Caching in Orange Beach, AL and A Winter Weather Alert???????? 3/8/2008

Yes a winter weather alert and snow advisory for Mobile, AL tonight and maybe a little farther south toward us than that. Mobile is about 50 miles from us. They are saying anywhere from 1-2" possible overnight. Wow guess we'll have to go farther south than we are to get rid of the snow. Oh well at least we know it won't stay on the ground long.
Well we headed off to Orange Beach this morning for a few caches and to do some maintenance on 2 caches of friends of ours that we met in Myrtle Beach. They are teamtigerz who has a homer here in Gulf Shores as well as a home in Florence, SC and a RV at Apache Campgrounds. We understand that his house was badly damaged by Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and it took him a year to get back into it. Very nice people and they had 2 caches that were muggled so we replaced them for him.
Then it was on to our first cache at the Orange Beach Welcome Center hidden in back of the building in the marsh. We understand by some of the logs that at one time or another there was a 5' snake guarding the cache. Thank goodness we didn't see it. This was a great puzzle cache where you had to figure out the final stage coords by reading a plaque that had to do with a "Mark 8", which is a 2700 lb armor piercing projectile. It was fired from one of the nine 16-inch, 45 caliber Mark 45 "BIG GUNS" aboard the battleship USS Alabama. It travels at a speed of 2300 feet per second or 1568 miles per hour, more than twice the speed of sound. The guns are accurate up to 20.97 miles away from the battleship. Interesting and informative cache.
Then on to a cache at a local restaurant where they held a large geocaching event last year, then to a cache located on a lovely bike or walking trail, a cache at Cosmos Restaurant, one on the Orange Beach Waterfront, then it was on to a huge sportsplex which had an indoor swimming pool, then 2 caches located in or near marinas, and then on to the last cache at the Giggling Grouper Restaurant.
Then we went down by the waterfront and ate our lunch which we brought with us and fed some of it to the gulls. Orange Beach was founded and built by boat builders and charter fisherman and is home to the largest charter fishing fleet and deemed the charter fishing capital of the Northern Gulf Coast. It's located on the banks of the Gulf of Mexico River and features the Orange Beach Golf Course, Waterville USA, a huge water park, the Orange Beach Indian & Sea Museum, Thw Wharf and many shops, restaurants and beach houses and condos.
After luch we drove back to the RV and Mom did the logs and baked some cookies and I showered and am now doing the blog.It's almost time for dinner so we will say until tomorrow and we will make sure we have our snow shovel ready....NOT and we love you all.


Picture List: 1-Green Bay Packer license plate fitting for the day Brett Favre retired, 2-The Keg Restaurant & Bar, 3-Mark 8.