We vacationed earlier this summer in Orange Beach, Alabama, the Redneck Riviera. A very low key nice place to take a family. Since the beach runs runs roughly east to west the sun sets behind the bay instead of over the Gulf. With all the buildings and such that means you need a little elevation if you are on the beach to see the sunset so this was shot from seventh floor of our condo building.
I don’t know why the sun looks so big just as dips below the horizon but I’ll take it.
Just letting you know where my mind still is. My mind is still on the beach watching the sunrise, listening to the wind and the waves.
Skywatch Friday
Due to a Google mishap I’m no longer at yogis-den(dot)com. They are making it impossible to get it back so I’ve moved everything back over to the www.crustygasguy.blogspot.com while I ponder what to do, if anything. I like writing posts but I hate getting under the hood and trying to figure out the nuts and bolts when things go wrong. So I’m thinking I’m going to try a new domain name registrar and get a multiyear term. I would appreciate any recommendations on domain name registrars that easy to deal with.
I would also say beware to anybody out there who bought their domain name through Google even if you have auto renewal. A bunch of the renewals are failing, even with current payment information, and when it fails your domain name is gone and Google’s customer service isn’t up to the task of helping you get it back.
On our recent trip to Orange Beach, Alabama we went on a little kayaking expedition on Cotton Bayou.
We picked out the kayaks, got life vests, paddles and a map and off we went.
SuperPizzaBoy really took to it and did very well.
He left the old man in the dust, so to speak.
Sweetie was looking good also. She always looks good, kayak or not.
The bayou was busy. We got attached by a pirate boat. The pirates were all yealling “ARGH!!!” but we got away.
Or maybe they are the ones that got away?
For some reason Sweetie had the map. How did she get the map. I’m supposed to have the map. That way I can be telling her stuff, not she tellling me stuff. Do you like the thumb action in the photo?
We pulled up on a deserted island for a lunch of peanut butter sandwhiches.
And here’s a YogiCam view of the return trip. Tell you what my quads were burning after this trek but we had fun.
We are back from vacation. We went down to Orange Beach, Alabama for a week.
We hung out on the beach a lot. Some of us tanned, others of us got toasted.
We went kayaking one day. Nothing like kayaking through a busy bay.
We saw some dolphins playing. That was quite a thrill.
We witnessed some great sunsets.
At ate some really, really good meals. Really.
And hung out on the beach. We did a lot of that!
One of us went geocaching.
We also listened to a lot of music, visited with some other friends of Tulsa, and even made a new friend at the urgent care clinic.
Now that we are back, we just want to know when we can go on our next vacation!
Silken Prey is John Sandford’s newest book. It stars Lucas Davenport, star detective of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, (“BCA”). Davenport has his work cut out for him this time. Murder, child porn, and politics all mixed up into a first class mess that he has to untangle.
(I love palmettos. We don’t have too many of them in Oklahoma.)
Along the way he has to contend with a female bodyguard who invites him to bed, a couple ex special forces body guards who are not quite that inviting and a Minnesota gubernatorial candidate who will literally do anything to get elected.
(Convenient swings along the trails of Orange Beach.)
Check out Sanders web site for a better synopsis of the story. The bottom line is that this is a very good book, very readable, and not quite enthralling cuz at the end things get kind of confused and messy and loses its coherence. It is still a great beach read though. I give it four stars out of five.
(You should have seen how white I was before I got my tan.)
From the Redneck Riviera, I’m trying to singlehandedly keep all the sunscreen manufacturers prosperous. And failing.
The Yogi’s are on vacation down in the Redneck Riviera of Alabama and typically we read a lot on vacation. Some people drink a lot, well we drink some but we read a lot. Don’t worry I’m not going to be calling you for bail money slurring about some big mistake some day. At least I won’t be calling me you if I don’t have you cell number. Oh, sorry, back to the reading. I ripped through True Grit by Charles Portis in a day.
(Chasing after a geocache at Perdido Inlet, Alabama)
You remember True Grit starring John Wayne from way back when and Jeff Bridges from a year or two ago. Yep, the movie. Well the movies are great but the book is even better.
(Yep, we played bingo for free drinks at a beach bar, what of it?)
True Grit is the story of Mattie Ross a fourteen year old girl and her quest for justice for her father. “I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansa, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.”
(Sometimes we embarrass our son so much. Sorry kid, we love live music.)
Tom Chaney took off for Indian Territory, Oklahoma after shooting Mattie’s father. Mattie travels to Fort Smith, Arkansas to hire a Federal Marshal “with grit” to go after Tom Chaney. She hires Rooster Cogburn and negotiates the terms of his employment.
(I mean everybody is having fun!)
Although John Wayne is the star of the movie (No offense Jeff Bridges, you are a great actor, but you are no John Wayne) but Mattie is the star of the book. She travels by herself into Fort Smith and takes over the town and takes no guff from anybody. When one of the characters threatens her with a spanking because she is so cheeky she tells him, “Put a hand on me and you will answer for it. You are from Texas and ignorant of our ways but the good people of Arkansas do not go easy on men who abuse women and children.”
(The weather is warm and the skies are nice down here in Alabama this week.)
Portis’ writing is superb and he knows how to spin a good story and keep it moving. I had read that he may be one of the most under rated writers ever in America and I can now believe it. This book is wonderful and I give it five stars out of five. Oh yes, a spoiler, Rooster Cogburn does charge into the bad guys with the reins in
I’m on vacation this week in Orange Beach, Alabama, otherwise known as the Redneck Riviera. I’m being pretty much worthless and I’m taking lots of pics. It clouds up and then rains and then the sun still doesn’t come out but it quits raining and somehow that is okay. I’m sorry I’m doing Skywatch Friday on Monday but this just might be the only post I do all week!
