A Lesson About Beach Warning Flags

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 also ventured east for a new adventure at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.The museum took up several hangars and had dozens and dozens of planes, aircraft carrier dioramas, memorabilia and cockpits for the kiddos to climb in. Even though the kids were too young to appreciate the historical side of the museum, they sure did enjoy climbing in all the cockpits like a regular jungle gym.

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