Memorial Day Weekend Gulf Coast

This year was one of the best Memorial Weekends I can remember in a long time.  Diana and I got to spend it with good friends and some great kids!  The weather was awesome and we bought enough fresh seafood to feed a family reunion, which included Apalachicola oysters on the half-shell, fresh boiled crawfish and Royal Red shrimp served BBQ style, baked in butter, garlic and green onions!

We spent Saturday by our Idlewild community pool and enjoyed a crawfish feast before heading home, so the kids could recharge their batteries and the adults could shuck some oysters, sampling some raw and laying the others over hot coals and mixing in a little hickory smoke.  Take them off when water in the shell starts to boil, add fresh squeezed lemon and your favorite cocktail sauce blend and you will have a devine appetizer that takes your taste buds in multiple directions.

Sunday was by far one of the best days we have had on the water this year, however this had been only our third attempt, as the busy gulf coastal real estate market has occupied most of our weekend hours to date.  We apologize to our current and future clients whose inquiries, emails, text messages and voicemails were not returned on Sunday, as we treated ourselves to a much deserved day off in the sun soaked back bays of beautiful Orange Beach, AL.

We woke early on a mission to get the kids dressed, fed and packed for a long day in the sun, so we could snag a highly coveted spot in the small stretch of sand in front of  popular Pirate’s Cove bay front restaurant.   It is about a 45 minute drive from our house in Fairhope to Barber Marina in Elberta, so we had to get a move on to beat the lunch rush, which I knew would start to occupy the sand space before 11:00 a.m.  We were on the boat and cruising through the light chop of the Inner Coastal by a little after 10 and made it just in time.

Pirates Cove serves one of the best burgers on the Gulf Coast and their Bushwhackers are just what the doctor ordered when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky.  It is also a great spot to wade in the refreshing bay and work on the swimming techniques with the kids.  We didn’t end up leaving until nearly 4:00 in the afternoon.  Time flys on the Coastal Alabama waters when you are with the people you love.