when we arrived at our holiday inn in orange beach on tuesday, march 7th i had to make a beeline for the beach. kevin came with me.

but since it’s thursday i must jump ahead to our lovely walk on the beach the next day.  we’d seen this giant place on our first walk on the beach but kevin didn’t have a camera to take a picture and he wanted to get a shot the next day.  all i wanted to do was find a bathroom, so i headed up towards the many condos lining the beach.

i got a little desperate because the first condo i entered was nothing but locked doors.  i contemplated crossing the road in search of a strip mall, but it was a long walk up to the condos and getting across the road would take even longer.  luckily, workers were painting the the lavish condo next door, and i asked if i could use their porta potty.  one of the guys said there was a bathroom inside, so i happily found one in a fancy pool/spa/gym area with only one old guy splashing around.

when i got outside i realized that i could get a good shot of the front of the house that kevin wanted to photograph.

the door isn’t so unique, but the whole place is something, there amidst the towering condos and hotels.  who has the money to have a place like that, right there on the beach?  i wish i knew them.

when i walked back around the condo i’d entered, there was this lazy river in back.  i’ve never seen a place on the beach with such a grand waterway, but of course it was under construction.  i think there was so much fixing up and painting going on all over the place because of the impending spring break, which we thankfully missed.

here’s the view from our own balcony.  also pretty darn nice, even though there was no lazy river.

our hotel from the beach – i think that red flag means DON’T GO IN THE WATER!  or something to that effect.  it was very rough that day.

these little sand pipers continue to be my favorite birds.  later in the trip i got some video of them scurrying along, as they do.

the birds were very used to humans invading their beach, and i was surprised that this heron let me get so close.  at first i thought it was a statue because he wasn’t moving at all.

the gulls are all about the handouts of course, which is why i practically could have picked up this one.

this little bird was so excited because he’d found a piece of fish.  real food!

right in the middle out there, you can just see the outline of a heron standing as a storm rolled in.  i think it was the same still heron i’d seen earlier.

there was a storm that night, and it was neat to watch the rain from the balcony.  over there on the left, you can see they still had the water spray coming out of the pool.

i love the beach.

ok then,

mrs. thursday morning hughes.

As always…Thursday Doors is a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing it, between Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time), by using the blue link-up button at Norm 2.0 .  Look for this little blue guy at the bottom of Norm’s page