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| 6:24 |
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| 7:41 |
It's 6:45 and I am sitting in Hampton Inn lounge, enjoying their breakfast bar. I slept through the sunrise getting up at 6:30 alas, so no early morning beach walks today. Our Inn rises nine stories so our view off our lanai is water and skies.
We left Nashville by 7:45, sad to leave Marisa and Vanderbilt but we were looking forward to the beach, not knowing what to expect because we have never been to what's called the Rednneck Riviera. Our drive seemed longer than usual, especially the last hour when we thought we were already there. The weather was fine, however, mostly sunny and the foliage along the way still had color. And once we were in Alabama, the green of pines took over, reminding us of our drive through South Carolina and Georgia. We stopped once for breakfast, another time for gas, enjoying a light lunch of hummus or cheese and crackers rather the stopping again for lunch.
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| 4:35 |
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| Beach Time |
We arrived at our Hampton around 4:15, basically an eight-and-a-half-hour drive. We checked in and Evie thought it would be nice to be on the 9th floor so there was no one above us. Well, we forgot about the air conditioning on the roof which made quite a racket so we ended up moving down to the 6th floor which was fine except we realized in the evening the toilet was running so I had to turn off the water to quiet it down. Hopefully, that will be fixed this morning. So our arrival was less than easy. Once we were settled, we took a brief walk on the amazing beach, a broad sandy beach, stretching for miles in both directions with a few people sitting or walking on the beach.
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| 4:53 |
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| 5:08 |
It's as nice a beach as we have seen, as nice as any in Florida. And unlike Topsail, NC, where we stayed last Spring with Jill and her family, which is mostly huge three-story houses for rent, Orange Beach reminds me of Miami Beach, with high rises rather than homes stretching in both directions, as least where we are staying. It felt good to relax after our walk with a high ball and enjoy the early sunset at 4.55. It surprised us really how dark it got in literally moments as the sun disappeared.
We researched the best restaurants in Orange Beach on Google and came up with a place called The Gulf, about two miles from our Hampton. We were tired from our trip so we left to eat before 6:00 and were shocked to see the parking lot practically empty, realizing later that this is a slow time of the year for visitors.
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| Dining Al Fresco |
We walked in and were surprised that there was no inside seating, rather a vast porch, overlooking the water, seating at least a hundred I would guess, a great place to eat and watch the sunset during the summer. We sat at the bar which had a heater over its roof so we were warm and happy. I ordered a Yuengling, no Labatts in Alabama, and we chatted with the bartenders. Evie had a grouper sandwich with homemade fries and I had a tuna poke bowl, with tomatoes, cucumbers, pineapple served over sushi rice with seaweed and spicy mayo and ponzu, basically tuna with fruit and veggies and a dressing.
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| Dinner |
We were two of about 15 people eating. Our meals were decent, the poke was not as good as Jill makes with avocados and wasabi. We were home by 7:00, really 8:00 in Nashville time because the time changed when we arrived in Alabama. We stayed up till 9:00 reading and watching TV but were tired so we went to bed.
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| A Sense Of Humor? |
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