The Final Week in Paradise

Last Sunday we decided to take a ride down to Perdido Pass to see the boats coming and going and to watch the fishermen.  We arrived at the parking lot at 10am where there were only a few people in the parking lot.  Little did we know, the "Thunder on the Gulf" boats would be coming out where we were parked, for the noon race.  Soon the parking lot was jammed, but we had a great front row, plus our chairs were in the back of the truck.

After sitting nearly two hours (with no suntan lotion, or anything to drink), the 10 boats finally came out.  We weren't impressed, but Butch enjoyed being outside with lots to look at.

Starting last Monday, the City of Gulf Shores started setting up for the 40th Annual Shrimpfest which is always a four day celebration. 

Until Wednesday, we could still bike through the area while they were setting up.

They set up where we always park to go to the beach so we've had to drive a few miles down the road to a different beach.  The beach was almost empty until Saturday.

Mark watching me while I waded out to get a picture of the large area of tar.

At noon on Thursday, the Shrimpfest opened to the public.

 
We reported to the Souvenir tent at 2:00 for our four hours of volunteer duty.  The time flew by.  The four of us worked great together.  Mark and Dennis ran the cash registers while Pam and I filled orders and kept the piles of tee shirts in the proper stacks.  We were extremely tired at 6:00pm and couldn't wait to get out of there.

We were too tired to listen to any bands on Thursday night, but Friday night we stood up against the stage to listen to Dr. Zarr's Amazing Funk Monster play for two hours.  They wowed the audience with their crazy costumes (80's funk) and all the great dance hits from the 70s and 80s. 

During the four day festival, we walked/rode to the fair at least 10 times, ate 3 funnel cakes, bought 6 tee shirts, 1 hat, ate 3 Cajun Pistols, 2 ears of roasted corn, a tray of lobster rolls, an order of coconut shrimp, several bottles of water and soda, and one beer, and 3 helpings of homemade peach ice cream.  In addition, we collected 12 free Chevrolet bags, 3 Geico bags and a tee shirt, more coolie cups than we can count, and several fans.  Hopefully all of these places will not try mailing or calling the names and phone numbers we submitted to get all this "free" stuff!

Mark and Dennis modeling their new kangaroo hide hats.

Tomorrow it's pack up and clean up day in preparation of our early morning trip home starting on Tuesday.  It's time to get back to our best Cardinal fan:

Matthew in his game day outside.  He knows the Cardinals are gonna win tonight and head to the World Series.