Tag Archives: Orange Beach

Saturday’s Critters – At the Beach!!

We went on our family vacation to Orange Beach, Alabama early in September. It was great because the crowds were gone and the weather was pleasant, but the water was still warm. It was perfect.

Pelicans on Patrol

I spotted a squadron of pelicans skimming the waves in the Gulf of Mexico. I presume they were looking for something to eat.

Brown Pelican at Perdido Pass

We saw this lone wolf pelican at a nearby pass begging for food from the fishermen. We see these loners and I sense that most of them are juveniles and don’t quite know how to fend for themselves.

And near the pelican were some great blue herons. (At least I think that is what they are.)

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I was on the balcony of our condo when I spotted this heron. I am thinking that he was looking for lizards.

We walked on the beach a lot. We saw lots of shorebirds standing and flying around.

Had a bunch of these birds

On a bicycle ride in nearby Gulf State Park we saw this alligator. We have been here before and there is almost always an alligator or two here.

And at the swimming pool one evening we spotted this lizard. He would puff his throat up to a bright red color. He’s lucky a heron didn’t see him is what I think.

I am linking with Saturday’s Critters.

Skywatch Friday – Autumn Beach Vacation

Bridge across the Mississippi on the very long drive to the beach, 13 hours or so.

Mississippi State Forestry Service fire tower. I don’t think they use it any longer.

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At Orange Beach, we found this treasure dredging sand at Perdido Pass and making more beach by pumping the dredged material ashore. This is as close as they let us go. Isn’t it beauty. I used to use similar barges laying pipelines in south Louisiana.

Isn’t she a beauty?

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I got a few decent beach skies.

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Lots of pelicans skimming the waves.

We had several decent days on the beach. The water was way too cold for me. My feet got toasted good in the sun. I promise, no more feet pics. At least for a while.

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I got up early one fridged morning and got a decent sunrise. Yes, I used a filter if you must know.

We saw a catamaran out on the water one late afternoon. Nothing better than photographs of sailing vessels I think.

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We drove to nearby Pensacola and checked out Pensacola Beach. Gorgeous beach and water. We got out on the pier and saw fisherman catch fish. We saw a sea turtle surface briefly and sharks lurking about. Lots of manta rays. I didn’t have the right camera to capture any of that.

Back at Perdido Pass. We have learned that dolphin cruises and fine and good but the fisherman on the beach will tell you where to go see dolphins. We got to the pass late afternoon and there were tons of dolphins going back and forth. Didn’t have to pay a thing and nobody presented us with a tip jar.

orange beach AI Image

I’m fascinated by Artifical Intelligence generated photos. I got on my goto site for that kind of foolishness, freeimagegenerator.com, and entered: “most colorful orange beach alabama skywatch photo hdr realistic detailed concept art ” on the text prompt and a few seconds later it gave me this image. Strangely enough it looks like about half the shirts for sale in the state. The whole concept is freaky to me. Try the link and let me know what you think. You want to try something really disturbing, enter your name and home address in the text prompt.

That’s about all the foolishness for this week. I’m linking to Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch Friday – Cool Beach Vibes

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We are still at the beach on our family’s vacation. We had a couple of warm days to wear we could sit on the beach for a few hours. The water was warm enough wade in but not for me to get in. Son got in for a little bit but he is young, right? And then it got cold so we go beach walking and hiking in a nearby State Park. Hey you know, a cold day at the beach is still okay.

I hope everybody is doing well!! I’m linking with Skywatch Friday.

Shadowy Beach Sightings

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From our recent vacation. Shadows from a fence protecting the dunes.

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And Heather and I during one of our walks. We walked on the beach barefoot twenty five miles total. I kind of miss it. I love how skinny I am in this photo, and tall!!

I’m linking with Shadow Shot Sunday 2 – come join the fun!!

Stormy Weather

We are down in Orange Beach, Alabama on vacation. The weather has been okay. Sunny, Cloudy, Rainy. Today it is kind of stormy. I guess that it is related to Tropical Storm Nicholas which isn’t here yet.

I woke up this early this morning, put my wide angle lens on the ole Nikon and started to go outside but then it started to rain. I’m kind of protective of the ole Nikon so I used the iphone.

So the wind is blowing and it is raining and we got a flash flood watch so it is going to be a reading day for us. The condo has an exercise room with dreadmills and such but I doubt I’ll do that. We have been walking on the beach two or three miles a day and we’ll see if that happens.

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This and the next couple pics and videos are from yesterday’s beach walk. I just love walking in the surf. Didn’t get to do that much growing up in the intermountain west. Don’t get to do it too much in Oklahoma either.

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So I make the most of it here.

