Gulf Shores, AL

As we work our way across the gulf coast, we keep finding new places that we love. Gulf Shores is currently towards the top of the list of the places we have enjoyed the most on our adventures. They refer to this area as the Emerald Coast and you can see why once you get to the beach and the water. Danelle had a trip home for a milestone birthday for her mom, so I had extra days to explore the area and enjoy the beach. The highlights of our trip were seeing parts of the NCAA beach volleyball championship, which UCLA won, touring the USS Alabama museum in Mobile, visiting the Naval Aviation museum in Pensacola and spending a day exploring the Destin, Florida area. I had a very interesting 2 hours at the USS Alabama museum where I met a gentleman who worked in the Lockheed Blackbird program on the CIA version of the airplane, the A-12, which has only recently been declassified. He took me under the ropes and behind the scenes to show me all of the cool aspects of his plane and told countless stories about the people, missions and technical details of the entire Blackbird program. I was totally geeking out.