Florida, Pensacola - Saturday, November 30, 2013 - Naval Aviation Museum

Weather was in the mid to high 60s today with lots of sunshine so we took off on the bike to visit the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida.  On the way we saw these zip lines, we originally thought they were observation towers.  They had several people out on the lines today so we watched for a while.  I’ve always thought this might be kind of fun.  I’d probably change my mind once I got to the top of the tower.  Come to think of it, I might not be able to make it to the top of the tower so I think the whole thing is out of the question.

 

 

Just a little way down the road we stopped again to walk out on the Gulf State Park Pier.  There is a $2.00 admission fee for sightseers.  This pier was originally built in 1968 and was 825 feet long.  It withstood a lot of bad weather but in 2004 Hurricane Ivan took it out.  This current pier was built in 2007 and at 1540 feet it is the longest pier on the Gulf.

 

 

This section of beach is home to the Alabama Beach mouse (a southern cousin of the northern field mouse we are familiar with).  The beach mouse is important to the beach environment because it collects and distributes seeds of the plants that keep the dunes from blowing away.  That is Gulf Shores in the background.

 

 

Several pelicans were hanging out waiting for a free meal.  I think if the fishermen caught anything they might have to wrestle a pelican to get it home.

This guy decided to do lunch on his own.

The waves were breaking pretty hard against the beach.

The National Naval Aviation Museum is celebrating its 50^th anniversary.  This museum is on the naval base where the Blue Angels are stationed.  Don’t forget to take your I.D. or you won’t get in the gate.  Admission to the museum is free.

We spent about 3 hours here but could have easily spent a whole day.  We didn’t get to spend nearly as much time looking at the exhibits as we would have liked.

They had displays of the old

And displays of the new

This town recreation was really well done.

They had recreated a carrier flight deck

Blue Angels then

And Blue Angels now

Marine 1 helicopter for Presidents Ford and Nixon

We had lunch at the Cubi Bar Café.  We had one of their Subic Bay Steak Panini sandwiches which was delicious.  This café is a replica of an officer’s club that was in the Philippines beginning during the Viet Nam conflict up through the 1990’s (I think).  Hundreds of plaques from naval marine units are on the walls.

We did the 4D flying with the Angles experience.  As I stood at the counter while Greg was buying tickets I was reading their warnings, I was beginning to think we shouldn’t have had lunch before this.  It’s a 3D movie with the added dimension of moving seats and air blowing in your face.  There was a $7.00 charge for this.  It was pretty neat, but we would have liked for it to be longer – no problem keeping lunch down the seats didn’t move that much.

On the way back home we stopped at our friends, Mike and Sheila’s house to pick up our frozen food.  We really appreciate the help they gave us.  We stored everything in our new coolers.  We’ll be headed back to Gulfport tomorrow so we can get our refrigerator fixed on Monday morning.