Father's Day & First Day of Summer

WHEN? Sunday · June 21

WHERE? Orange Beach, Alabama · find us on the map

When we left the Foley area, the temperature was around 98º, but when we arrive in the areas near the Gulf and the beaches around the Alabama-Florida line, there was a breeze and the temperatore was 89º. That might have been reason enough to take our little Sunday drive in that direction.

While in that area, we tried a restaurant we had never dined in. We could critique it, but we won't. Let's just say that we consider a Sunday afternoon at Big Daddy’s Grill is more to our liking. The Wolf Bay Lodge restaurant is now located at the Zeke's Marina, and it caused us to realized we had dined there before many, many years ago, but it was then called Zeke's.

We took nine photos you can view quickly in a slide show:

5th Annual Balloon Festival

WHEN? Saturday · June 19

WHERE? Foley, Alabama · find us on the map


We stopped in briefly Friday morning before all the booths and vendors were set up. Despite our early arrival, the hot air balloons had already come and gone by that time. A helpful vendor explained that they missed the soccer field where they were supposed to land after being blown off course by the prevailing southeasterly winds, and some ended up on the road and even in peoples' back yards. We looked around a bit and took a few antique tractor photos, then returned home in anticipation of seeing balloons on the following morning ...

And we weren't disappointed! Today was better, and we saw quite a few balloons land at the festival's correct destination site. We got photos of the balloons and met four friends there. I'm guessing that at least 30+ balloons were involved in this festival. By using the brochure/schedule for this year's festival, it seems like at least the following was true:

State of Origin / Number of Balloons

Alabama · 7

Florida · 3

Georgia · 5

Kentucky · 1

Louisiana · 6

Mississippi · 6

Missouri · 2

Tennessee · 1

Texas · 2

Total Identified: 33

There were at least two balloons we could not identify and possibly some we identified wrong.

After that, the six of us gathered at the Magnolia River Bar & Grill for a yummy breakfast cooked by Bob. Since we don't expect to return tomorrow for the festival's final day, we'll miss the Frisbee Dogs' scheduled performance.

See our photos on flickr:

5th Annual Gulf Coast Hot Air Balloon Festival

The website for the festival is very informative with a schedule of events and an audio that comes on after you are on the site for a little while.

Gulf Coast Hot Air Balloon Festival

Second Visit to Bahama Bob’s

WHEN? Friday · June 12

WHERE? Gulf Shores, Alabama · find us on the map


Along with good food, today's lupper at Bahama Bob's included a beautiful day to enjoy the beach out back of this beach cafe.

We pretty much covered what a relaxed dining experience it is to choose the back patio where one can look out on the beach and the Gulf. All ages were there on the patio with us on a gorgeous day. Our first visit was covered in a post in July of 2008 at Cay Key Quay.

This visit was mostly occupied with (besides eating) experimenting with shooting short videos: