March 5, 2013

GULF SHORES, AL
July, 2010

There was an Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 that I'm sure a lot of people will never forget.  The spill was so bad, that it took weeks to even figure out how to stop the oil from gushing into the Ocean.  The oil obviously affected many things, one of the things being tourism.  In an effort to get people to travel to Gulf Shores, AL, Jimmy Buffett, Zac Brown, Kenny Chesney and a few other artists teamed up and scheduled a free concert on the beach.  The only thing that you had to do was to get onto Ticketmaster.com & be one of the lucky ones who got tickets before they were gone.  There was a minimum of 4 tickets per order allowed, but that was the only stipulation.  Being huge Buffett & Zac Brown Band fans Creag & I decided that we HAD to go.  With only being allowed 4 tickets per order, we were each going to try to get online and get tickets so we would have enough to take all four of the kids.  I had everyone at work that morning signed onto Ticketmaster to get the tickets because we knew they'd go fast.  Fortunately, we did get tickets, BUT we only got four before they were gone.  We decided since we didn't have enough for all of us to go, we'd just take the girls with us.  Unfortunately, we found out the day before we were leaving that the concert was cancelled due to a storm that was supposed to come through.  We went anyway, and had a blast.

We left the house in the evening & drove most of the way through.  The girls slept through the night for the most part.  I remember Creag getting really tired at one point so we pulled over at a rest stop & slept in the car for a bit & then we stopped at Burger King for breakfast.  The morning we got there, we stopped at the beach.  This was Skylar's first time to see the ocean so it was pretty special:)  A lot of the brown stuff that you can see in the pictures are clumps of oil.  We tried to step over the oil, but there was just so much of it that we did end up with some on our feet.  The girls found sea shells & loved the ocean.

 

After the beach, we checked into at our Condo at the Purple Parrot.  It was a nice place with a very nice pool.  With it being close to the 4th, they had all kinds of activities scheduled.  On the drive down, we were listening to Buffett Radio on Sirius & had heard a rumor that Buffet may show up at his sister's restaurant, LuLu's.  We went to LuLu's the first night we were there in hopes of seeing him play.  Buffet didn't end up showing, but we had a great time listening to a Bluegrass Band while the girls played in the sand.  I can't remember the name of the band, but they were very original.  They used washboards for instruments & were just very entertaining. 

 

 

Another day, we went to a restaurant called The Hangout.  It was great for kids & while we were there, I taught the girls the Maccarana.  They also had a bubble machine that was a hit.

 

 

We rode the Ferris Wheel at a place called The Wharf and then had dinner at a pretty good seafood restaurant. 

 

One day, I think we spent the entire day at the Purple Parrot.  They had a pig roast around lunch time so we took a break from the pool & had that for lunch. They had tents with tables set up & it was great food!  I think that night, we went to the grocery to get the stuff to grill out.  We made amazing Juicy Lucy Burgers. Juicy Lucy's are two hamburger patties, but in the center is your cheese and anything else that you want to stuff them with. They were probably the best burgers I've ever had.  Come to think of it, we haven't made them since so we should probably do that soon.

I think the highlight of the trip, was being there on the 4th and being able to watch the fireworks on the beach.  We actually went to a point on the beach where we were the only ones there & it was awesome!!

 

 

 

 

 

Gulf Shores was a great vacation for the four of us, and boys, if your reading this years from now you'll be going on all boy fishing trips every year so there is no jealousy allowed that only the girls went on this trip :)