Adventures of Lynn & Dan: Pensacola, Florida

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Yesterday we made the short drive along the coast to Pensacola. Our route took us though Orange Beach and Perdido Key. On the Gulf side there were scads of high rise hotels, condos, and apartments. Some of these were pretty impressive.

Our home is Drifters RV Park, a small 21 site campground. The park looked nice at first, but we quickly discovered that about 18 sites are occupied by full time residents. The guy next to us, and the lots are only about 25 feet wide, runs a Mr. Fix-it service, so the side we see looks like a shop. Camping choices in Pensacola under $50/night are slim, but I guess we should have shopped a little harder.

Today we visited the Naval Air Museum on the Pensacola Naval Air Station which is home to the Blue Angels. You are allowed to watch their practice sessions on certain Tuesdays and some Wednesdays. We knew ahead of time that they are currently out of town until October.

The museum is huge and has a large collection of Naval Aircraft dating from before WWI to the Iraq War. Although the collection is mainly WWI and WWII. A couple of the more interesting things we took part in was a Flight Deck Simulation giving a close up view of the launch and landing of aircraft. Think “Top Gun” here where you are on the deck with the aircraft handling teams. This is dangerous work for all involved, its like watching a choreographed ballet. The simulator added the noise, wind, and smells. Very neat!

The second was a 4D Blue Angels Experience with seat gyrations, vibrations, and awesome close up views of a show. There are about a dozen people on the team, from event planner, to maintenance, to the seven pilots. Five or six actually do the flying, the seventh is the narrator sometimes riding back seat in plane six. Current Aircraft are F/A18 Hornets. There are slightly modified with stiffer controls and smoke instead of armament. There is a selection criteria for all on the team, but team members select the new members. Tenure is 4 years, then they return to normal fleet duty. Obviously the pilots have stiff skill requirements before they can even be a candidate.

Dan learned a couple of new things, like the existence of a rotary aircraft engine. We are familiar with the radial engine, but the rotary has the crankshaft mounted to the aircraft. The cylinders spin with the propeller. No throttle, just on or off. So power was modulated by killing ignition, then turning it on again. Pretty weird.

The second thing was actually related to space. Most Apollo Astronauts were Navy Aviators, not Air Force, so they had a pretty big space display, mainly from Apollo XVII and Gene Cernan. The surprising thing was how big the Lunar Lander was, which they had a mock-up version. From TV it seemed much smaller than real life.

If you are interested in aircraft history and know your planes, this place is for you. Admission is free, but the place is privately owned. They get funding from donations.

Our other stop today is the Pensacola Lighthouse, located across the street from NAS Museum. The lighthouse was first placed in service 1859 and is 150 feet tall.

It uses a 1st order Fresnel lens with visibility of 27 miles. We climbed the 177 steps to the top for a pretty nifty view.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Being the history nuts we are Pensacola has just the place, their historical district. This consists of several museums and historical homes, some of which were moved to this 6 block area. Within the district some homes are privately owned, but there are about eight that you can go through. This place is the bargain of the century folks. It cost 10 bucks for both of us to tour all the open homes and four are docent led. We paid $16 in Mobile for one crummy house that didn’t even have original stuff inside.

The interior furnishings were original and absolutely awesome.

The history of Pensacola is similar to Mobile. It was first settled by the Spanish in the early 1500s. It looked pretty good, deep water port for shipping for goods from South and Central America. Only one problem, hurricanes. They got a big one shortly after settling here and blew away the buildings, ships, and a bunch of the residents. So they left. Then came the French, then the British. The US finally got it as part of the Louisiana Purchase. They were a Confederate State during the Civil War. We still don’t have it all sorted out.

In the 1700s the working class had small 2 or 3 room homes. The kitchen was outside, and it was shared by 3 or 4 families. The same with the privies. They rarely, if ever bathed. The following shows this community setting.

The little building at the end was the kitchen. The home on the left was a residence for two families. Today they were making candles, not from wax, but from animal tallow. When these were lit, it smelled like standing outside a Burger King, whew!

We spent most of the day here, and it was worth it. Before returning “home”, we heard about the Portofino Boardwalk in Pensacola Beach, so we checked it out. Two things; its unique and you need to be about 40 years younger to dig it. It is mostly restaurants and bars, with a few stores. Some interesting, others junk shops.