Rainbow Plantation, Summerdale, AL

 

We drove a whole 48 miles yesterday to Summerdale, AL and the Escapees Rainbow Plantation, our first time there. It’s a no frills kind of place, parking just on the grass, but they have full hookups and allow you to wash your vehicles. After a month on Pensacola Beach, the car and LD were covered with salt spray, so they desperately needed to be washed.

Today we went to Foley, less than 10 miles from the park, and visited the Railroad Museum. For some reason it was closed this morning, but the Model Railroad Museum in the back was open and running.

It is quite impressive! A group of volunteer train buffs, the Caboose Club, designed and laid out the display over the course of two years. They did an excellent job building this 1950’s “community” around the model trains.

The detail was amazing, like the traveling circus.

 

And a fire being extinguished. It’s definitely worth seeing if you’re in the area, and it’s free.

We also went to the Tanger Outlet Mall, just south of Foley. When we lived in Pensacola we shopped there a couple times a year. It’s a huge mall, and we usually find some good bargains. Spent a total of $44 and each of us got a pair of jeans, I got a pair of shorts, and Jim bought a jacket. Not bad.

Tomorrow we’re planning another short drive to Ocean Springs, MS. It feels good to be back on the road.

The Blues

 

We had a very nice last weekend in Pensacola. Had visits from several friends and coworkers, and Don and Dorothy came down from Montgomery in their Lazy Daze to see the Blue Angels Air Show. They got the site next to ours, so even though we didn’t go out to NAS with them, we got to spend some time catching up.

Our friends Rick and Anne live on the Sound near the Bob Sikes bridge to the beach. They wanted to take their boat out to watch the Blues, and invited us to go with them.

The crew.

It was a beautiful but cool day, and we anchored close to NAS. Of course, not being on the base you don’t get to see the planes close up, but the Blue Angels made several passes over us. Jim was trying to get some pictures but our 18x zoom doesn’t quite get it. Plus being on a rocking boat makes it hard to hold the camera steady.

We weren’t the only ones out there, but it was nothing like the summer boating crowd that comes out for the Pensacola Beach show.

Fat Albert, the Blues support plane. No, he didn’t hit the lighthouse.

The Blues.

 

 

Besides watching the planes, we got to see a bunch of dolphins and pelicans. Anne tried her best Dolphin Whisperer routine, but they wouldn’t come over to the boat.

They are plagued by pelicans on their dock, and it takes some serious hosing to get the huge piles of droppings off.

Today we are making our way west, but only as far as Alabama. We have really enjoyed our stay in the Pensacola area, and want to thank all our friends for sharing their time, homes and meals with us this past month. We’ll try not to stay away so long next time!

Global 1200 and Other Stuff

 

It’s back in port so we finally got a close-up view. That is one huge ship!

We’re hoping the ship will go back out to sea while we’re here and that we won’t miss it this time.

The 3 mile bridge across the bay, connecting Pensacola with Gulf Breeze. You still have to cross the much shorter Bob Sikes Bridge to get to the beach.

We sort of took the day off on Monday to just hang around the beach, go for a bike ride and a walk, and do some things around the rig we’ve been neglecting.

This little guy tried to hitch a ride with me.

 

Yesterday was busy in a good way. We met Gary and Terrie for breakfast at Panera, then visited with our former neighbors Kelly and Cindy (sorry we didn’t get to see the kids, especially Abby).

I even got to play on their rope swing.

Then we went to the Humane Society to see Monie, Jim’s coworker who is now the volunteer coordinator there. She took us on a tour, and at first I wasn’t sure I could stay. When I looked in the cat room and saw several black and white cats, memories of Oreo came flooding back. We adopted both him and Quincy from there years ago. I finally got a grip and just sat on the floor and played and petted all the cats roaming around. They actually have a pretty good life there, and the volunteers and employees treat them well. We felt more sorry for the dogs, since they were all large, like pit bulls, that will most likely never be adopted, although many of them probably have a better environment there than they had in some of the homes they came from. Recently we changed some of the beneficiaries on our investments to Best Fiends Animal Society and the Humane Society of Pensacola. We figure most of our family and friends are financially comfortable anyway, and the animals need our help more.

