Camping with the Domers

Dan & Debbie joined us in Theodore at Payne's RV Park last Friday. This was their first camping trip in their new pop-up. Randy & I were very excited they were coming because we always have a good time with Dan & Debbie. Their camper is almost identical to the last one we had, so helping them set up the pop-up brought back lots of good memories for us from our pop-up days.

Unfortunately, the weather forecast wasn't a great one. At first, they were calling for a cold, rainy Saturday (I know, I know folks on the East Coast got bombarded with snow), but thankfully, that changed to rain overnight on Friday. Saturday dawned bright and sunny, but VERY, VERY cold and windy.

Weather aside, we decided to take a road trip to Gulf Shores, AL which is about 50 miles from our campground. Dan & Debbie had been there last year and wanted to scout it out for campgrounds. Last year they saw it had sustained a lot of hurricane damage from Ivan in 2004 and were curious to see how much restoration had been done. First, we went to breakfast - Randy got to check another CB off his list! Then we stopped in Fairhope, a little town that was supposed to be picturesque. Well, we found Fairhope Park which is right on the beach of Mobile Bay, but the rest of the town looked pretty ordinary to us. Since it was so darn cold and windy, we didn't stay long at the park.

There are outlets in Foley, AL which is between Fairhope and Gulf Shores. That was a stop Debbie wanted to make. So, that was next on the list. We walked around the stores for a bit and Deb found some clothes, but we all agreed these "outlet" prices aren't as good as our WalMart and Target prices!

Then it was on down to the Gulf. There is still a lot of rebuilding going on, but many of the houses and apartments are ready for the season. We stopped by Gulf Shore State Park and it is a great campground! It's right on a river/canal and it's huge. Dan & Debbie were excited about it for the future. Randy & I are putting it in our "to be stayed at" file, too.

After we got home, we had dinner, watched the Olympics and played a cutthroat game of Dominos. I won!! But, the best part was being with good friends.

We never fail to make great memories when we are with Dan & Debbie. We laugh so much when we are together. It was sad to see them leave this morning. But, we are already making plans to meet up in April on our way to South Dakota.

Here are some fun pictures. To family and friends in the East, hope you are warm and survived snow shoveling. We sure miss you all, but not that snow! Love you!