Gulf State Park in Alabama

March 15, 2023

On Monday (March 13), we decided to head to Gulf State Park and see what it looked like. Nox was ready to go with us when I asked her if she wanted to go in the truck.

Bruce drove down the Baldwin Beach Express, which turns into the Foley Beach Express. We had to pay a toll to cross Portage Creek.

We proceeded to Gulf State Park and parked Cliff the Big Red Truck at the Gulf State Park Pavilion parking lot. We had to pay to park. We parked then walked with Nox over to one of the pay to park machines. As Bruce was paying, Nox wanted a pick up. I picked her up.

As we were walking to the pavilion, while in my arms, Nox moved funny and hurt a front leg. Poor little fur baby started crying. Both Bruce and I tried to comfort her. She stopped crying but didn’t want to be set down to walk.

Luckily, I had already put her backpack on, so Bruce put Nox into the backpack.

We walked to the beach side of the pavilion and then onto the beach.

After walking on the beach, we decided to cross the footbridge on see the some of the park on the other side of Alabama’s Coastal Connection aka Perdido Beach Blvd. There is a welcome center with a nature information on the beach side.

Once we crossed the bridge, we went left. The boardwalk continued all the way to the Gulf State Park Campground.

We walked around the campground at bit. Nox decided she wanted to walk, so Bruce took her out of the backpack. She immediately went potty in the grass.

Nox seemed to be doing okay, so we were letting her walk on the leash. We decided to walk along another boardwalk. I noticed that Nox was having to jump along. The boards were spaced just far enough apart that her paws would almost fit in the space. Bruce picked her up and carried her until we got back to level ground.

While we were walking, many people told us how cute Nox was in her backpack.

We walked past the tennis courts, being used for pickle ball, and the swimming pool to the Nature Center. It was closed, as it closes at 4:00 pm.

We walked around on the porch and discovered an owl. I took the picture through the mesh of its cage, so the lower section of the picture didn’t turn out great.

There was a campstore that did bicycle rentals. The campground is very beautiful. We plan to camp there sometime.

Nox had enough of walking and was put back into the backpack. Bruce carried the backpack with Nox in it on the way back to the truck. We got more compliments on how cute she was as we walked back.

On the way back to the truck, we noticed there is a bike share at the welcome center. The bicycles are beach bikes, with a cute cover over the chain. I didn’t take a picture of the bikes.

We got back to the truck and headed home through Gulf Shores. We went back along the Gulf Shores Parkway.

We thought we’d go to The Original Oyster House on Hwy 98 along Mobile Bay. The wait was 30 minutes, so we decided to go on home. While the weather was cool, the idea of leaving Nox in the truck by herself that long didn’t appeal to us.

I did get a nice shot of the sunset as we headed home.