Magnolia Mooring

10/21/2026

🤠🎶 BIG MUSIC. BIG CROWDS. YOUR OWN LITTLE PIECE OF PARADISE! 🌴☀️

🎸 Sand in My Boots is coming back to Gulf Shores in May 2027!

Love the music but need a little downtime away from the crowds? We’ve got just the place! 🏖️

Enjoy all the festival excitement, then escape to Magnolia Mooring at beautiful Kiva Dunes, where you can unwind in your own private pool and spa, gather around the glowing fire bowl, or spend the day relaxing on a quieter stretch of our gorgeous Gulf Coast beach. 🌊🍹

With room for up to 22 guests, there’s plenty of space for your whole crew to enjoy the best of both worlds!

🎶 Come for the concerts. Escape the crowds. Stay for the paradise! 🌴

🌺 Not a fan of crowds? Skip the festival and come enjoy the Gulf Coast another time! We have dates available throughout the spring and summer, but reservations are already coming in. ☀️🏖️

📅 Festival dates are anticipated for May 20–23, 2027. Please confirm with festival organizers before making travel arrangements.

📍 Magnolia Mooring | Kiva Dunes | Fort Morgan, AL

⛱️ magnoliamooring.com

🤠 Read about the festival’s return!
https://www.gulfshoresnews.com/gulf-shores-enjoys-sand-in-their-boots

The beachside music festival "Sand In My Boots" is officially locked in for a return to the white-sand shores of Gulf Shores, Alabama, in May of 2027. Scheduled right before summer officially starts, the multi-day event serves as a major kickoff to the local tourist season.

10/10/2026

🌴☀️ The morning after Hurricane Isaias! 🏖️

Feeling incredibly grateful this morning! ❤️ Magnolia Mooring appears to have weathered the storm beautifully, with no significant damage. We were fortunate to be on the western side of the hurricane and spared the worst of its impact.

Our hearts and prayers go out to everyone farther east who experienced the stronger winds and more severe conditions. We know not everyone was as fortunate, and we’re thinking of all the families and communities affected. ❤️🙏

So thankful to see our little piece of paradise still standing strong this morning! 🌴☀️⚓️

10/10/2026

🐊🌴 Looking for a fun family adventure beyond the beach?

Take the kids to Alligator Alley in Summerdale, Alabama! 🐊 This unique wildlife sanctuary is home to hundreds of alligators, from tiny hatchlings to enormous adults! Wander along elevated boardwalks through the swamp and get an up-close look at these incredible creatures in their natural surroundings.

Our family has visited before, and we had such a great time! It’s a fun, memorable outing for kids and adults alike—and definitely something a little different from your typical beach day!

☀️ Another great adventure to enjoy during your stay at Magnolia Mooring! 🏖️

📍 Alligator Alley | Summerdale, AL

Baldwin County has a boardwalk where the neighbors have teeth, tails, and absolutely no interest in your beach plans.

Alligator Alley in Summerdale offers a different side of coastal Alabama. The attraction centers on a swamp sanctuary, with elevated walkways that allow visitors to observe alligators without walking through their habitat.

Owner Wes Moore opened the farm in 2004. Its purpose includes providing a home for relocated alligators removed from places where their presence creates problems. Behind the attraction is a practical issue: an alligator and a neighborhood are not always a workable combination.

The visit begins with an elevated viewing platform and continues along a boardwalk through the swamp. The farm houses hundreds of alligators, ranging from hatchlings to mature adults. Seeing those different sizes together puts their growth into perspective.

The setting also includes other wildlife. Alligator Alley identifies turtles, ospreys, owls, and bullfrogs among the animals found around the property. That gives the walk another layer beyond watching the biggest reptiles.

The tour is self-guided, while scheduled feeding demonstrations provide opportunities to watch staff work with the animals. The attraction also offers an opportunity to hold a baby alligator in its air-conditioned gator station.

Those experiences are part of an organized facility. There is a considerable difference between observing an alligator from a designated walkway and discovering one beside the family fishing spot.

Summerdale may not have the beach skyline associated with Gulf Shores or Orange Beach, but it has a coastal attraction with an entirely different view. Here, the water, vegetation, and resident reptiles are the main event.

Alligator Alley is located at 19950 County Road 71. A beach-area outing can include something other than sand, shopping, or another seafood plate. In this case, it includes a boardwalk above a swamp full of alligators.

10/09/2026

10/03/2026

I couldn’t agree more!! Mid week dates and only one weekend (Halloween) are still available at Magnolia Mooring 🎃🌴☀️!

Hello, October. 🌅
While much of the country is reaching for sweaters, we’re soaking up golden sunsets, warm Gulf breezes, and a little more room to breathe.

October is one of our favorite times of year at Kiva Dunes. Beautiful days on the course, quieter stretches of beach, and evenings that remind us why fall on the Alabama Gulf Coast is something special.

Here’s to a beautiful month ahead.

