Saturday, April 29, 2000
Rainbow Plantation - Apr 29
We left Davis Bayou on Saturday, 4/15, and traveled 90 miles to the Rainbow Plantation, an Escapee Park in Summerdale, AL, about 20 miles north of Gulf Shores. It is a beautiful park, with low rent, friendly people, many amenities and large spaces. Since we were only staying for two nights, we decided to "boondock", which means that you camp with no hookups. This was our first time at this, and it was a good test of our solar panels and 6-volt batteries. We were impressed with their performance. So much so, in fact, that we've disconnected our converter (a device that charges your battery whenever you're connected to electricity) and are letting the sun do all our battery charging. That way, when we are plugged into electricity, we can run those special AC things like ceiling fan, cd player, microwave, air conditioner, automatic litter boxes, etc, and when we're not it's just like "camping"! We had a good time at the Plantation, and played Mexican Train (a complicated domino game) one evening. We did not wow anyone with our skill!While we were here, we visited the Weeks Bay Estuary. There are several wonderful nature trails in this park, but the highlight was the Pitcher Plant Bog. The bog is a rare habitat which is rapidly diminishing throughout our country. There are many species of plants and animals that are only found here. The Pitcher Plants are carnivorous plants that feed mostly on insects. In the spring, they have showy blooms to attract insects for pollination. Several species of wile orchid grow here, but they were not blooming.
Monday, 4/17, we traveled down to Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores where we, once again, got one of the best sites in the park, a nice, long secluded pull-through. The park was located about 5 minutes from the motel where Willie's parents would stay for five days, so it worked out well. They arrived on Tuesday and stayed until Sunday, so we all had a nice visit and ate lots of wonderful seafood. Saturday night we bought and cooked a wonderful batch of shrimp, and a fine feast was had by all. Our main activities were visiting the Riviera discount mall, walking and reading on the beach, and eating good food.
Sunday, 4/24, we again traveled the 20 miles back up to Rainbow Plantation, where we plan to stay until Sunday. Most of the people who stay here on a regular basis have left for the summer, so it's not as hopping as it is in the winter. We have still gotten to play some games and go to some group activities, so it has been fun to get to know more people. Willie even won a game of Mexican Train, so maybe we are getting the hang of it.
While here, we went back to Gulf Shores for a few hours at the beach and a hike in a wildlife refuge. Only saw one new bird this time -- a Magnolia Warbler. It's just so hard to pin down those warblers! We have heard all kinds of rumors about birds we haven't seen -- but we'll keep looking! We also drove over to Fairhope, a lovely community on Mobile Bay that is a favorite retirement spot for many. It has some nice shops. One was a quilting shop, and Doug got a small project so he could try his hand at quilting.
Today we drove to Fairhope again to get some ground coffee. We also went to the pier and watched the Dauphin Island Regatta boats sailing through Mobile bay. It is the longest point-to-point sailboat race in the Northern hemisphere, and it was lovely to see all the boats sailing along. We also saw a Downy Woodpecker, a Great Crested Flycatcher, and a pair of Great Horned Owls. We continued on to Weeks Bay Reserve and hiked on several trails and saw a Pileated Woodpecker and a Carolina Chickadee. Although the Pileated Woodpeckers are no longer endangered, it is still quite exciting to see them. We also revisited the Pitcher Plant Bog, and it had changed a lot in two weeks. The pitcher plants were larger and had lots of blooms, and lots of the other wildflowers, including several species of orchid, were blooming.
The weather has been quite pleasant -- often cool nights and warm days. Occasionally the humidity gets too high for us and the cats to handle, but luckily, it hasn't been as bad as it could be. Nothing new with the cats. They like it here very much -- for some reason they feel more secure some places than others. Of course, Rainbow thinks this park is HER Plantation, so she is especially partial to it. They have settled down to traveling pretty well, and don't complain much after the first hour or so!! We just tune it out. All in all, they are quite good travelers. They keep shedding like mad but then growing it back as fast as we can brush it out.
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 10:36 PM 
