Village Park Preserve

One of my favorite things to do on my days off is to go exploring. One of my "go to" places is the Village Point Park Preserve across the bay in Daphne.

A couple weekends ago, JP and I went back to Village Point. It was supposed to rain off and on so our trip to the beach didn't seem worth the time on the road.

 My hiking, history loving companion.

 The first direction that we headed was to find the primitive burial site... It was primitive alright. It was a dead end at a swamp. :)

 Our first "stop" was at the Bayfront Park. They have a building there that is used as a meeting place for rent. There was a large family reunion going on, so we only made a swift stop at the gazebo and pier.

 View of the bay and downtown Mobile from the end of the pier.

 We headed back to Village Point by way of the boardwalk. Yes, that says do not feed the alligators.

 If you look reallllllly  carefully, you can see the only alligator we saw for the whole walk.

 One of my new favorite places. Its a small trip of beach that you can only access by going on the boardwalk. We were the only people there. It was so nice and peaceful. Considering making it one of my new beach spots because it is much closer than Orange Beach/Gulf Shores. You can see downtown Mobile way off in the distance.

 On the way back towards the D'Olive Cemetery, we took a side trail at the Gazebo to go to one of our "spots". We have been here once before to the Live Oak and wanted to get some more pictures.

 This tree had fallen at some point and had rooted in 2 places.

 Here is the Live Oak. It is absolutely beautiful. They have it completely cased in to protect the tree and roots.

 I think next time we might need to bring a picnic. There are several picnic tables that were built by the boy scout troop who redid the trails a couple of years ago.

 The D'Olive cemetery

 Little raccoon buddy!

 We took the "turtle trail" back to the parking lot. Below are 2 of our snapping turtle trail mates.