But before we could head to the beach, we had to get Michael moved back to his dorm. Here's Bill bonding with the kitties the night before we left.
Here's Mike modeling his kick-ass argyle sweater vest.
Mike in his room. The gentleman over to the left is his new roommate.
He lives in Mary Foust Hall - "a college within a college"
Then.... Next day, I jet off (ok, maybe not JET) to Gulfport - thanks to Bill - where Kathryn picked me up. We got a bite of lunch, hit the grocery store, then headed over to Orange Beach. The drive took about 2 hours, but we ended up right at the Florida/Alabama line. Here she is signing for the room key at the drive through for the realty place.
We loaded up the carts and pushed them up to the 11th floor, where Kathryn let us in.
Our condo was lovely.
The view!!!
We agreed that we could have done without the MIRROR THAT FILLED THE WHOLE WALL!
But, again, the VIEW. It more than made up for that.
Here we are... back again... Aaaahhhh
Manwich was on our gourmet plan for the night. What?! We like junk food!
We took turns with the cooking.
Naturally, we had to play Scrabble. Kathryn, I won't tell what the score was :)
Next morning dawned beautifully. This is looking to the left from our balcony.
This is looking down from our balcony.
This, of course, is looking right...
Sunrise.
Are these teeth of some kind?? Obviously, some man decorated this condo... It really was nice, though.
The water looked great, so I tried to frolic. The waves were quite strong!
Not quite the frolic I had in mind.
Exhausted by the frolic, I decided to beach it for a while.
We wrapped our Kindles in gallon sized baggies and secured them with elastic bands. Didn't want them exposed to sand and salt. Worked like a charm, by the way.
Kathryn's umbrella.
A storm approaches.
A big storm....
So we hightailed it back up to the room.
Then decided to go down and play ping pong!
Which we played for quite a while a had a great time doing it.
Went back up to the room, played Scattergories and cooked us some pizza (which we burned a little bit, but it was still good.) We put in a movie - "Lover Come Back" - which I fell asleep while watching. Next morning was beautiful.
We photographed it, of course.
and each other...
I was taking a picture of this little bird and I think those people in the water thought I was taking a picture of them!
This guy (Larry, who later tried to talk us into going to a bar called Floribama) caught a fish.
Here's the little guy! He was cut loose and returned to the ocean, you'll be happy to hear. (And, God, No we did NOT go with Larry's group to the bar!)
Hot dogs and more Scattergories were on the menu tonight. Mmmmm... Nathan's. And fries. Gourmet, I tell you! Next morning we saw all these shadows in the water. I left this picture pretty big. If you click on it, you can see several group of *gasp* stingrays. They were just ambling up the beach. Many, many of them! Porpoises were also frolicking in the distance but I couldn't get a good picture of them.
I walked down to the water to try to photograph the abundant sealife, while Kathryn stood on the balcony. We were on the phone and she would say "Stingrays approaching about 15 yards to your right." and stuff like that, but I could get no photo. I left this one big, too. If you click on it you can see Kathryn - third floor from the top, second balcony from the left. Hi Kathryn!
Back upstairs, I found her texting on her new phone (which, just between you and me, she hasn't really learned to use just yet....)
Here's Kathryn bonding with the ocean.
This girl was feeding the sea gulls. Those birds would have freaked me out! But it was kind of neat watching her do it.
More Scrabble was on board that night. I hate to say it, but Kathryn prevailed. We ate stir fry, for those who care.Last day. Beautiful sunrise.
Kathryn saying goodbye to Mother Ocean for now. Sniff Sniff.
Will I never learn to use the timer on my camera??? OK, just sit there a minute, I'll join you and the timer will go off.... Crap...
Okay, let's try again! Crap...
Close enough. Fabulous beach vacation. Today my entire face is peeling off, but the rest of me is very tanned! I also have an unfortunate Racoon look due to my huge sunglasses. I had so much fun! THANK YOU SO MUCH KATHRYN. AND BILL, TOO! Thank God that even though I'm a grasshopper, I have ants that love me. (And now you know what that means, Kathryn..... )
