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.

A couple other shots of Pensacola Beach.

The left is a surfer statue at the public beach access; the second is their beach ball landmark.

Tomorrow we head to Panama City to St. Andrews State Park.  There is no WiFi, so next post likely Tuesday.  Hope you’re enjoying the ride, we are!!

Life’s A Beach!

Monday, September 22, 2014

Yesterday we left Mobile for the fairly short drive to Gulf Shores.  We took AL98 alt along the east side of Mobile Bay.  It was a nice, scenic drive as we passed through Daphne, Fairhope, Point Clear and Barnwell.  There are some big classy homes as well as lots of vacation rental properties.  It seemed like a nice area for a winter stay.

Our destination was Gulf State Park.  This a huge park; over 500 campsites, but was mostly empty.  This is an off season here.  Our campsite was located on Middle Lake, but inaccessible due to a marshy shore line and this!  What?  Really?!!!

So far we haven’t seen any gators, but we use a flashlight if we venture outside after dark. 

Our objective was to wet our toes in the Gulf and today we did just that.

The sand is very fine, very white and very nice.

We did a “selfie” too!

It was great fun playing in the waves.  The Gulf was close to 80 degrees, a surprise to us.  We will have many more opportunities to play in the Gulf in upcoming weeks.  The park also has a pool and some trails which we also took advantage of.  A couple pixs from the trail.

Something else we having trouble getting used to is the size of the bugs around here, like 1 1/2” grasshoppers, then there are these,

The one on the left is like a night crawler with legs, its called a worm lizard. We think the spider is a Golden Silk Spider, the body is about 1 inch across.  A little Alabama wildlife.

Tomorrow we head for Pensacola for a couple days.

Mobile, Alabama

Thursday, September 18, 2014

The next stop in our travels is Mobile, Alabama.  We are planning to spend three days here.  Today we went downtown to catch some of the sites.  Mobile has a lot of history.  It was settled by the French in 1702.  As with all early settlements, the first thing done was a fort.  Fort Conde’ was built between 1723 and 1735 to defend Mobile from British and Spanish attack.

As a result of the French losing the French and Indian war to the British, Mobile came under British rule in 1763 as part of The Treaty of Paris and became part of British West Florida.  Fort Conde’ was renamed Fort Charlotte.

Now in 1780, the Spanish wanted to expand their territory east of the Mississippi River, so since the British were preoccupied with the American Revolution, they captured Fort Charlotte with an army of 1000 men.

The US then took it over during the War of 1812.  The fort was renamed back to Fort Conde’.  So if you’re keeping track, that’s 4 flags in a little over 100 years.  The fifth flag was the Confederate flag during the Civil War and finally the US flag again after the Civil War.

Each of these periods had a significant affect on what Mobile is today.   The visitors center occupies a reconstructed Fort Conde’ which lies at the I-10 entrance to the tunnel under Mobile Bay.  It is 4/5 scale to fit on current real estate.  The fort is shaped like a seven pointed star with bastions at 4 corners.

 

Next stop was the Phoenix Volunteer Fire Station Museum which housed fire fighting equipment used in the 1800 and 1900s.  Probably the coolest thing in there were two horse drawn steam pumper wagons.

 

 

 

 

 

It was interesting to learn that back in the early 1900s, when people began to buy insurance for their home or business, mainly fire insurance, they were given a fire mark; a placard, that was mounted prominently on the building.  Insurance companies would pay the fire department a bonus if they got the fire out quickly.  Firefighters might even watch it burn down if it did not have a fire mark.

Mobile has many homes dating back to late 1800 to early 1900.  They have a definite French look.  It reminded us of New Orleans.

Our last stop of interest was a collection of bronze statues in Geri Moulton Children’s Park.  The Park is adjacent to Children’s Hospital.  The statues are dedicated to various individuals and children, by people and businesses in the local area.

 

There were over 50 statues sculpted by 3 or 4 different artists.  Each statue depicted children in a favorite activity and had a plaque identifying the artist and donors.  The ones with multiple colors were our favorites.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Today’s planned adventure takes us to Bellingrath House and Gardens.  It is a 65 acre estate located about 30 miles south of Mobile. George Bellingrath made his money bottling and selling Coca-Cola.  He owned a franchise for Mobile.  He bought the syrup, added sugar, and water (presumably carbonated) and bottled it.  At this time Coke was only sold at soda fountains, so the bottling and his delivery of the product made it available to just about anyone.  He was a one-man operation for quite some time.

How much Coke did George sell?  Well he got an award from Coca-Cola for buying 500,000 gallons of syrup.  Each bottle uses 1 ounce of syrup, so each gallon of syrup makes 128 bottles, you do the math. His operation also had a bottle washing and sterilization process which was key to the volumes of Coke he sold.  He would bottle in the morning, deliver in the afternoon.

