This is part 5 of our Walt Disney World vacation. Catch up on post 1, post 2, post 3, and post 4. We left last time settling into Maddie for our last night in Walt Disney World. Our vacation was upended by Hurricane Elsa and instead of staying longer in Florida, our vacation became a Walt Disney World and Gulf Shores vacation. Let’s start with our last morning at Fort Wilderness packing up to head west.

Day 11 (06 July 2021) – Travel Day

Packing Up and Moving Out

Wake up was 630 am. Everyone got moving relatively easy. Erin and K took care of tying down inside while W and Jack worked on dumping and final prep outside. A few final walks around the rig and we were off to Gulf Shores.

Arriving to Gulf Shores

The drive to Gulf Shores was tough. First, I had no idea Alabama was so far away from Florida (joking. The trip just felt long). It also rained off and on all day. From sprinkles, to heavy downpours, to sunny, to windy, etc. It was like Forrest Gump describing the rain in Vietnam. A stop in Lake City, FL for lunch and resupply in the Wal-Mart parking lot was a nice break.

Google took us on some adventurous routes getting off I-10 through Pensacola. I didn’t do a good job of looking ahead on the map since the plan changed quick on us. Oh well, we didn’t die.

We pulled into our site at Gulf State Park around 6 pm and set up in our site. Instead of cooking we set out for something to eat in town. Instead of finding some local eats, we settled for Five Guys just because we didn’t feel like fighting lines. After dinner, we got back to the camper and crashed for the night.

Day 12 (07 July 2021) – Gulf Shores Exploring

Fort Morgan

We got moving pretty early and after breakfast we headed towards Fort Morgan. The history of the fort is fascinating and its condition after being finished in 1834 is impressive. Like Fort Sumter, and I’m sure many other coastal defense forts, the original architecture is ruined by big blobs of concrete in the middle of them from decision in the early 1900s to improve the forts to mount newer guns. Despite that, Fort Morgan does a better job explaining all of that than Sumter did.

The kids were way more intrigued by this stop than I expected. Because of them, we stayed probably an extra hour. Best $18 spent in a long time.

Beach Time at Gulf State Park

Back at Gulf State Park, we jumped on the bikes to get to the beach. Until this trip, W had never seen the ocean. He was excited, but a little weary. He’s still not the best swimmer and intimidated by sharks and such. By the time we left, he was too confident.

After some solid beach time, we got back to the rig for dinner. We made brats, fried potatoes and onions, and green beans (from our garden) with bacon. W asked to help. So he got to work on the bacon.

After dinner, we ran back into town to pick up a few things and explore the strip a little more to get ready for the next day.

Day 13 (08 July 2021) – More Gulf Shores Exploring

We slept in, which was a nice change of pace. In the morning we headed into Gulf Shores and did some go karting, mini golf, and grabbed lunch. Then we came back to Gulf Shores State Park and hit the beach for the rest of the day. Everyone enjoyed the relaxed pace and made some memories together.

Days 13 and 14 (10-11 July 2021) – Travel Days

We packed up and left Gulf State Park just after sunrise. We had a lot of miles to make back home with several stops on the way. The first night we made it to West Memphis, AR. It was a poor choice to stop because a bridge in Memphis was under construction, so we waited in traffic forever trying to get over the river on I-55.

On the second day we stopped to visit Jack’s parents and dealt with a flat. The flat was frustrating, damaged the camper, and put us way behind schedule. However, we are fortunate to get to travel this way and blow outs are the cost of doing business in the RV world. We got to the driveway around 9 pm.

It was nice to be home, but we were sure ready to get back in Maddie right then to keep the vacation going.

Thanks for reading along.

-See you out there