On November 16, we pulled into Alabama Coast Campground in Foley, Alabama to begin our 3 month winter stay. We spent a month in Foley last winter and decided to make this our winter home. The temperatures are typically pretty mild, there’s a fair amount of things to do nearby, and the park is very affordable. After spending the summer working on the property, we were definitely ready for a relaxing winter.
Our first adventure in town was a visit to the Mobile Ren Faire. It was much smaller than the one we are used to in Ohio but we still had fun. There were acrobats, live music, men hitting each other with weapons, lots of craft vendors, axe throwing, and a Kona Ice truck. Looking forward to attending another Renaissance Festival in February in Pensacola. I bought a new dress and an amazing hat and we spent the day snacking and watching various performances and demonstrations.
Because this was our second long stay in the Foley area, we already had doctors established for the humans AND the animals in the area. I did my regular checkup and got my prescriptions refilled and we got Harley and Pandora in to vets they have both seen before for some “routine maintenance”. Harley visited the amazing people at Foley Veterinary Hospital for her yearly shots and will be returning to them in March for a dental cleaning. They took care of her last year when she had to be hospitalized for a foot injury and they did a mass removal from her chest and they took such great care of her (and they have super affordable prices) so we are always happy to see them! Pandora sees the good folks at Dykes Veterinary Clinic for management of her Thyroid issues. This year she also decided to throw a Urinary Tract Infection into the mix so we have seen them more often than we would have liked but they are also excellent and we know she is in good hands with them.
Having so much downtime in one place also lets us relax and do some “regular stuff”. Normally, we are spending our time checking out special local attractions and are so busy trying to squeeze in as much as possible before we move on to the next spot that we don’t have time for seeing a movie at the theater. In fact, since we started travelling in October of 2022, we have only gone to the movie theater 2 times (“Guardians of the Galaxy 3” and “Deadpool & Wolverine”). With the release of “Wicked”, we went to the theater for the 3rd time! We have seen the Broadway musical of the same name twice (once from almost the last row of the theater and once from the front row) and we are absolutely in love with it. I have always loved The Wizard of Oz and all things related to it and John has always loved a good musical. We thought it was AMAZING and can’t wait for part two to come out.
Our next adventure was an amazing one- we took a dolphin cruise! John booked us an excursion out of Orange Beach that takes you out into Perdido Bay to see the dolphins swimming. This particular company runs two boats at a time side by side which creates a large wake between them. The dolphins LOVE to play in it. They put on quite a show swimming between the boats and leaping into the air. It was one of the coolest experiences I have ever done and was pretty affordable at $30 per person. These dolphins were wild dolphins that were swimming in the bay and everyone on the boat had a great time- and it seems like the dolphins did, too.
Following our dolphin tour, we drove over to the Flora-Bama Lounge in Pensacola for lunch. This is a pretty popular bar/restaurant/music venue located right on the water and they are known for their oysters. We had the oyster sampler and the shrimp basket and ate right on the beach with our toes in the sand. The food was okay but you can’t beat that view.
And that brings us to Thanksgiving. This year, we opted to spend a quiet day at home (it was too rainy to do much outside). We watched the Macy’s parade on tv and had a low-fuss meal of turkey breast from The Honey Baked Ham Store, big fluffy rolls from Lambert’s Cafe, Potatoes Au Gratin from the local butcher shop, and homemade green bean casserole. We also put together a charcuterie board for all-day snacking while we watched television and snuggled with Harley on the couch. It wasn’t quite as exciting as the Thanksgiving we spent hiking waterfalls and it was much more lonely than the big family meals we used to have in Ohio- but it was still nice.
The week after Thanksgiving, we celebrated John’s 40th birthday. I had already turned 40 over the summer and we had a huge party with family and friends while we were in Ohio. John’s birthday found us too far away from family and friends to have a party but John has always been more about the quiet celebrations anyway. We went out for a day of shopping at the mall in Pensacola and grabbed some burgers and onion rings at Red Robin. We also visited a nearby flea market right on the water and got a little bit of our Christmas shopping done. I bought John all of the Brooklyn-99 Funko Pops that had recently released and he seemed pretty happy.
So far, we had been lucky with sunny skies and only a little bit of rain. Daytime temperatures were mostly in the upper 60’s and low 70’s and we were able to enjoy a lot of time sitting outside in the gazebo and walking around the park. Meanwhile, at our Michigan property it was snowing like crazy! We put up cameras on the property before we left and periodically checking in was becoming one of our favorite pastimes. We will end this post with a picture that we pulled from one of the cameras. Watching through the camera from 1100 miles away is definitely the closest I hope to come to snow this year.
