Friday, September 10, 2010

Islanders ~


We're Islanders...at least we were for the Labor Day weekend on Pleasure Island, home to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, in Alabama. I won't say our trip was spoiled but we were nearly done in by problems, great and small. Too miserable to go into...horrendous traffic, sickness, and a locked condo were involved. Some persons didn't check the key before shutting the door. Some persons vowed never to travel on a holiday weekend. Someone may or may not have said some bad words. OK, it was Don...there, I feel better now.


We stayed in a sweet condo with a 28 ft long balcony facing the Gulf....so cool! There's so many fun things to do in Gulf Shores...fun places to eat, awesome shopping, amusement parks, live music and the BEACH. We didn't get to do everything we wanted but we did have fun. And we ate at 5 of the top 10 restaurants (according to Trip Advisor). Foodies, carry on...

Our first stop was Lulu's at Homeport. I loved that place! LuLu is Jimmy Buffet's sister and is known for her cooking. It was very late but they served us anyway. Jen had some delicious fish tacos and I had shrimp salad, served with fried green tomatoes. We'll be going back to LuLu's.

The next day we went to lunch at DeSoto's. The guys had chicken fried steak but Jennifer and I went for the shrimp salad, it was excellent with homemade dressing.


Jennifer found a cool looking car in the parking lot.


For dinner we went to the Original Oyster House. Insane long wait, but there were some shops on the boardwalk to pass the time. Don had Mahi Down on ‘DA Bayou, which he loved and gobbled down as fast as he could. I had fried oysters...much too small for pictures, they were just little fellas. I ate them anyway. ;)

You know advertising works when you see a plane cruising the beach pulling a banner that says "The Shrimp Basket - All You Can Eat Fried Shrimp - $9.99!" and you're there before you can say "Sign me up!" Honestly, they were crazy good!!!



Our best meal in Gulf Shores was our last. We ate dinner at Bahama Bob's Beach Side Cafe. It's one of those beach joints, great atmosphere, right on the Gulf, we sat on the patio with the sea breeze blowing. A big thanks to the ladies who walked up behind us to get a table. (Do you do this? Do you talk to strangers while waiting in a line?? I do. It's a good way to find out stuff!)

Anyway, those ladies said,"Be SURE to get the fried mushrooms!" We did. And they...were...incredible!!! This does not convey how good those mushrooms were, but still.

Don had grilled chicken salad.



And Jennifer and I had this...Crab Cay Baked Pangus, stuffed with crabmeat dressing, topped with shrimp. It was delicious!!
After dinner we went to The Hangout, a local place to hear Wayne Toups. Rockin' crowd, even though we missed most of it. Jennifer got carded. The weird thing is that once we were inside, there were a few little kids running around....

Other fun: the outlet mall, we all found some bargains. And one night we went to The Track, a fun place with go karts, mini golf, bungee jump thing. We started out on Wild Woody, a 3 story spiraling wooden track. I still haven't recovered!!



Life's a beach ~ I ♥ Gulf Shores