January 2023

​Hello all! 
We are still in Spanish Fort, AL. Staying at Blakely State Park and putting on hiking miles to prepare ourselves for our thru-hike. 

We have been coming to Blakely State Park since we arrived in Alabama to use the parks trail system for training. We were driving a half hour to the park from our RV resort to hike, so in early January we moved to this park. It definitely was worth it, because they offer big lots with a lot of pine trees, so the neighbors are not right next to us.  
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​The Park has a lot of amazing history. From ancient Native American, Spanish, French, British and a civil war battlefield.  The battle took place right at the end of the war, known as the battle Fort Blakley. The small town of Blakley, which was bigger than Mobile in the early 1820’s, The fort had a three-mile trench and gun redoubts system that encompassed the town of Blakley. It’s kind of surreal and interesting to be hike through the wood and see the old trenches and cannon positions. The park is located on the northeast end of Mobile Bay on the Tensaw River. Which lead to a naval battle between the Union and Confederate navys.

The Blakeley Park is more convenient for us just a few miles out of Spanish Fort and 15 minutes away from downtown Mobile. Cheri, Stella and I took a ferry from Gulf Shores to Dolphin Island and check out Fort Gains then drove up to Mobile had some amazing food and Cheri was able to get her favorite local drink a bushwhacker.​
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​We celebrated my birthday with friends of our that had moved from Wisconsin to Florida six years ago. All by luck, they were renting a cabin here at the park, neither of us know the other was here. We just ran into them on our hike. Small World! After the headed back we met up with friends of ours from Wisconsin that are full-time RVing as well. It was fun check out the breweries in historic Mobile, a wine tasting. We also saw a replica ship of the Pinta in Gulf Shores and went to a gumbo festival with live music in Foley.

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