ThePewterPalace Our Love Affair with Avions

Alabama is our 47th US State we have camped in! While camp hosting this winter we had built in a 1 week getaway to complete our goal of 49 states (Hawaii won’t happen with the Avion!) It was was a nice respite and gave us a chance to rotate trailer tires and axel fluids too.

We stayed at the Meaher State Park in AL, which is right off I-10 (but quiet) and only 4 miles from the battleship USS Alabama and lots of seafood restaurants!  Mobile, AL is literally 20 minutes away but not on the plan for this trip.

The campground is very nice, right along the bay.  We had booked site 52 which is on the waterfront (don’t book of wet season as could flood). It appears, not surprisingly, at some point the CG sustained bad flood and storm damage as there are many new meeting rooms, bathrooms, etc. built high on stilts now and beautiful.  The original bath house was nice, and it had good laundry facilities. Showers were nice, clean and decent size but only curtains, not lockable.  The CG is gated with a staffed booth. They have a boat ramp, day use areas, cabins and a nature walk out onto a point (alligator and snake warning signs!)

We rested up our first evening, and then on Monday, we visited the battleship USS Alabama. We spent 3 hours on the self guided color coded tour routes and still did not see it all! At the battleship park, there is also a dry docked submarine and over a dozen various naval and coast guard planes, helicopters, and more. There is an indoor exhibit of naval history and memorabilia. There is of course a gift shop on site and a small cafe for lunch but ck hours of operation for the Cafe before you go. Parking for vehicles is $5. There is admission charged for the museum. Also, IF you bring an RV in then parking is $10 but you can park all day.  We saw at least a handful of RVers doing this.

The museum is a must do- it is a 1942-45 time capsule!!!

We also took a day trip closer to the coast and visited 2 “roadside attractions” that I had seen posted online. Bamahenge and the Girl in the Water. Both are artist installations on the vast property owned by Barbers Marina. The public is welcome to visit these unique sculptures. The Girl was just repaired and put back into the water in 2023 after being nearly destroyed by a coastal hurricane that hit along the Gulf Island shoreline.

Wr really enjoyed our short time at Meaher SP, and there is much more to explore in the area, so we will be back. It is a short hop to the city of Mobile, which will be on our list next time. They have hop on hop off tours and a trolly tour,  but this time of year only run end of the week, so our timing was off on this trip.

BTW, this area is teaming with excellent seafood restaurants! 😋