The Great Outdoors...

Ever get in the what-do-we-do-today rut?  Well, the Morris family does.  So on this day we shook the cabin fever by heading out to the great outdoors.  We visited Oak Mountain State Park.  Noteworthy to mention it's the state's largest park and even more noteworthy to mention we got in F-R-E-E thanks to a coupon book we bought as a fundraiser recently.  That sucker has paid for itself many times over!

First stop was the Alabama Wildlife Rescue Center. 

 

They advertise having rescued wildlife on display so that we the peeps can see the amazing work being done to keep wildlife wild and free.  Let's take a look:

That's Rob, Mikayla, and Madison checking out the owls.  Pretty cool stuff...Rob couldn't pull himself away!

There were birds' nests to view...

...and two live snakes.  Ugh!

That's about enough of the wildlife...let's go out into the wild!

"C'mom," says Madison to Mikayla.  "I'll hold your hand."

"Nah, I'll go first," decided Mikayla.

We went on a little (100 degree) hike.  Matt wanted to take control by getting the proper instructions/directions...

...which was a good thing, because I was busy forcing family photo ops on the Morrises:

It was so hot, but we really did have "different" fun!  We walked, laughed, and sweat off about 5 pounds each!

Don'tcha just love, love, lurve this picture of Caroline? 

To say that Oak Mountain has a beach is like saying Gatlinburg has Olympic-quality ski slopes...sure there's a sand, which qualifies as a beach.  There is a lake that has cooled off and refreshed many people.  We planned to go have a picnic evening dinner at the beach area.  But this area is just very simple and make-shift.  One would almost say it's not even memorable.  One would only say that if one missed seeing this:

or this:

Well, that just about ended the day's outing.  I mean, we can now say "We have seen it all," agree???

Once more just for giggles:

All joking aside, this was actually a fun day.  We sweat like fattened hogs in this good ol' southern humidity, but it got us out of the house and together for some Great Outdoors.  'Bye until the next outing!