 |
| Sign at entrance to the campground |
This qualified as a memorable trip, but not for its scenic beauty. We were heading to a state park along the Gulf coast during the Fall. There were several storms in the Atlantic and we were concerned about one or more of them strengthening into a hurricane and forcing us to flee from the coast. We were streaming an all-news radio station out of New York hoping to hear the tropical weather forecast. Instead, we heard that the English royal family was being summoned to Queen Elizabeth's side because of her failing health then the station aired a commercial. During the ad, the Associated Press app on our iPhones broke the news that the Queen had died. Immediately after the commercial, the radio station ran a bulletin about the Queen's death then shortly thereafter aired a biography and tribute to the Queen.
I’m sure some listeners were surprised at how fast that station started airing information about the Queen’s life. I wasn’t. I started thinking about when I served in the military at one of the key American Forces Network radio stations. AFN started creating obituaries and tributes of world leaders once they took office.
My assignment while at AFN was to create and record a tribute to the then leader of Greece. In addition, I had to update and “freshen” his bio every year. I was relieved when my tour of duty was up and someone else took over that responsibility because I was certain I didn’t know how to pronounce many of the names and places in the script I recorded and I knew my scripts would be re-recorded by the new person responsible for that leader.
We listened to a growing number of stories about the Queen and royal family as we headed to the campground.
As expected, there were several other RVs parked at the Gulf State Park campground registration office when we arrived. Someone told us to request either a military or senior discount as we checked in. The person at the counter said we qualified for a discount then totaled the bill. We were surprised that the discounted total was more than the one we were given when we made our reservations. We were told that the rates went up since we made our reservation. Needless to say, I was disappointed that reservations secured by a deposit failed to bind the State of Alabama to the agreed on charges. We decided that wasn’t going to spoil our camping adventure there, but the expensive new rates plus the added on resort fees and numerous taxes charged came up several times in our conversations.
 |
| Walking in front of Rosie |
Our experiences in this park were enhanced by riding our bikes on the many trails there. It was easy to ride 10 miles a day looking for alligators and new views. We saw at least three gators, a family of deer crossing a bike trail, multiple snakes and a bunch of rabbits while on our rides.
 |
| The boardwalk to the shore |
 |
| Maybe it will rain today |
 |
| Selfie while out riding bikes |
There was a fishing pier at the park. We enjoyed watching the people fishing from the pier. The people fishing there were not amused that sharks were trying to eat their catches.
 |
| The overlook along Alligator Marsh |
 |
| The water tower as seen from a bike path |
The temperatures were warm while there and we had to turn on the second air conditioner several times. As expected, it was nice and cozy inside Rosie.
Here are some specifics about this campground:
- There were multiple loops and 600 sites in this campground
- Our site was a back in
- Most sites could be classified as "full sun" as trees were few and far apart. We were glad our Airstream trailer had two air conditioners
- Most sites had some space on both sides
- Our site was paved with asphalt and we needed to use leveling tools to correct a side-to-side lean in Rosie, our Airstream trailer.
- Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service
- Our site had a water connection
- Our site had a sewer connection
- The trash dumpsters were at the entrance of the campground. We have mentioned before how strange it was to have only one trash collection point for this huge campground
- There were multiple bathhouses in the campground. The one nearest Rosie was clean, maintained and air conditioned
- The park provided WiFi service over our campsite. We measured our download speed at 40 mbs
- AT&T provided 3 bars of 4G voice and data service over our campsite
- We were able to watch ABC, FOX, NBC and PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. Digital channels seen were Antenna-TV, Circle, Comet, Court-TV, Dabl, ION, LAFF, ME-TV, Retro, Stadium and TBD
- There were restaurants and shopping nearby
- This was a pet friendly park
 |
| The beach in this park |
 |
| People enjoying the beach |
No comments:
Post a Comment