Santa is alive, well and accepting mail in
Gulf Shores, Alabama...

...and anyone who has ever watched "Miracle on 34th Street," knows that the US Postal Service is never wrong in their delivery destinations. Okay, well, I fudged a bit, the mailbox was actually in a "Santa's Village" inside the delightfully decorated city park in Foley, but I had a discussion with the elves and they told me they were going on strike if Santa didn't move down the road to the beach. So I helped them move the mailbox.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

We decided that it might be a lovely gift to ourselves to head to a quiet beach. As we have fallen in love with Gulf Shores, thought it might be interesting to see what we thought of that beach in the winter.

Expecting to see cold weather, we packed a pile of sweaters and blue jeans and hit the road. Because of a late start and an unhurried drive down, it was well after sundown before we came close to the beach area. In the spring and summer, the Foley bypass is the way to go. We started to proceed along that route, but almost immediately ran into a roadblock due to a wreck. Grumble, grumble, there was an obsticle between us and the sea.

Seems we would have missed an amazing display of spirit of the season. Small town USA at its best. Foley was decked from head to toe in lights. A very merry site to say the least. Unfortunately, my shots of the Foley lights at night are furry globs and light squiggles for the most part. Gotta get that tripod I keep talking about. Ah well, guess you had to be there....unless Tony's film shots came out better than my digital snaps. He's better at that kind of thing than me. haha

The beach townships were decorated as well. Cities have decorated the roads with lights & ornaments on the street lamps of all major roads and shop keepers, home owners, innkeepers and all the town folk have gone all out with seasonal lights. Palm trees lit for Christmas are a site to see.

Moral of this idle ramble? If heading for Gulf Shores at Christmas time, skip the bypass, drive the main town road and pace yourself to arrive after dark. Everyone is a kid a Christmas time, and this is childhood delight supreme. There seems to be no worry in lower Alabama about offending someone by the political incorrectness of celebrating our traditional holiday. I sort of doubt the idea has even occurred to the people who reside here, and if it has, they must think the banishment of Christmas is as silly and grinchlike as I believe it to be. [smile]

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here are a few of the night light shots that weren't total furry globs. Seems the sacrifice here was the brightness of the lights for a wee bit more clarity. [Note: If you look closely, you can see *me* in the horn ornament...that's why it ended up here. I can actually say I did put a picture of myself on these pages. hahaha]

Foley, Alabama street scene & detail from tree in park
December 2002

Phoenix entrance lights & Tony's lights for our balcony rail...does he look relaxed or what ?!!?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

After seeing all the lights, we wished that we had brought some from home to get into the spirit. That problem was easily solved by a quick trip to Walmart. Had to go anyway as it seems I left my card reader connected to the computer at home and good luck finding a real camera shop in the winter at the beach. All was well, they had lights, they had card readers. Gotta love Walmart on days like these. One stop for all you beach bum need. [grin]