Alabama, Robertsdale February 6 - 20

Styx River RV Resort near Robertsdale, Alabama.  This is one of our two week stays.  Kay let me go play Texas-holdem every night.  Only won two times but had a lot of fun and made lots of new friends.  From the campground we could drive about 30 miles to the Gulf Coast.  We made several trips doing that.  On one of the trips we were checking out a State Campground on the coast and met some fellow kayakers from Colorado so we made plans to go with them the next day to kayak in the marshland in Bon Secour National Wildlife Reserve.  We were on the Bon Secour Bay side of the island.  The bay water was as smooth as glass.  The best part of the trip was seeing so many dolphins.  We got very close to them, but trying to take a picture of them proved to be quite difficult.  We did get a lot of fins though.

 Robertsdale, Alabama

On one of our trips we took the ferry from Bon Secour N.W.R. to Dauphin Island and drove up the Mobile side of the bay. 

This oil drilling platform was located right off the end of the ferry loading ramp.  There are a bunch of them in Mobile Bay.

One of the big grain or coal freighters.  This one could be at least 1000 feet long.

Interesting look at the GPS in the truck as we were on the ferry.

From the top: 5:52 is the time we should get back to the camper.

1:23  How long it will take us to get to the camper.

53.7 miles back to the camper.

4:29 the current time,   9 mph is the speed of the ferry

1.6 miles is the distance to where the ferry will dock and we get off.  It looks like we're driving on water.   Thought you would enjoy this.

This sunset was taken on Dauphin Island after we got off the ferry.

I thought Kay would look good along with the sunset.

Sunset,  waves,  beach

This is Kay's attempt to take a picture of downtown Mobile from the moving truck.  I liked it.

Young brown pelican

Birds on the beach

More good looking stuff on the beach

A squirrel on the ladder on the back of the camper and the dogs watching it out the back window.  The window is mirrored glass so you can not see in from the outside during the day.  The squirrel has no idea the dogs are only a foot away from it.

Had to take this one.  We stopped along the river where people like to fish.  Obviously some of them had a hard time getting their lines out into the water.

Looking west at Mobile downtown from the bridge over the bay.

This was a goooooood place to eat.  They have a guy that throws hot rolls across the room for you to catch and eat.  They were almost as good as Grandma Moellers.

This is one of the guys that throw the rolls.  He was very good.

Kay getting ready to dig into her supper, fried chicken, sweet potato, hot apples, and the hot roll.  Most of the supper went home with us because she filled up on the rolls.

Warren and Carol Singleton from Colorado getting ready to kayak the Bon Secour Bay near Mobile.

Carol

Warren

Pelican just taking off

Dolphin fin one of many

more dolphin

A Great Blue Heron sitting in the dead tree.

Kay and Carol.  The water was so smooth.

Kay liked this lonely pine tree in the middle of the marsh island.

This is our launch site.  It may look like the car is in the water, but it is not but very close.

I found Ton Hanks' Wilson

This is a bridge across the Styx River near our campground.  Kay and I put in here to kayak out into the Mobile Bay marsh land.

This is a look at the marshland water ways in the bay.

Marty trying to get a knot out of his new fishing reel.  Good thing there is no sound to this picture.

An old pier

I have no idea what this is, but Kay liked them.

More of Kay's flowers.

Zoe after her new hair cut. 

Maxwell had a hair cut also.

Florida, De Funiak Springs Jan 23 - Feb 6

Our stay here at Holley-King RV Resort has been really relaxing.  When we first arrived and saw how far out it was from everything and there were very few other people around we thought the two weeks would really go slow.  After you see all the pictures we took you'll figure out we had a great time.

De Funiak Springs, Florida

Our campsite taken from the pier.

 Looking at Holley Lake.  We had the best site in the campground.

Kay on her morning paddle around the lake.

We went exploring one day and found some Florida springs. This one is Morrison Spring.

The highlight of the park is a 250-foot diameter spring pool that produces an estimated 48 million gallons of crystal clear water each day and has been recorded to produce up to 70 million gallons a day. Three cavities allow Morrison’s frigid waters to surface from the underground aquifer. The deepest of these cavities, at approximately 300 foot in depth, eventually terminates in an underground chamber of unknown dimensions.

Here is Ponce De Leon spring. Sorry we didn't get any younger.

Max and Zoe sure liked the small fish at Ponce De Leon Spring.

Getting ready to kayak the creek out of Morrison Springs.

Kay on Morrison Creek

We kayaked from Morrison spring down the creek towards the river. This was a floating shack we found on the creek. I think I'll keep my 5th wheel.

There were several geese living in the RV park.  This fellow was checking out Kay's kayak.

A young family came to the campground and camped next to us.  Buddy invited Marty to go along to fish one day.

Marty enjoyed fishing on Holley Lake most every day.  He gave this nice catch to Darrel and Helen who were camping behind us.

While in the area of De Funiak Springs we decided to do a little geocaching.  It had been a long time and we had fun looking for several.  One of the caches was to be near this old Coca Cola bottling company. 

We looked and looked around the building for the cache but we think someone took this one away.  It should have been back in these bushes.

Several other caches were to be found near a park in the historic down town of Defuniak Springs.  Made for an enjoyable walk.  There were several of these birds along the lake.

The town was sponsoring a festival in the park where there were several tents set up giving demonstrations on how things were during the Civil War period.  That's one of the things we enjoy about geocaching is you stumble into things you might not otherwise know about.

There were several azalea bushes blooming in the park.

One day we took a drive down to the Gulf near Destin.  The beaches are just the most beautiful we ever seen with the white sands, green water and blue skies. 

 

Great lunch stop right on the beach.

On the way home we found an Air force museum.  Marty totally enjoyed it.  Kay and the dogs enjoyed it as well.  There were lots of planes on display on the grounds that Kay and the dogs walked around.

P-51

SR-71 Black Bird

Maxwell makes the jet engine look big.

We celebrated Kay's birthday at Bogey's in Defuniak Springs.  The food and service were fantastic and the birthday cake (key lime pie) was awesome. 

  

On our trip last year we meet a fine family in the Redwoods of California.  Dave is stationed near Destin, FL with the Coast Guard.  We invited them up to have dinner with us at our campground.  It had been 9 months since we saw them last.  The girls sure have grown.  This is Christine and Zoe sitting with me and Max.

David and Beth

Chris, Julie and Darrel's wife Helen are watching Darrel clean a bass I had given him on the lake.

Darrel and Helen were in the camper behind us. They were also full time travelers from Washington.

We had a nice fire, and the girls and David did marshmallows.

Chris and Christina enjoying the fire.

From the left, Julie - Beth - Chris - Christina - David

Kay and the dogs enjoying the campfire also.

Marty's one last fish in Florida.