We are back from a vacation both preceded by and followed by a very very long drive. We’ve been on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, in the place where Judy used to live back in the day (see 4/10/11, ), camping at Gulf State Park. I took a week ago Friday off to get the camper and truck packed (the hardest part is getting all the bikes in the truck. Plus we were taking Lauren’s bike since Ric and Nickie didn’t have enough space), and we hit the road as soon as the kids were out of school. We drove a good 6 or 7 hours to Bowling Green, Kentucky, our go-to-place for trips south (see 4/10/11), although I wasn’t as impressed by their service this time (we’d asked for a roll-away bed, but they didn’t have any available by the time we got there, so we got an air mattress). We hit the road Saturday as soon as we could which was later than I wanted, but we gained an hour at least…we finally got to the park just after it got dark, and spent a good hour setting up after that, in the dark. One good and bad thing about the park is that there are no campfires allowed, so the place isn’t full of smoke but there’s no campfire. Everyone went to bed pretty early by camping standards. It was fairly warm down there, but pretty wet, to the point that in the morning there was condensation all over the inside of the canvas. I brushed against it a bit in the morning and caused a rainfall. Sunday, we did our food shopping since we had decided to only haul the dry goods from home. It took quite a long drive to find the Wal-mart due to some confusing directions, but we eventually did. We also had to get some shorts for me since I hadn't packed any; it was so cold and wet at home when I packed I just couldn't imagine needing them, I guess. Natalie also wanted to get a new bathing suit so we spent quite a bit of time looking for a 2-piece one that we would let her wear and she felt comfortable in. Later in the afternoon we hit the beach. Monday, the weather reports all said that violent storms were coming so we secured the camper, rolled up the awning, packed the canopy, put the bikes and chairs under the camper, and left the campsite to go shopping at Old Time Pottery, a home & garden crap store, and wow did it storm while we were there. In the evening we drove into Pensacola to get dinner at Flounder’s, mostly for the key lime pie. Well, the key lime pie was a real disappointment. It wasn't nearly as good as it used to be, or at least as I remembered it being. But the restaurant is still nice and it has all the beachy stuff so it was a nice dinner. But we forgot to close up the camper before we left so Tuesday morning there was another rainfall inside the camper thanks to Natalie. In the evening we went on a dolphin "cruise," I use quotes because the boat never left the inner channel. I'd expected to go into the gulf. But anyway, we cruised around for a while and did see several dolphins, some slapping their tails, which was pretty cool. Afterwards we all had a shrimp boil for dinner, which may have to be a tradition. Natalie got a migraine thought, probably from all the glare on the boat, and missed most of it. Wednesday, the storms returned so we spent most of the morning doing laundry at the campground laundromat. Later on in the day we went to the pool but it was freezing, and the sun which had come out went back under just after we got there. Thursday we did some souvenir shopping at the t-shirt shops, went out to lunch with Judy and Neill at Tacky Jack's, and drove out to old Fort Morgan at the entrance to Mobile Bay...and I would go back there again and again just to wander around the grounds because it was so amazingly cool. We all drove out to the city pier later on to watch the sunset, but because of geography and the season the sun actually set over the high-rise condos from the pier. On Friday, Ric and I went on a park-wide bike ride/geocaching expedition while the girls went out shopping, and everyone but us and the Wiessners had to pack up and leave. We stayed another night, so we all went out to dinner at Flora-Bama (the nice restaurant part, not the dive bar part). Saturday morning we packed up and checked out, hitting the road by around 10 (later then planned, and we also forgot we'd lose an hour) and drove as far as Bowling Green again. They had neither roll-away nor air mattress this time, but we'd packed our own just in case, good thing. Sunday, we headed out again later than I wanted, and drove to Indy to meet up with P.J. for a late lunch, then home. We got home by about dinnertime but it felt like we were driving forever.