Dwight & Jeanine came for a visit from Chicago on Friday. We picked them up at the Pensacola Airport Friday about 11 am. We have been going nonstop since they arrived. Our first stop was the Coffee Cup for brunch, then on to Joe Patti's to buy fresh seafood, and finally on to Gulf State Park, our home for 3 weeks so far. I fixed Jambalaya for our first evening meal together and we talked nonstop getting caught up. We hadn't seen them since 2017 so there was a lot of catching up to do.
Saturday we all went to the Naval Air Museum for much of the day. It was a fun time, even catching a 30-minute movie about the aircraft carriers.
After leaving the museum we headed back to the RV with a quick stop to buy a new hair dryer (my 20+ yr old dryer died). Gus was very excited to see us when we got "home". We enjoyed a dinner of grouper, salad, and key lime pie, then played games to finish out the evening.
Sunday, after a good breakfast of biscuits and sausage gravy, we headed to Fort Morgan to catch the ferry to Dauphin Island. Once on the island we spent about an hour exploring the small island, including the West Beach before heading back to the mainland.
From the island we took the bridge to the west side of Mobile Bay, drove up along the coast for a while, then continued up to the USS Alabama Memorial Park for a tour of the destroyer. There wasn't time to do more, especially after getting a little lost when they closed off a section without redirection info. We finally figured it out. We had been gone almost 7 hrs from Gus so we needed to get back for him.
Mike and Joanne joined us late afternoon at the campground for dinner, bringing a few things to contribute to the meal of grilled shrimp, homemade cole slaw, potato salad and bruschetta, as well as a blueberry pound cake. It was a fun evening that ended with Dwight, Jeanine, Jim, and me sitting around the gas fire pit as the temperature dropped.
Yesterday morning, after a simple breakfast, we took Dwight & Jeanine to Fort Pickens National Park to explore and then stopped for lunch at Whataburger before dropping them off at the airport before 2 pm to catch their flight home to Chicago.
This was a wonderful way to cap our time on the Gulf. We fell blessed that Dwight & Jeanine were able to take time from their busy schedules to visit. Hopefully we will visit them in their home later this year if we make the trip north to Michigan & Wisconsin.
