation, we realized the point of being at the beach is to
get in the saltwater not the chlorinated version.
Red, predictably, means dangerous current. Who knew purple means dangerous marine life? We do now!
The
kids absolutely jumped right in and loved collecting hundreds of sea
shells, watching minnows swim everywhere, letting the waves smack them
around, etc. Despite some cloudy days, the water was a great temperature
most of the week.
We hit up many
of our favorite restaurants during the week, but none is more enjoyable
for the kids than The Hangout. It’s a restaurant/bar on steroids. Big
enough for at least 1,000 people, this complex has multiple bars (thank
God), a huge restaurant, kids’ attractions and a huge sand pile to play
in. We literally could have stayed there for 5-6 hours and the kids
would have remained entertained.
All four kids got along well and had a ton of fun.
On the gigantic sand hill at The Hangout