Last night we met Randy and Sunarree at Laguna’s Grill at the Boardwalk on the beach. We had a great evening of stimulating conversation discussing traveling and trying to solve the world’s problems. Thanks, guys!

Today it’s lunch with Jim’s brother, a phone interview for a possible volunteer job in California, and who knows what else. We need to get out of Pensacola soon so we can rest!

A Walk on the Soundside

 

We have mainly been walking the trail or the Gulf side beach, but the other day we decided to walk along the Sound. There are several paths off the main trail to get to the water. There was a brisk north wind blowing, causing whitecaps in the bay. There are always lots of interesting things to see.

This is one of the biggest jellyfish we’ve ever seen.

For perspective.

We’ve still been busy visiting with friends and eating out too much. Sunday we took Jim’s old recumbent bike back to Mark, much to his dismay. He tried to sell his old bike while we’ve been here but no luck. Good thing, since I couldn’t keep up with him on the recumbent, anyway. Both Jim and Quincy will miss it.

Fort Pickens Tour

 

Although we had both been on tours of Fort Pickens many years ago, the only thing we remembered was that Geronimo had been held prisoner there, so we decided to take one of the guided ranger-led tours offered each afternoon at 2.

The fort was built from 1829-1834 using 21.5 million bricks and slave labor. As you can imagine, brick making was a big industry in Pensacola during that time.

The archwork construction was amazing, with reverse arches under the floor to offer support.

They had this one exposed so we could get a better idea of how it was constructed.

Stalactites from the limestone in the mortar where water has seeped through over time.

Interestingly, no cannon or gunfire took place at Fort Pickens until the Civil War in 1861, one of the few southern forts to remain in Union hands.

 

And yes, Geronimo was housed as a prisoner there in 1886.

It was a great history lesson, and the ranger, Mike, who led the tour did an excellent job. We would highly recommend it.

Another Day At the Beach

 

In addition to sand and water, we’ve seen lots of butterflies.

A copperhead snake. I never saw it until Jim yelled at me to stop. Yikes!

Many different birds.

The Global 1200, a pipe laying vessel that just recently was in the Port of Pensacola for maintenance. This is zoomed out to the max.

 

Shells.

And as always.

Done with Doctors

 

We each had our last doctor’s appointments on Friday, so barring any unforeseen medical emergencies, our next two weeks in Pensacola will be spent visiting friends, doing a few things around the RV, and enjoying the beach.

For those of you not familiar with the Pensacola area, we are actually staying on Santa Rosa Island, a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico. West of the last beach condos it’s about 5 miles to Fort Pickens. Being on such a narrow strip of land, the road frequently gets washed out by hurricanes and tropical storms. In fact, they considered not rebuilding it after Ivan in 2004, but eventually did.

The campground and fort are on the wider part of the island on the lower right. Pensacola NAS is directly across the sound from the west end of the island.

Being back in the area as tourists has been fun and interesting. Friday night we met Jimmy and Paula for pizza and beer downtown at Hopjacks . A few years ago it was never very crowded, but downtown Pensacola has changed for the better and is really hopping, at least on the weekends. We’re glad to see that happening. In fact, considering all the places we’ve been to the past few years, Pensacola is really quite nice. Except for the summer heat, humidity, bugs and hurricanes!

After all the running around we’ve done the past two weeks, we decided to spend the weekend just hanging around the campground. It was very windy, especially on Saturday, so we just took some long walks and experimented with the new camera. There is a nice couple mile trail that goes through the other campground and then on to the fort. Always something to see.

 

This camera has a cool feature where you can pick a color to highlight, which makes the rest of the shot black and white. Out near the fort we saw lots of yellow wildflowers, so Jim picked yellow. The center building is actually red brick. It’s an interesting effect.

Last night we were visiting with Harry and Mary, the Lazy Daze owners from Wyoming. We looked over and saw this.

Then it got even better. What a great way to end the day.

 

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