Back on the coastal highway, eastbound: the open Gulf-front drive between the park core and Orange Beach — sugar-white sand, snowbird winters, and the barrier-island coast.
Rolling on east now along the coast — Beach Boulevard becomes Perdido Beach Boulevard as we go, running the barrier-island shore toward Orange Beach. Roll a window down. That's the Gulf right off your right shoulder, and this open stretch, Romar Beach, is the postcard: white sand, sea oats nodding on the dunes, the water going from jade to deep blue as it drops off.
This is a working, living coast, and it has its rhythms. In summer it's all families and beach umbrellas and boiled shrimp. But come winter, something wonderful happens — the snowbirds arrive. Thousands of folks from the frozen North, Canada and the upper Midwest, drive down and settle in for months, walking this beach in the mild sunshine while their hometowns are buried in snow. They've got their own clubs and potlucks and dances. A whole seasonal migration of people, following the warmth the same way the birds do.
And remember what you're driving along: a barrier island. A thin, restless line of sand standing between the mainland and the open sea, taking the brunt of every storm so the coast behind it is spared. It moves. It always has. The sand under this very road is on a slow journey west, grain by grain, and Boone will tell you where all this dazzling white sand came from in the first place — it's a story that reaches all the way to the mountains.
Stay on the coast highway heading east. Orange Beach is just ahead.
Photo: Please attribute this image as the work of "DiscoverWithDima." · CC BY-SA 4.0
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