Gulf Shores Adventure: Days 1 and 2Day 1
On Monday we picked up our rental car bright and early, then drove Aaron to Louisburg so he could attend his golf tournament. Jenna and I headed back home while he played golf and loaded the car and took care of any last minute cleaning. I had it in my mind that he would be ready to be picked up at 1, but 3.5 hours into his round he texted me to say that they were at the halfway point. So, it appeared that it would be closer to 3. I was anxious to get on the road, but it ended up being nice having the extra time. Brad took care of Portia and house-sat for us and he came over around noon, so it was nice for Jenna and I to get to see him. Around 2:00 Aaron said he was close to being finished, so we headed down to pick him up.
Jenna was so excited for our drive because it meant she got to watch movies in the car. The rule at our house is no movies except for very long trips, so it was a special treat. Last year she had to wear Aaron’s headphones and perhaps it was because she was 2 or perhaps because they were too big, but I had to turn around every 15 minutes to fix them for her. This year she got Hello Kitty headphones for her birthday and was quite excited to use them. Since the drive started in the heart of what is typically her naptime, I wasn’t surprised that this is what I saw in the rear view before we got out of the subdivision (I did wait to take the picture until we were at the golf course!).
I drove for the first few hours. Typically I leave the driving to Aaron (he gets carsick), but it was very hot outside and he was exhausted from being on the golf course. So he drank a bunch of water, then promptly fell asleep. He and Jenna both woke up about an hour later. She was excited and surprised to see him in the car and very surprised that we had been on the road for well over an hour. She started her movie over and then zonked out again for a couple more hours.
We got hungry for dinner around the time we crossed into Arkansas, so we stopped at Burger King, used the restroom, then waited FOREVER for our simple order. I was tired of driving and knew that Aaron would start feeling ill on those curvy Arkansas roads (it wasn’t really that curvy, but more-so than anything we drove on in KS or MO), so he took over the driving. I didn’t have to drive again for the rest of the trip, woo! We drove a couple more hours and arrived at our hotel in Pine Bluff. A swarm of mosquitoes (and I mean SWARM!) invaded the car while we unpacked. It was awful, but somehow none of us got bitten. Since Jenna has been on chemo she hasn’t had a single chigger or mosquito bite – I guess they aren’t all that dumb of creatures. The hotel was nice and beds were comfy. Jenna was amped about staying the night in the hotel, but was convinced that we were already at the beach. We told her many times that we had another day’s drive, but it finally sunk in when we were at the hotel.
Funny story: Jenna saw the ironing board in the hotel and was very excited about the surf board. I was a bit proud that I’ve avoided ironing long enough that my 3 year old has no idea what an ironing board is. :)
Day 2
Jenna isn’t one for sleeping in, but she did follow her rule at home and didn’t wake us up until the clock started with 7. Of course, once she woke us up, she wanted nothing to do with getting ready or heading down for breakfast, so it was after 8 before we ate. Because her ANC was so low just a few days before we left on the trip, we were very nervous about eating breakfast in the hotel, but we managed to find her pre-packaged items to eat, so we felt a bit more comfortable. We got on the road around 9 and started driving south. We drove for a few hours and entered into Louisiana, which was a state none of us had been to. I think it was the first time all three of us have been to a new state together! Of course we just went through a tiny sliver of the NE corner and it wasn’t terribly exciting, but we did pass by a nice lake that had cottages built on stilts in the water all the way around. We also passed by numerous penitentiaries and one had numerous chain gangs working in the fields. We saw many signs warning us not to pick up hitch-hikers. We didn’t see any, nor would we have picked them up, but it did make the drive a bit more interesting contemplating how the convicts might most easily escape from the various prisons. Another portion of the drive was a road that followed the path of the Mississippi river. It was very pretty and the water was much calmer than I expected it to be, perhaps because the river was very wide?
As mentioned, although interesting, the drive through Louisiana was short and we arrived in Mississippi. We drove a bit and came into Jackson. We were traveling with a very old GPS, so the maps were out of date. I was mostly worried about the outdated maps in large cities, so I turned the navigation on my phone. Mostly just interchanges had changed, but it was helpful using the phone through Jackson. We made it out of the city and realized we were really hungry, so at the request of Princess Jenna (who had been enthralled in various Hello Kitty and Strawberry Shortcake movies), we drove through McDonald’s for lunch and also made a quick restroom stop. Jenna’s been daytime potty trained since before she was 2, but she did regress quite a bit when she was diagnosed with leukemia and had lots of accidents during frontline treatment (Aug ‘11 – Jan ‘12). The accidents had seemed to stop early this year, but I had worried a bit about how she would do on the long trip, but I needn’t worry; I was the one requesting bathroom stops much more frequently than she was!
