Are We There Yet?

Orange Beach, Al
October 16~19

We got our toes in the sand, but we should have had boots, earmuffs and mittens on! The temperature was in the mid 60's and quite sunny, but the winds were whipping over 30 mph. But we braved it out for about an hour!

The beaches are white sugar sand gorgeous. But the surrounding landscape shows a striking contrast with new highrises lining the beach alongside some of the wrath that Katrina wrought.

The Buena Vista Luxury Motorcoach Resort buenavistaonthebeach.com is going to be wonderful. The reason I say going to be is that it is still under construction with 11 lots in place. When we visited the other day to find a place closer to the beach, we thought they weren't open yet. When we spoke to the sales person she indicated they weren't really open but they would love us to enjoy a complimentary stay for a few days. What made this really attractive, besides being free, it's right across from the beach and the lots have one bedroom casitas on them with a kind of great room and screened porch which we were welcome to use. A truly wonderful concept, particularly to use as a guest house for visiting family and friends. There were about seven other coaches, most who had moved from the Bella Terra Resort, also taking advantage of the offer.

The next day is even windier..can barely walk, let alone ride our bikes which was what we had planned today. We end up doing errands, grocery shopping and other odds and ends.

But we need a treat at night. Go to Cobalt cobaltorangebeach.com, a very good restaurant with a killer sunset view and a great terrace (which of course we couldn't use because it's about 40 degrees.) I had a terrific grouper over risotto with sweet peas....Rick a good blackened redfish.

Not quite ready to go back yet, we ask the waitress for a fun place with some music. She steers us to Floribama floribama.com situated on the Alabama/Florida line in Perdido Key. She warned us it was a dive and this woman did not lie! It had the raunchiest band I think I'd ever heard, but it was great people watching and good for many a laugh!

Sunday is our last chance to get a great beach walk and this time Mother Nature semi-cooperates. It's still only low 60's but the winds have died down to about 15 mph. It's just us and some jellyfish that didn't quite make it on the beach.