Travel is...

Travel is ....

Accepting change.

About 16 years ago my husband and I rented a house in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Why Gulf Shores? It seemed a convenient location for our son and daughter-in-law and their kids in Houston, our son and daughter-in-law and their kids in Orlando and our (then) single youngest son who was flying in from Israel to join his family for a week's vacation. It was a five- or six- bedroom home right on an incredible white sand beach and while a subsequent hurricane blew that specific house out to sea, it was a wonderful family vacation and one we all recall fondly.

Those little kids are all young adults today and many things have changed. I just returned from a three-day stay in Gulf Shores with a group of other writers, and boy oh boy, has Gulf Shores changed!

Where blocks of lovely vacation homes existed there are now high-rise condo after high-rise condo. I stayed in a magnificent resort - Turquoise Place - with great facilities: indoor and outdoor pools, a lazy river pool for tubing, a fitness room, sauna and steam rooms, and that same incredible white sand beach. It looks more like the Gulf or Atlantic Coast of Florida than the unique beach community we discovered a decade and a half ago and the area is still lovely with gracious southern hospitality and a variety of eateries, but different. There are many more family-friendly attractions than there were, and a great choice of accommodations.

(Some of the family attractions include the delightful Alabama Gulf Cost Zoo and The Wharf with the largest ferris wheel on the Gulf Coast. A brand new fishing pier and the historic Fort Morgan are not to be missed.)

I also flew Delta for the first time in years and discovered that though one still has to fly through Atlanta, planes were in fine shape, flight crew friendly and competent and scheduled flights right on time. That was the good news.

The bad news was that to fly from South Florida to southern Alabama I had to first fly to Atlanta.

Short story, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the region to others looking for a family destination.