A Belated Merry Christmas

I'm aware that we've gone off the radar for a while; I was being lazy while we traveled and the past ten days or so here in Alabama have been rainy/foggy/cold so we've been huddling inside the RV keeping warm and watching the world go by.

Since today was our first Christmas alone, we decided to do something different so we drove down to Gulf Shores State Park to walk the shiny, squeaky white sand beaches. Squeaky, you say? Yes indeed, due to the fact that the sand here is 99% pure quartz. Lovely soft stuff indeed.

And what did we find beside rain patterned sand? Lovely turquoisey-purple Portuguese Man o' Wars. Very nasty in the water, these were stranded on the beach and were still alive but quite frankly I wasn't the least bit interested in trying to rescue them and put them back in the surf. Often called "jelly fish" these creatures are actually made up of four parts and the transparent sac is the "sail" that catches the wind and waves that move them around the ocean.

Lovely but oh so painful if you are stung by one of the tentacles.



Normally a lovely shade of green, the waters of the Gulf of Mexico put on a silvery hue for Christmas. This is much nicer than snow!