Beach camping: Gulf Shores State Park

As we are about to embark on another camping adventure I wanted to update our little blog with our summer trip before we go!  We went down to Gulf Shores to their State Park to camp for a week at July 4th & boy was it HOT!!  I have stayed here before & we have all been to Gulf Shores before but staying at the park together was a new thing for us.  This park was torn apart by the hurricanes in 2005 & it has yet to really recover.  There is not a lot of shade available at most of the spots, as you can see here we had one little tree near us:

The facilities were clean & really close (across the street) which was nice.  Here was our whole area:

We found this little guy in our beach bag on the first morning...

We got some new lights which looked cool but in the summertime they attracted tons of bugs & mosquitos so we ended up not getting to use them much... but they were pretty!

About the second day there someone 2 spots over from us saw a baby gator up on their spot, right next to them as they ate dinner!  This made us watch Lucy like a hawk!  The brush right behind us obviously had gators in it which might think she was a meal!  I did not like this feature of the park but we didn't see any gators on the trip (thank goodness!)  Here's our sweet Lulu with her bone...

We bought a deep fryer on this trip which turned out to be one of the best appliances we've ever purchased!  We ate like royalty without all of the cost!  Charles is VERY good at frying ;)

What a feast!!

Leah's first airbrushed t-shirt!  She loves it & has worn it quite a bit since the trip too!  She also got a new bicycle on this trip & though she has not yet mastered it, she learned so quickly on the trip!  We are excited she will have it for all our other trips too!

The one thing I really wanted to get while we were down at the beach was also an airbrushed item... a custom license plate!  Shown below, it is on the inside of our camper & covers a hole right as you walk in the door, I think it turned out perfect! (Leah picked out the plate, good job!)

Speaking of Leah, check out the "foam party" she got to do at The Hangout!  There was TONS of foam!!

She said it was weird... felt like nothing, but yet she was surrounded by white!  It was quite a sight for sure!

Of course we spent some time on the beach which felt great!  Here's Charles & Leah catching some waves...

There were also beautiful sunsets every night... 

Overall we had a great trip, though the heat made it hard at times. The state park was an ok experience but until they get more shade trees grown in, I don't think we will be going back... at least not in the middle of summer!

Happy Camping!!

Lake Guntersville State Park

So as I said before in my first post, our camping adventures began at Lake Guntersville. It was a great campground (I say was because when the tornadoes came thru in April 2011 it pretty much destroyed the sites) We were close enough to walk to a bath house (very nice) and to the lake which made for some beautiful sunsets!

We were very "woodsy" on this trip & cooked all our meals (which took... a while) but it was nice because it really made us all slow down and just relax. We also had lots of campfires, had to buy our wood though because we thought we couldn't have campfires so we didn't bring any with us... Not the greatest idea, lol! Made great s'mores almost every night & had fun taking some crazy fire pics!

Hanging out the first night by the campfire talking to our new neighbors by the fire was peaceful & relaxing, then they came... Leah had gone to sleep already but when three deer came within mere feet of us I just had to wake her up to see them! I practically had to hold her up, she was still very out of it but she saw them... then asked groggily to go back to sleep & I carried her back to the tent.

It's a terrible pic of them but it's the only one I could get. I was obviously more excited than everyone else (and probably more than I should have been, lol) The second night they came back at the same time & I didn't bother to wake Leah up this time but I did get a little braver. Our neighbors told me the deer would eat from my hand & I just happened to have a bag of Doritos in my lap...

So I walked out to the road, slowly, got about 5 feet from one of them on the road and held out a chip... waiting... it looked at me and slowly walked toward me & took it from my hand! I held out another one & it got closer... I fed it several chips & it got close enough for me to feel its wet squishy nose, I was as giddy as a kid!! I'll never forget the experience :)

Our only full day at the park we decided to try a hiking trail. We drove out of the campgrounds and down the road just a little to the Cave Trail. We got a little ways down the trail when we passed another family who asked if we knew we had passed the cave already. Hmm, really? We have only been walking about 5 minutes... sure enough, though, the "cave" was about 100 feet from the trail head, lol! We went up to it and started to explore...

We couldn't get very far into it & it was damp & muddy inside but still a neat cave. We still wanted to hike so we took off down the trail eventually finding a big rock to stop for lunch on.

Totally alone together, it was nice :) We headed back toward the cave where there was a stream coming out of the rocks. We all had fun playing with our cameras taking photos of all the nature...

Leah was so hot she decided to take off her shoes and get in the water... you can see from her face how that felt! LOL

It was COOOLLD!! But she was still happy to have cooled off a little :) We also went to the beach for the afternoon & got a TON of shells to bring home! Still not sure what we will make with them but we'll figure out something crafty! Here's her "castle"

Overall it was a great trip! We met some nice people who helped us out a lot & Leah made friends too!

Until next time...
Happy Camping!

How we got started...

Welcome to our new Blog about camping! We are a happy family of three who enjoy camping together & I wanted to keep up with all the many adventures we will have together & share them with you! Mostly I'm doing this for us to keep up with all the little stories we have from each trip but I still hope this will be fun for everyone to read!

Look for new posts every time we go camping as well as a "personal review" of each campsite we go to.

Here is how we started: The Tent

It was a tiny little thing and there is a good story to go along, but that will be in the next post...

And here is what we got next: The Pop-up

It is an older model (1996 - older than our daughter, LOL!) but it gets the job done... we are cool(er) and dry for our trips and that helps a lot!

There will be another post soon about the transformation of the camper from "90s country home" style to "Modern Beachy retreat" style (oh, and my misadventures in paint...)

That's all for now though, thanks for reading!

Happy camping!