Out and About in Gulf Shores

Two weeks ago, I was down in Gulf Shores, AL with my friend, Karen.  This was the great hurricane weekend that hit the  SC coast, so it wasn’t great beach weather, even though we were staying right on the beach.  It wasn’t raining, but was chilly and windy.  Definitely not warm enough for shorts, much less a bathing suit, so we found other things to do.  Shopping and eating out is always fun to do!  I’ll be sharing more about the condo we stayed in later, but today I’ll share a few things we saw while out and about in Gulf Shores.  When I travel to the Gulf coast, seafood is always foremost on my mind.  I could eat seafood every day, I think!

We stayed at The Beach Club condos which is out Ft. Morgan Road in Gulf Shores on the Ft. Morgan peninsula.  This stretch of road is long and ends up at Fort Morgan, which is a national Historic Landmark.  It was really chilly that day, so we didn’t get out and take in the tour, but it looks like an interesting place.

It is a masonry fort built between 1819 and 1833 and played a big role in the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864.  It was used intermittently during the Spanish American War and World War I and II. 

Along Fort Morgan Road are lots of beach houses, all standing tall for hurricane weather.

This is a normal beach house sight in Gulf Shores and there are many beautiful beach homes.

The brightly colored ones always catch my eye.  I’m a sucker for beach houses!

There’s also Bon Secour National Wildlife preserve in the area too.  Again, it wasn’t great weather for hiking and I didn’t pack the right clothes to be outside in the wind, so we took a quick look at this spot.

Our first night there, we opted to have dinner at Lulu’s, always a fun place to be in Gulf Shores. I have been here a couple of times previously and it’s consistent and good food.

Not to mention, it sits on the water with a pretty view.

I started the trip with broiled grouper, a staple in the Gulf and grouper is probably my favorite fish.

For lunch one day, we stopped in at Sea N Suds, which is also well known in these parts.  I had been here once before too.

It sits right on the beach and as you can see, it wasn’t a busy beach day.

I had steamed shrimp and shrimp gumbo, which were both delicious.  Not a fancy place, but good food!

We had one more night for dinner and before dinner, late afternoon right before sunset, we stopped in at the Flora-Bama, which is highly known in Gulf Shores.  It sits on the Florida/Alabama line and has been around for a long, long time. This was my first time in the Flora-Bama and it was an experience, to say the least.

It’s definitely a Honky-tonk kind of place and not somewhere that I would frequent often, but it was fun to see it in person and experience the country music flavor of the place.  Now I can say, I went to the Flora-Bama!

Out back of the Flora-Bama as the sun was about to go down.

One really fun thing happened in the Flora-Bama.  I had put that above picture of Karen and I on Instagram before we went inside.  We weren’t there long before this sweet girl tapped me on the arm and introduced herself to me and told me she is from Birmingham and has been reading my blog for a long time.  She saw my Instagram picture from here and was close by, so stopped in and hunted me down.  Diana, it was so fun to meet you!  That just made my day that she took the time to find me and say hello.  I love it when that happens, so if you ever see me out, please say hello!  That was a very quick cell photo to capture the moment.

I think our best meal, hands down, was Cosmos Restaurant in Orange Beach (right next to Gulf Shores).  My roommate, Rhonda, told us we had to eat here and she was right. It was an incredible meal!

I had grilled grouper, parmasean risotto, and asparagus.  It was so good!!

That’s a recap of places we visited and ate in Gulf Shores.  We also made it to Fairhope for the day too, along with a shopping stop in Silver Hill, so I’ll do a post on that soon.

 

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