About 2 months ago, my mother and step father moved to Alabama. I’m still not too crazy on their decision, because what girl wants to be 10 hours away from her momma!!!! But it is an amazing vacation spot. I asked my BFF, Becky, if she wanted to take a road trip with me to go visit my mom and she said YES! I’m not a huge fan of driving so having someone to go with me was going to help. We were only going to have 3 full days down there and 2 days for driving so we needed to make the most of our time. My mom lives in Mobile, AL at the moment and it’s super close to New Orleans, LA, Gulf Shores, AL and Pensacola, FL. That means LOTS of beaches. Little did we know that Mother Nature would have other plans and have it rain the 2 days we planned for beach days. Oh well, we still had an amazing time. I’ll walk you through our vacation below…..

We drove all day last Wednesday and met up with my mom and step dad at the school that they are working for in Spanish Fort, AL. We arrived a tad bit early so Becky and I thought we would drive around and try to find a beach or pier. We did and this was the first view we had on our trip (taken on my iPhone.)

We changed our clothes and freshened up a bit to head out for dinner. They took us to a place called Tacky Jacks and it’s this really cool restaurant on the bay near Spanish Fort (outside of Mobile, AL).  The view was amazing!

On Thursday, we drove over to New Orleans, LA. It’s a sight to see. If you’ve never been there, put it on your “to do” list. Bourbon Street is so cool and the architecture of the city is so beautiful.

After walking around for a bit (it was so hot and muggy) we were kind of tired and bored. Bourbon Street wasn’t exactly “happening” at noon yet, so we ended up deciding to go on a SWAMP TOUR!!!! That’s right, a swamp tour. The company was called Cajun Encounters Tour Co. It was totally worth every bit of $50 for this 2 hour tour. Alligators and beautiful swamp trees. Most of these pictures look fake to me because they’re so beautiful. And being that close to gators was really surreal. Captain Troy said that gators don’t care for people much, so we would be safe. Gators and Crocs are way different. They only come up to the boats because they’re used to getting treats from those tours. The 2 treats being thrown out… guess???? Hot dogs and marshmallows!!!!

Below you’ll see a couple marshmallows being thrown to Bacon. Yes, that’s the gators’ name.

Look how big Bacon is!!! You can tell the size of a gator by the distance from the eyes to the nose. Whatever that distance is in inches, change it to feet and that’s how long the gator is.

There’s one of the other tour boats.

It takes a LOT of energy for a gator to jump out of the water… but they still showed off for us.

Seriously, so close!!!!

There’s our captain, Troy.

Moving towards the “swamp” portion of the tour. Below, the picture on the right, is a picture of some water hemlock, a poisonous plant. You do not want to eat that thing LOL.

Look at those bald cypress trees!!!! The state tree of Louisana. It’s illegal to cut them down but if they fall down they can be used for many things.

The little knobs sticking out of the water is the root system for the bald cypress trees. It makes them super strong. Katrina went through that swamp and none of them uprooted! That’s intense!

The picture below is of a famous tree. Apparently it’s the tree that is used in the Disney movie “The Princess and the Frog.” And it’s the tree that is used on Louisiana postcards, etc. Couples have even wanted to get married under that tree.

Friday was our day to visit Gulf Shores, AL. It rained the whole day but it cleared up a bit for Becky and I to make it to the beach for a few pics. Honestly, my skin isn’t too fond of the sun so I was really okay with not sun bathing. The stormy weather made for some really great shots.

There’s Becky walking towards the water…. she’ll probably hate me for posting this pic but I love it.

I’m technically suppose to be in a medical boot, but we won’t tell my doc about that LOL. One day on the beach in the sand hopefully is okay.

Friday nights in the south when school starts only means one thing…. FOOTBALL! Well, in Spanish Fort, AL it’s a big deal. They won the state title last year in 5A and Friday night we attended a preseason game against a 6A team. My mom and step dad work there at the school so they wanted to see what it was all about. Let me tell ya…. it’s huge. It reminded me of college football around this area. I couldn’t believe the amount of people there for a high school football game. There had to be at least 6,000 people there and they were parked all over the place. The school even has buses that shuttle people back and forth from the parking lot to the field. I’m happy to say that Spanish Fort won the game Friday night and I’m expecting to hear more wins in the upcoming season. Here are a few pics from the game.

The opposing team (can’t think of their name).

Spanish Fort team about to take the field.

The photo below was taken on my iPhone. Can’t believe I didn’t get this with my camera! UGH. I didn’t even put a filter on it or anything. The sunsets in Alabama are out of this world. Seriously, how beautiful.

Saturday, our last day in Alabama, my mom and step dad drove Becky and I around to see the area a bit more. I kept telling my mom I wanted to see piers and marinas, etc. Well that’s exactly what I got.

First stop was Bayou La Batre, AL.

Those are piles of oyster shells.

Next stop was Dauphin Island, AL. Naturally, we got rained out and couldn’t go to the beach to tan, but we still went regardless. This was my favorite stop out of the whole trip. It’s beautiful. In the pic below you can see the waves crashing up against the house. This is the house on the very tip of the west end of Dauphin Island.

This picture below is currently my iPhone lock screen picture and background LOL.

Look at those waves!

Some pretty cool houses on the island.

Okay, funny story about the 2 pictures below. Now, they would have turned out way better if it hadn’t been stormy and raining. You can’t really see the land and water too well. It looks like the road just ends and all you see is water on a sunny day. I tried to capture it though… in the rain, standing up through the sunroof going at about 50mph. Not the money shot I was quite hoping for but they turned out pretty good. Great story to tell I guess LOL.

The last stop on our amazing trip was Fairhope, AL. Now, if I was wanting to move and start fresh this would be the town I would live in. After seeing other towns, this town is by far the best one I saw. So charming and quiet and family friendly. UGH, it’s so cute. I only got pics of the pier though and not downtown in the city.

If you’re still reading this… YOU’RE AWESOME! I realize it’s a super long blog post but I couldn’t split it up. I just couldn’t wait to share with you all my amazing vacation and trip to visit my mother.

Happy Monday!