One year ago today J and I awoke at 4am in the morning to 14 inches of snow on the ground. We packed the car with our suitcases and drove 12 hours down south through the snow to Dauphin Island, Alabama for a week of vacation with family.
It’s hard to believe it’s already been a full year. There’s no snow on the ground today here, it’s 70 degrees outside, and there are already patches of green grass popping up across the lawn. I remember arriving on Dauphin Island and we immediately drove to the beach to catch the sunset. It was 60 degrees there. J and I still had on the long sleeved sweatshirts we had put on for the trip down. It was quite breezy, but we were just happy to have finally arrived.
Here’s the beach house we stayed in the first 2 nights which was being rented by John’s aunt. ur bedroom window in on the far right and looked right out at the ocean and a few palm trees. J dressed early that morning and walked down to the water for some alone time and to look for shells.
I immediately fell in love with the coastline sites and everywhere I looked was a Kodak moment. With cameras in tow, John’s aunt joined me to capture some snapshots.
We also fed the seagulls.
And then we took a long walk on the beach and searched for treasures.
The neighborhoods of homes built up on stilts were just beautiful. Like lingering ghosts, the remains of stilts from homes taken away by Hurricane Katrina marked the places where the homes had once been. Some homes that survived Katrina were still there, all boarded up like beach slums.
We drove into Biloxi that night where the path of Katrina was even worse. The Hard Rock Casino was lit up nicely though and had a nice memorial inside containing rock star items that had washed up or been found in the gulf after Katrina. On day 3, we drove into Florida down the Gulf until we reached the small quaint town of Seaside. I was amazed at how both the sand and the water changed colors the further into Florida we went. The shells were also plentiful, and we picked up quite a collection.
Seaside was an artist’s dream come true – full of little indie shops of art, clothes, books, and cats.
A Day 4, we did some local sight seeing and awaited for the rest of J’s family to arrive. We also went in search of local sea food which we could prepare for dinner that night.
On Day 5, we took John’s other aunt and his Grandpa out for shell searching and more sight seeing. We also checked into the beach house where we would all be spending the rest of our trip together. And cooked more sea food! The next morning, enjoying a cup of coffee out on the deck with the sun coming up, was just breath taking.
Most of the family went fishing, but the fish weren’t biting. Being out near the water was nice though and I soon developed a fascination with pelicans. A few of us took a stroll through a local park filled with trees draped in eerie Spanish moss.
Fort Gaines, an old barrack out on the island, was cool to visit and very historical, but not as much fun as watching J’s family play pool that day at the beach house. A few of us spent the afternoon on a bird watching trail although we didn’t see one bird.
Back at the beach house the pelicans made up for the empty bird park.
On our last day, we made a trip into another part of Alabama on the other side of the Sound for an art fair. We were going to take the ferry back but it didn’t come because of the fog. I got some amazing pictures of pelicans at the dock though while we were waiting.
It was a long drive back since the ferry didn’t come. We had a late night dinner of leftover shrimp and fried okra, then celebrated J’s aunt’s birthday. I remember going to bed by 11 that night because J and I had to get up early to drive back the following morning. Overall, it was a great trip I’ll never forget, one of the best vacations J and I have had together.
When we got back to St. Louis that next night, the snow was all gone and so were the cool temperatures. It was like Spring had arrived while we were gone.
So hard to believe it’s been a year already…