We drove and drove through Mississippi and finally made it to Alabama, which wasn’t much different than Mississippi, except perhaps there were tons of huge churches seemingly in the middle of nowhere. We made it to Mobile in good time, but I wasn’t quick enough getting the GPS out and rather than staying on major highways, we were sent onto side streets and through the middle of the city. It ended up being nice because there were a lot of old buildings with neat architecture, large trees covered in Spanish moss, and we happened to pass by the children’s hospital that we would bring Jenna to if she happened to get sick during our stay. When we were in the middle of the city we were sent into a long tunnel that apparently went under the buildings and came out right where we re-entered the highway that went over Mobile Bay. We saw a few pelicans flying and Jenna started to get excited about getting to the beach. I pulled up a map of southern Alabama and showed her where the bay was and how close we were to the beach we were going to stay at. She was not impressed that the bay was very muddy looking and quickly decided that a sticker puzzle activity that her Mimi gave her was more interesting. When Mimi had showed her how to do the puzzle, Jenna asked for a lot of help, so we were quite surprised to find that she did an entire puzzle in about 2 minutes. Fortunately there were a number of puzzles and she did a few of them as we drove over the bay.
Of course the interest only lasted for so long and soon it was more fun to put the stickers anywhere except in the book. :)
Mobile is only about an hour from Gulf Shores, so we were very excited! We came to the bridge that took us into Gulf Shores. We were actually staying in Orange Beach, which is to the east of Gulf Shores, but the GPS didn’t seem to know the right way to get there and I was a bit slow on the phone, so we took a nice drive through Gulf Shores before deciding to turn around. Once we were on the right track, the hotel was easy to find and we lucked into the best spot in the parking lot. We headed into the hotel and checked-in, then got our bags and went to our room. We were pleasantly surprised by our room, which was an 8th story ocean view!
We headed to the balcony and took in the view and the fresh sea air. Jenna caught sight of the pool and begged to head down. Aaron and I said we were going to the beach first, then we would go to the pool. After a bit of pouting, she decided that was better than staying in the room. So we changed into our swimsuits, added sunscreen, and headed down to the beach.
Is she not the cutest!?
Jenna had been telling everyone for weeks that she was excited to wiggle her toes in the sand and she had her water shoes off the second she left the boardwalk. She didn’t take much time wiggling those toes though and quickly challenged her dad to race her to the waves. She smartly left her mother out of the race this time. :)
They did wait for me before getting into the water. This picture is of the first wave that touched Jenna’s feet. She has been to the beach in Georgia (she loved it) and to Lake Michigan (she hated it). I was curious to see if she liked the gulf or not. She definitely loved it!
I’m not sure who’s idea it was, but she was quickly in her dad’s arms and they were walking into deeper water. I made it into mid-calf deep water and quickly realized that I am too off-balance from pregnancy to try to stand up against any waves, so I stayed back and took pictures.
I was quite convinced that she was hating it and was frantically trying to get Aaron to bring her back to more shallow water. But, then I saw this…
The little stinker was just hiding her eyes so water didn’t get in them! She was having a blast!
We all played in shallower water for a bit, then headed back to the hotel pool. This pool was awesome! It wasn’t huge, but it was very well designed. It was rectangular, one side was zero entry, the other had stairs entering into 3ft water. The middle was 4.5 ft. There were a few fountains in the zero entry area that were a lot of fun for the little kids. There was also a small rectangular area that was 4ft deep that jutted off to the side and was covered. To start with Jenna was only interested in the zero entry area and didn’t want to get into water much above her knees, but that would quickly change during the rest of our trip!
After the pool we went back to our room and ordered pizza. We were told it would be around 30 minutes. An hour later we called the pizza place and they were closed, but did answer the phone to confirm that it was out for delivery. Another hour later we called the front desk to make sure they hadn’t delivered to the wrong people. They said that the delivery guy had just checked in and was heading to our room. Finally! The good news was that the pizza was really good and cheap. We had plenty extra that we were able to snack on it for our entire stay at the hotel.
