If you told me a year ago I’d be camping in Alabama right now, after expressing a scoff of disbelief, I might have said, so where’s Alabama? Well some of Alabama skirts the Gulf coast to the west of Florida, with no noticeable difference as we transitioned states, lots of beach and swampy forest. Mind you, didn’t see any bears.
We overnighted at Gulf State Park on the coast and squeezed a bike ride in along their impressive miles of bike paths. Saw alligator number two but it didn’t do much, like a waxwork version.
There were signs informing that in addition to Not Feeding the alligators, you should also Not Aggravate them. I wondered who in their right mind would aggravate an alligator. Until I’d stood watching and waiting for it to do something for what felt like an age. To do something, anything – open its eyes, move a bit, twitch. Nothing. Even I was kind of tempted to toss a little pebble in the creek to get some sort of reaction. I reluctantly figured that could be counted as aggravation and restrained myself. I guess they do need that sign after all.
Overnight and all through the next day came the forewarned deluge of rain. You’ve gotta remember, the BaseCamp is a SoCal girl through and through, barely even knows what rain is. So she panicked and wet herself. Well, we had a couple of minor leakage issues. Nothing that couldn’t be sorted with some carefully placed tape.
Worse still, we had to relocate to our next campsite, luckily only a few hours away in Mobile, but not a lot of fun in heavy rain – windscreen wipers going ten to the dozen, slick roads and puddles galore.
Don’t think he was too impressed with the snacks I rustled up either.
This one was the first one, Gulf state park by the coast.
Kind of similar, different tree.
Let’s get one thing straight about Mobile, Alabama. It’s not pronounced ‘MO-byle’ (per the Brits) or ‘MO-bull’ (per the Americans), like when talking about a cellphone. Those in the know go with ‘mo-BEEL’, emphasis firmly placed on the second syllable. Who knew?
I’m sure by now you don’t need me to go into this, but Mobile had a co-working space and a brewery.
Not only did Mobile serve as a reminder as to how good donuts can be, it is also the home of the USS Alabama, a retired yet still very imposing World War II battleship. I’m not an expert. My takeaway: it’s grey and full of guns. But it was also way cooler than I thought. Especially after being inside its neighboring sidekick, the USS Drum submarine. I’m not even claustrophobic but how could being in a submarine at war not be one of the most terrifying things ever? Bet they didn’t get donuts either.
