Bella Terra, Foley, AL

For years at the RV shows, we had seen displays or booths advertising Bella Terra, a Class A motorhome resort.  But kind of pricey too.  We decided to "splurge" on our camping fees for 3 days and check it out. 

It rained on us some as we traveled through Pensacola to Foley, Alabama.  When we crossed this bridge, we could see manna rays in the water; but we couldn't pull over to get a closer picture.  The water was so clear and so blue.

It had stopped raining when we arrived at Bella Terra.  The resort was in the middle of farm land; but when you drove through the entrance, it was as nice in the brochures had indicated. 

The sites are long and concrete and a rust colored tint. 

Many of the sites are beautifully landscaped with decks or screened in patios. 

Of course, they want you to buy sites in the community but they rent sites as well.  The clubhouse and pool were beautiful. 

I had only seen an infinity pool in pictures but never in person.
 

The resort hosted a couple of evening gatherings where you could meet some of the other residents (kind of like Wilderness).  We met Carl and Linda who happened to be from Cape San Blas (right next door to Port St. Joe) and their aunt and uncle, Jack and Connie, who owned a lot in the park.  They invited us to go to dinner with them at Tin Top in Bon Secour, AL.  We had a delicious dinner and had Royal Reds for the first time, a large shrimp only found in this area that are broiled and fixed like lobster with drawn butter.  Delicious!

Carl and Linda and Jack and Connie knew all the restaurants around.  They recommended Doc's Seafood Shack in Orange Beach and Felix's in Mobile.

We rode our bikes or walked in the community several times.  And I captured some more good sunset pictures.  This was taken from our campsite:

In this one, the sun looks like a fireball.  (Chuck just pointed out to me that it is a fireball.)  What I should have said is that the clouds make it look like the sun is shooting across the sky.

And this sunset picture was across the pond and fountains:

The moon was fuller than it had been had Defuniak Springs.  This picture was taken with our zoomed-up camera.  Pretty amazing, huh?  Can you see the man in the moon? 

On Saturday, we drove to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach.  We ate lunch at Doc’s Seafood Shack in Orange Beach and had some of the best onion rings I have ever had.

The resort hosted another gathering on Sunday evening and we had a chance to meet some of the other residents.  Some of the residents were FMCA members.  Maybe we will meet up with them one day at a rally.

Topsail Hill Preserve RV Park

Many fellow campers had referred us to Top Sail State Park over the years and I lucked up and got us reservations for 2 nights.  We pulled over to the side of the road and had lunch on the way to the park because we were too early for check-in.

Everyone had said what a nice park it was and they were right. 

We had heard that Topsail was formerly a private park but was taken over by the state.  It had full hookups, concrete sites, and even cable, something unheard of in a state park.  The sites had lots of shade and privacy. 

The beach was 7/10 mile from the campground.  You could either walk, ride a bike, or ride the shuttle from the campground to the beach that ran every hour during the day.

Once you arrived at the sand dunes, there was a long boardwalk to cross to get to the beach.

After crossing the long boardwalk, you come to some of the whitest beaches and clearest water on the gulf coast.

The beach is not as wide here but it was not too crowded either because only people from the campground were using the beach.

On the bike ride to the beach, it appeared there had been a fire because the tree trunks were black.  We later learned that periodically they would have "controlled burns" to burn out all the undergrowth.

We explored the bike trails and found what we thought was an inlet off the beach.

But when we saw a sign that said "No Swimming -- Beware of Alligators", we determined that it was a freshwater lake.

We sat on the bench for awhile and rested...

and then headed back to camp on our bikes.  I wanted to take some pictures of us biking and Chuck said "Let me take a picture of you.  You're hardly ever in any of the pictures."  He told me to go out in front of him and then ride back and he would take a picture.  This was his first shot:

So I rode back out and then back again for his second shot:

Good shot of the bike trail, but where's my bike?  So we tried it again:

Good picture of the bike trail, me and his fingers.  This is why I take most of the pictures. :)

We decided to have barbecued chicken wings and corn on the cob for dinner.  Yummy!  This is all that was left:

Before we left on Friday, we rode our bikes to the beach one more time and went for a walk. 

Chuck talked to some guys who were fishing and were catching a lot of whitings.

Topsail is a park we would definitely like to come back to next spring and stay longer.

Defuniak Springs, FL

We drove about 3 hours to Sunset King RV Park in Defuniak Springs, FL.  It was a private park with the sites close together but it was nice and quite.  It was also a Passport America park so that saved us on camping fees.

Ron and Pat who were parked across the street from us had a huge telescope...

...and they let us look through it that night.

Pat had to show us which direction in the sky to look.

We got to see Orion’s belt, the dark spot on Jupiter, and some other stars and constellations as well as the moon up close.  I wish we could have seen the rings of Saturn, but it was too far down in the horizon. 

We also discovered that we could zoom up with our new camera and get really good pictures of the moon:

Ron had owned a cabinet shop in east Tennessee so they swapped old war stories about the cabinet business.

The next day, we walked around the campground and down to King Lake.  It was full of stumps.

It looked like it would be a great place to fish but the water level was very low.  The campground office told us that this area of Florida was in a drought.

Chuck took a picture of a little turtle in the water.  Can you see him?

How about now?

And on our walk back, we saw this unusual golf cart.  Pretty cool, huh?

Chuck also washed the motorhome because we needed to get all the salt from the beach off of it while we were there.  The park charged a $5 fee to wash your RV; but it was worth it to get all that salt off the motorhome.

Best part of the week.

We had already had a wonderful week but the best part was still to come.  Crystal and Grant drove down Thursday night to spend the weekend with us which was the best treat of all!  We took them out to Cape San Blas:

and walked the beach some more...

and took naps on the beach...

and went back to Indian Pass Trading Post for oysters...

and REALLY enjoyed visiting and being with them for the weekend.  It was GREAT!

On Sunday morning, we hugged Crystal and Grant said good-bye to them...

and good-bye to Port St. Joe.

Biking, seafood and exploring.

Of course, while we were here we had to have some shrimp.  The Piggly Wiggly in town where we would get our groceries had fresh-caught large shrimp for $8.99 a pound and they cooked them for you with as much spice (Zatarains) as you requested.  Needless to say, we had shrimp the first night.

On Monday, we drove to Mexico Beach to a restaurant called Toucan's for Oysters Rockefeller (our favorite way to eat oysters) but they weren’t as quite as good as we remembered.  We had a nice view of the beach from our table.

The sand is white and the water clearer in Mexico Beach, but it also gets more crowded.

On Tuesday, we decided to go for a bike ride...a long bike ride...to the end of Cape San Blas.  The bike trail was perfect:  paved, wide and smooth...and no hills.

The bay is on the east side of the cape.  We found a nice place to put in a boat (like the Portabote we would like to get but don't have yet).

And the ocean is on the west side of the cape.

We had a strong head wind fighting against us on the bike ride back.  We drove the car back out to the Cape to find out how far we rode (15 miles round trip) and on the way back drove out to the Cape San Blas Lighthouse that is now being restored.

It was a beautiful day for a bike ride but we were tired and hungry by the time we got back.  We had watched a locally broadcast TV show about where to find the best oysters on the gulf.  No. 2 on their list was a little restaurant right down the road from our campsite called Indian Pass Trading Post.  Their oysters come from their own oyster beds in Appalachicola Bay.

So we decided go there for lunch.

It's kind of a dive. 

But like a lot of dives, the food is some of the best.  We had their baked oysters and they were delicious!