Balancing Rumors, and Family Vacation

This picture showed up on Twitter this morning from Gulf Shores. It appears to be oil, but maybe the turtle went through some mud??? ... I DOUBT it, but it IS possible. My point is, my family (and hopefully you) are balancing what you see online and on TV with what is REALLY happening along the Gulf Coast.

I have vacation in a couple of weeks to Gulf Shores. Over the past 24 hours, there have been some reports of the oil hitting Gulf Shores in small amounts. A lot of folks are freaking out and canceling their vacation plans, BUT I urge you to wait as long as you can.

For example, officials say that no oil has come ashore in Gulf Shores today. The oil that is on the beach is from last night and yesterday.... And that oil is being cleaned quickly. What if it goes back out to sea and there is no more oil to make landfall??? It's possible. Fluid dynamics is a tricky science.

So, as of now... here's the latest on some popular vacation spots:

• Gulf Shores- Some tarballs and sporadic patches of goo. Swim advisory
• Pensacola- Some tarballs, a handful of patches of goo.
• Destin- Some tarballs
• Panama City- No impact yet.

This can change, so find a website that updates constantly for your location of choice. For Gulf Shores, I have found http://www.gulfshores.com/issues/ to be the BEST site with DAILY video updates from the beach. They seem to be 100% transparent.

As of now, we are keeping our Gulf Shores plans, but we have looked at Panama City, St. Louis, and Hot Springs as alternates. We're going to have to stay spontaneous! If we can go to Gulf Shores, the lines at Waterville and area restaurants will be short!

Ryan