Adventures at Baldwin County Fair

Last weekend we visited Baldwin County Fair. Just across the bay in the neighbour County. It reminded me of being at home. Most years we would visit Hope or Bakewell Show in Derbyshire. Farmers would show their prize animals and vegetables. There would be a range of stalls selling handmade lovelies and food. We would wear our wellies and take an umbrella incase of unpredictable showers.

As we entered the Baldwin Country Fair, tractors were lined up with competition rosettes. Men in cowboy boots and hats stood around beaming with pride.

John Deere tractors

Downtown Relaxing & Orange Beach

Ooops, my normal Monday ‘weekend catch up’ post didn’t happen yesterday!

I had been quite excited last week due to finding a craft fair in Mobile on Saturday.  I even got dressed before I had my breakfast, which is very unusual for me!  Anyway, the fair was easy to find and as soon as we stepped out of the car, we could smell the hot dogs cooking…it wasn’t dinner time yet but they were very tempting 😦  It was a nice little craft fair with many tents holding a variety of handmade luxuries.  Honey, jewellery, carved signs and much more.  We didn’t buy anything but admired a lot.  It is hard to buy anything ‘homey’ as we have always got “How would we get it back to the UK?” running through our minds.

 

craft fair football cushions

Dauphin Island Daytrip

Saturday meant a day trip with our cooler full of ice and drinks.  We had decided to try another beach out, to the south of us, on Dauphin Island.  Not to be confused with Dolphin, which I keep saying by accident!  Dauphin Island is a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico, three miles from Mobile Bay.  Again, we are very lucky to have this luxury on our doorstep!

The main road ran from East to West…or West to East, depending on which way you were travelling!  The majority of houses were built on stilts to factor in any flooding in stormy weather.  The widest part of the island was 1.75 miles wide, so everything could be damaged should the sea come in far enough.  Scary thought eh!  We drove past Fort Gaines and noted it down for a visit when are parents are across from the UK at Christmas.  Cars were lined up waiting to board the ferry across the bay to Orange Beach.

We drove to the farthest point west, parked up and headed to the beach.  Once Labor Day passes, we’ve been told that the beaches don’t really get busy.  A few families were scattered along the coast, all far enough apart to have a private area.  Unfortunately for us, there were hundreds of sandflies flying around and within seconds we were covered.  I ran back to the car and proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes picking them out of my hair :-0

Sunday Sevens #1

The other day I announced a new link up where bloggers would take one simple photo everyday of the week.  Sunday Sevens.  The photo needs to show something about your life; something that you may not write into a blog but would like to share! Every Sunday, the photos would then be put together on a blog and shared with the World!

The #sundaysevens tag can also be searched for on other Social Media platforms 🙂 Anyone can be involved, even if you haven’t got a blog, you can just tag away!

I know that people won’t have had enough notice to perhaps publish a first post today but I thought I would put something together to demo how it could be done. Obviously, it doesn’t have to be the same but it may give you a few ideas if you’re stuck!
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1. The daily decision of which sauce to put on my sandwich.

sauces

 

A Hidden Treasure

I feel that Mobile isn’t really a big city for tourism.  There are many things to do here; museums, parks, shops…but it always seems to be quiet and peaceful.  We often end up wondering where everyone is and wonder if we are missing something!  Yesterday we headed downtown for some lunch and I then wanted to go and visit the library.  I was intrigued more than anything, not only was this grand building huge (bigger than most libraries I have seen), it was also quite mysterious.  From the outside, you could not see into the building.  Every time we had driven past, I had always wondered what it was like inside.

I had been on the website and looked into getting a library card.  I wasn’t entirely convinced that I would be eligible but I had proof of our stay and address.  The online catalogue also showed that there were some Mollie Makes books available; the ones that I had been looking at buying!

The car park was busy.  It appeared that this was the place where everyone was!  I filled out the form, presented my ID and was given a brand new library card.  Now, I hate to admit this but I haven’t used a library since my time in University, where all of the books I read were about various educational issues and they would help me to write assignments.  Over the last couple of years I have taken my class to visit their local library but never actually used it myself!

P is for Pensacola, Penny and Pelicans

On Sunday we headed to Pensacola in Florida.  I still can’t believe that Florida is only an hour away from us!  We tried to research a few activities before we went as we have a habit of going to places and wandering around aimlessly!  Adam really wanted to go on the beach and I had a found a Geocache trail that we could start!

Geocaching is another secret passion of mine.  I’m not an expert, we have only found 47….some people have found over 2000!  If you click here you will find out a bit more.  I had done Geocaching back in the UK and we had even introduced it to the kids in my class.  I had my class Geocaching on a school trip and it was even incorporated into an INSET day!  The trail I had found involved 5 different smaller trails.  If you found certain amounts of Geocaches, you got different commemorative bracelets….IF you did them all you received a special coin!  Many people think that Geocaching is a little bit sad 😦 … however, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it!  There is something strangely rewarding about finding hidden tubs around the World!

On our small and unsuccessful Geocaching trip (we only found 3), we came across a Pensacola Pelican and a Pensacola Penny Butterfly!

Pensacola Pelican