09/27/2026

A little hidden gem for your next day trip from Magnolia Mooring. 🌿🥾🦅 For hikers, birders, and nature lovers, the Lillian Swamp and Perdido River area offers a beautiful glimpse of wild coastal Alabama—including rare pitcher plant bogs and other unique native plants. Peaceful, untamed, and well worth exploring beyond the beach. ☀️🌾

Down in the bottom corner of Baldwin County, west of the Perdido River and just north of Lillian, the state of Alabama owns more than three thousand acres that almost nobody sets foot on.

It is called the Lillian Swamp Complex and it belongs to the Forever Wild Land Trust. The state assembled it in six separate purchases between 2003 and 2024. The most recent permit map puts it at 3,147 acres, and even that figure may be behind, since the last addition closed in September 2024.

What is in there is pine savanna wetland, interior marsh, tidal marsh, forested swamp and open pitcher plant bogs. Sundew grows on it. Osprey and bald eagles work the Perdido River side year round, and rusty blackbirds turn up in winter.

What is not in there is amenities, and the state is honest about that. There is a parking area off Oak Street, reached by turning north at Boykin Boulevard in Lillian, and past that you are on old sandy woods roads. The management plan lists trails and access points as under development and signage as planned. No boardwalk, no visitor center, no campground, no fee. Gates open on published dates rather than always. It is a nature preserve first and a destination second.

North of it, above I-10 near Gateswood, sits the Perdido River Wildlife Management Area, which is a different proposition entirely. Roughly 17,300 acres, about 6,200 of them owned outright by Forever Wild, opened to public recreation in 2007. That one has a 17.9 mile hiking trail running from Blue Lake Landing to Gravel Landing, a 19 mile canoe trail in six sections, six elevated screened shelters you can reserve, and free tent camping on the river sandbars. It also holds an Atlantic white cedar community inside a blackwater stream corridor, which is a rare thing to have anywhere.

The river between them is the state line. Alabama's conservation department describes the Perdido as defining the boundary with Florida along nearly its entire length, about sixty miles of blackwater from northwest of Atmore down to Perdido Bay. An Alabama freshwater fishing license is good on the whole mainstem where that border runs.

All of it traces back to one vote. Forever Wild passed statewide in 1992 with roughly 84 percent approval, was renewed in 2012 with about 75 percent, and is funded from interest on offshore natural gas royalties rather than from taxes, capped at $15 million a year. It has secured more than 284,000 acres.

09/17/2026

Great news! 🚴🏻🚴🏻‍♀️🚴🏻‍♂️

https://www.facebook.com/share/19KgmsGPMH/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Number 500 deserves something new, and this happened just weeks ago.

Gulf State Park's already massive trail network just got another major addition.

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources recently opened a 4.4-mile extension of the Fort Morgan Trail along Highway 180, connecting the existing trail directly with Gulf State Park. The ribbon cutting was held in late August 2026.

That brings the Fort Morgan Trail itself to approximately 10.5 miles.

But here's the bigger picture.

Once you combine this connection with Gulf State Park's existing trails, people now have access to nearly 40 miles of connected trail opportunities around this part of Gulf Shores.

That's a huge change from the Gulf Shores many longtime residents remember.

The new section gives walkers, runners and cyclists another way to move between the Fort Morgan Peninsula and Gulf State Park without experiencing everything from behind a windshield.

And this isn't simply a sidewalk beside Highway 180.

The Fort Morgan Peninsula passes through some of the least-developed coastal habitat remaining around Gulf Shores, with pine forests, wetlands and areas near Little Lagoon and Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge.

For locals, fall may be the perfect time to try it.

The summer crowds begin thinning.

Temperatures eventually start cooperating.

And suddenly riding ten miles doesn't sound quite as crazy as it did in July.

We've watched Gulf Shores spend decades building roads for cars.

Now we're watching something different happen.

Pieces of the city are slowly being stitched together for people on two feet and two wheels.

And as of 2026, there's another 4.4 miles to explore.

09/12/2026

This makes me so happy!!

Spending time in nature has been proven again and again to provide benefits to physical, mental and spiritual health, which is why projects like the Fort Morgan Trail extension are so important to the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR).

The 4.4-mile extension along Highway 180 (Fort Morgan Road) connects the trail along the scenic peninsula to Gulf State Park, Alabama’s second largest state park at 6,150 acres with more than 2 miles of sugar white beaches.

“This is another great asset for Baldwin County, our great state and the millions of visitors who come to enjoy our beautiful Gulf Coast,” ADCNR Commissioner Chris Blankenship said.

“More and more, people are trying to connect with nature. Extending the Fort Morgan Trail gives residents and visitors more opportunities to walk, bike and enjoy the beauty of our wonderful coastal environment. Projects like this create new ways for people to experience the outdoors, support tourism and enhance the quality of life for the communities all across the state. I’m proud to support this project and excited to see this important connection completed.”

Read full story here: https://yellowhammernews.com/david-rainer-fort-morgan-trail-adds-to-gulf-state-park-adventure-list/

09/03/2026

Can’t wait till the trail reaches Kiva Dunes and then all the way to the ferry landing at Fort Morgan!

Official Web Site of Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources

09/03/2026

This makes me so happy!!!