(Days 14-16) After years of talking about it — and by “talking,” I mean putting it on a list and forgetting about it — we finally checked off the Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo - where a lemur locked eyes with me and proceeded to shadow my every move like a tiny, judgmental life coach. I don’t know what lesson he was trying to teach me, but I left that enclosure rethinking a few things.
We heeded the whispers of burger lovers from far and wide (aka everyone in Orange Beach) and made the pilgrimage to
Cheeseburger Randy’s. The menu was delightfully non-nonsense: Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger Randy, JBC Burger, Fries, and Onion Rings. That's it. No kale. No aioli. Just a shack with retro vibes, and burgers that don’t mess around. The Cheeseburger Randy was juicy, beefy bliss. I’m still emotionally processing it.
We had a couple of days of rain and storms that cooled off the lazy river - just enough to keep things interesting without requiring a wetsuit. We floated anyway. Vacation rules.
Our final day was a classic “squeeze it all in” kind of wrap-up: a morning of work, two round of oysters for lunch, and then back to the grind while it rained.
But Orange Beach wasn’t going to let us leave without a proper sendoff. After days of playing hide-and-seek, the sunset
finally showed up — bold, blazing, and unapologetically orange. Our neighbor’s birthday band kicked in just before the sky lit up, and we got that picture-perfect farewell we’d been hoping for all week.
Tomorrow we head north, but this stop gave us exactly what we came for: great food, great memories, and a sunset worth waiting for.
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