The Gardens came before the House in 1932, as a place to “chill out”, which George and his wife, Bessie did.  We have been to a few gardens, this one rates up there with the best.  Most plants here are tropical, so we do not see them at home. 

There were several fountains in the garden.  The place sits on several artesian wells that they incorporated into ponds and fountains.  Most of these operate off the springs and have no pumps.

 

There were also a couple of small lakes within the garden.

The 15 room house was completed a few years after the garden replacing a cottage originally used for only weekends.  The Bellingraths moved into the house in 1936.

The inside of the house and its furnishings were beautiful, but no pictures were allowed.  The furnishings were collected from around the world by Mrs. Bellingrath.  As the tour guide said, “She had a black belt in shopping and had the funds to use it”.  She also amassed a huge collection of porcelain.  There was an original Tiffany lamp in one of rooms.

The house and grounds are maintained through a trust fund setup by George shortly before his death.

Our next stop today was Dauphin Island, a small barrier island at the southwestern end of Mobile Bay.  At the end is a ferry that will transport you across the bay to Gulf Shores.  We are headed to Gulf Shores on Sunday, but not via ferry.  The drive gave us our first look at the Gulf of Mexico.

We visited the Estuarium and Fort Gaines.  We found both a bit boring.  Guess we have seen too many aquariums and forts.  Fort Gaines saw action mainly in the Civil War.  Fort Gaines and Fort Morgan, on the other side of the bay, were key Union targets to complete a Confederate embargo of southern ports.  The Battle of Mobile Bay lasted about 4 days in August of 1864.

  

The ferry is the vessel to the left.  The vessel behind it is a tender for the gas drilling rigs out in the distance.

Saturday, September 20, 2014

This was our final day in Mobile and we had a couple of things on our list to see; the USS Alabama and the Mobile Carnival (Mardi Gras) Museum.  Well actually the Alabama was on Dan’s list, but Lynn agreed to keep him company.

The USS Alabama is part of a collection at Battleship Park, along with the USS Drum, a submarine, and about 25 aircraft.  The USS Alabama is a South Dakota Class battleship, meaning it was in a design group of 4 such battleships; South Dakota, Massachusetts, Indiana, and Alabama.  These ships were fast battleships and were often used to escort Aircraft Carriers.

  

We saw the Missouri in Hawaii, so in comparing, the Alabama is shorter and slower that the Mo.  It had a crew of 2500 in wartime and made 28 knots.  The amazing thing is that it was in service only 5 years, from 1942 until she was decommissioned in 1947 as part of the US military downsizing.  We found that to be the case with most WWII ships.  Geez.. they burned tax dollars even back then.

It was interesting to see how manpower intense the operation of this ship was.  Just manning those big deck cannons, 16”, took 79 men per turret, along with about 10 guys controlling the firing.  To load these bad boys required three powder bags and the projectile, which stood nearly 4ft when on end and weighed over 2000 lbs each.  We never learned how it actually lit off the powder to fire it, although it may have been electrical as there was a copper sheet in one end.

The USS Drum, a submarine of the Gatto Class is the oldest in existence. It was commissioned in 1941 and saw quite a bit of service in WWII.  It is powered by 4 Fairbanks diesels when running on the surface.

         

It used batteries when submerged making 5 knots.  The following shots are from inside.  If you are claustrophobic this would not be for you.

 

This is the forward torpedo room.

     Main companion way

Our next stop was the Mobile Mardi Gras Museum.  Did you know Mardi Gras started in Mobile shortly after the Civil War?  New Orleans is bigger, but the tradition, and there is lots, originates from Mobile.

It is celebrated for almost 3 weeks prior to “Fat Tuesday”.  It is the last hurrah before Lent, but it was made clear it is not a religious celebration.  The tradition involves a coronation of a white and black king and queen, 75 or more parades, and parties of thousands of people.  There is too much to it to detail here and we aren’t sure we understand it, but it cost millions to put this party on.

The trains worn by the King and Queen, shown here cost thousands to make and weigh in excess of 100 pounds.  There were many examples in of these in the museum.  The next shot is a typical dinner setting for the King and Queen.

Then there are the floats used in the parades.  With 75 parades there are hundreds of floats, many are built new each year because the theme changes every year.  That part is also a story onto itself.

 

This museum was by far the most interesting place we visited in Mobile. 

The weather the last couple of days has been fantastic, sunny, upper 80s, and unusually low humidity.  We hope it lasts as we head to Gulf Shores tomorrow.