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I don’t mind bad weather. The thing that drives me inside is lightning. I personally know somebody who died from a lightning strike.

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Here is a shot from when we first got here. The sun was out and the water was clear. We could see dozens of squadrons of cow nose rays. Check the link for more information. I had never heard of them before but they are graceful swimmers. They look like butterflies of the sea even though they are about two or three feet wide. They swim with their mouths wide open hoovering anything in their path. They swam around people. Check the link above for more information.

Who knows what the day holds for us. We might walk to the beach bar next door and drink a couple of bushwhackers and listen to live music.

I hope your day is going well.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday – come join in!!

Our World – Beaching Good Times

Heather and I are on vacation this week. We are down in Orange Beach on the Alabama Gulf Coast. It’s our happy place.

Here’s my bride during our bicycling adventure at Gulf State Park. We rode 16 miles and it was great. Hardly any other people and some great trails.

It has three really nice lakes with marshes and it is incredibly gorgeous.

It’s also a great alligator habitat. We saw this momma and two babies chilling out by the trail. There are also “several” types of venomous snakes according to Park. Two years ago I went geocaching at the park while wife and son went parasailing. I had a great time but my head was on a swivel looking around.

We are right next to a beach bar. No bull, they had a rodeo last weekend. The condo was full of cowboys. They are the most polite people you will ever meet. They also like to party hard.

Saturday the beach was hopping between the cowboys with their hats on in the water and a bunch of happy, good natured people celebrating their football teams, LSU and Alabama seemed to be the most popular and playing incredibly loud tunes on their speakers that they actually rolled out across the beach on wheels. They also were celebrating their favorite presidential candidate.

Sunday, we basically had the place to ourselves. The cowboys went on to their next rodeo and the partiers went back to work and school.

I’m linking with Our World Tuesday. Join in the fun.

Skywatch Friday – Gulf of Mexico Seascape

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A shot from our trip to Orange Beach, Alabama earlier this summer for vacation. I love hanging out at the beach. What you see changes every second.

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A full moon from earlier this week. I’m told it was the Thunder Moon or the Buck Moon. I captured not too long after moonrise so it had some color to it.

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From our trip to Bentonville, Arkansas recently. They have a charming town square. I noticed this confederate monument in the middle of the park. As far as I know there is nobody clamoring to have it removed. It is interesting to me that Oklahoma and Arkansas are right next to each other and you won’t see sights like this in Oklahoma. Arkansas was a state long before Oklahoma  is the reason I am guessing. Just as an aside, Stand Waite was a Cherokee from what was then “Indian Territory” who rose to the rank of Brigadier General in the Confederate Army and was quite successful fighting Union troops and was responsible for keeping them out of Oklahoma and east Texas during the Civil War. He was the last confederate general to surrender which he did in Doaksville, in what is now Oklahoma on June 29, 1865. I stumbled across the ghost town of Doaksville years ago and wrote this blog post about it.

Well, I got off on a tangent. Sorry about that.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – A Cloudy Day at the Beach

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Even the rainy overcast days at the beach are interesting with the big vistas. This particular day featured fast moving showers moving through the area. I suscribe to the “hear it, fear it, see it, flee it” school of lightning. So I am not going to venture out during a rainstorm but I’ll sure take photos of those that do.

I am fascinated how the water changes color with the sky. Sometimes the water is blue, other times green, and still others grey. We stayed at the beach for a week and had no reason to turn on the television even when it was rained.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Lifeguard Tower

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Orange Beach, Alabama

Why are lifeguard towers so darn cool? Most places I have been I have hardly ever see lifeguards in them. They are very beachy though like this example from our recent vacation to the Gulf Coast of Alabama. We had pretty good weather and great skies while we are there and a pretty good time.

Skywatch Friday

Life’s a Beach – In the Air, on the Ground, and in the Water

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Heather and Logan went on their parasailing adventure the other day. I didn’t go, the pics were taken by a boat hand.

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Up

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And then way up there!

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Before coming down for a little shark dip, and then the credit card went though and they went up again.

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While they were up there, I went to the beautiful Gulf State Park’s Backwoods Trail.

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And found some geocaches. No snakes, no bug bites (thanks DEET), but a few thorn scratches.

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Heather and I have taken several long beach walks along the Gulf underneath everchanging skies.

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And I have been crushing beers in the surf. That is what us guys do, we crush our beers. We have found some decent beer here finally. Alabama is a bigger beer wasteland than Oklahoma.

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And I found me a friend at the fishing pier at Gulf Shores. I’m not much of birdwatcher except for the big ones like this Brown Pelican.

Today, we are going on a Segway nature tour of the Gulf State Park. I’ll give you a report later.