We went for a visit with Tyler and Amy and we decided that on Saturday we’d go to the Gulf Coast Hot Air Balloon Festival. So we talked up the balloons to Amy. We had been to one in north Alabama twice but she had never been to one, so she was excited.

We started the day with a trip to the first Buc-ees in the state of Alabama. Have you ever been to a Buc-ees? It has 100+ gas pumps, inside there it just about anything you could need. There are packaged snacks, jerky, Icee’s, fountain drinks, fresh made fudge, BBQ and other fresh made food. There are souvenirs galore. You can get things with the Buc-ees logo, beach related items, clothes, housewares, home decorations. They also have the worlds best restrooms. They are pretty nice, if you visit be sure and check them out.

Amy and I got Icee’s, we bought lemon cookies, snickerdoodle cookies, cinnamon popcorn and Beaver Nuggets. Tyler and Amy loved the popcorn, Jeff and I loved the Beaver Nuggets. Sadly we are out of them, we stretched them out as long as we could.

From here we went to the hot air balloon festival. We already knew that admission was free, but upon arrival they charged $5 to park. So we get there and walk out to the festival. Along the way we see these areas and something was missing!!!

What they didn’t tell you as they are taking your parking money is that due to the storms in the area the balloons will not be here today. So we paid $5 and walked to the back of the back of the park and find all the vendors as  the disappointment registers.

So we look around at some of the vendor booths and we turn around and head back to the car and start looking for somewhere to grab lunch.

We ended up going to the Groovy Goat at downtown Ow in Foley. After lunch the rain started so we hide out in the game room next door and played video games. After the rain moved on we visit the Alvin’s Island and grab some ice cream at the Hershey’s Ice Cream Parlor.

We finished our day in the Foley/Gulf Shores area and headed back across the bay to Mobile to go to the AFC Mobile soccer game. We were concerned that the weather was going to rain the game out, but thankfully it cleared up before game time and we were able to cheer them on to a win.

It was a great day spent with the family, we had a great day even though we were disappointed that we went to the balloon festival to find there were no balloons.