Friday 11/26/2010. We had people over yesterday for Thanksgiving dinner and they left about 10 pm. So we had to rush a bit to get ourselves ready for today’s trip. I dropped Anne off at the South Amboy Train station, then drove back to our house, and then walked back to the station. I was quite sweaty by the time I was done, even though it was a rather cool morning. From door to security took about 90 minutes, a bit longer than I expected. Security at the airport was easy, no X-ray machine was in sight or in use, and the lines were remarkably short. All the fears of a busy travel day didn’t materialize.
We got upgraded to first class on the EWR-TPA flight, so got free Direct TV and a free light lunch, which is great. The wait at TPA was a bit long at about 2 ½ hours. Good thing they have free WiFi and restaurants on the air side. The TPA-PNS flight was called for early departure (!) and we did leave about 30 minutes before scheduled departure. It was quite easy to round up the 5 passengers. The Beechcraft 90 could sit 15 or so, and we had two pilots. I haven’t been on one of the turboprops for a while, so it felt a bit noisy. Good thing turbulence was a minimum. The 90 minute flight was quite uneventful. The PNS airport looked more crowded than TPA.
Our hotel SpringHill Suites isn’t as nice as I had hoped. We got upgraded to a “ocean and pool” view room, but you have to stand by the window to see the ocean. Let’s hope it’s better during the day. (It turns out we didn't spend a lot of time in the room during the day anyway.)
On the balcony of the hotel room.
Hotel as seen from the Beach.
And it is a cold evening. With a stiff wind blowing, it felt like New Jersey. Forecast calls for improvement over the next several days.
Saturday 11/27/2010. Drove to Ft. Pickens. Then along Santa Rosa Island to Navarre Beach, Navarre, and Destin. Santa Rosa Island at 40 miles or so is the longest barrier island. Many high rises, but looked quite quiet. Fishing pier at Navarre Beach – Cow Rays were being caught. Late lunch KFC buffet at $5 each. Dinner was sushi and potato salad bought at Walmart and eaten in hotel room. A full day: left around 10 am, got back after 6 pm.
Heron outside entrance to Fort Pickens. We didn't get to see that many birds on this trip.
Looking at Pensacola Beach from Fort Pickens. The sand is white. There are multiple theories as to how the barrier islands were formed.
Cow Rays swimming leisurely at Navarre Beach. There were fishermen trying to hook them, and we saw one got caught.
Sunday 11/28/2010. We first visited the Pensacola Visitor Center to check out bird watching locations. We then stopped by KFC (again!) but had only light meals this time. After purchasing a pair of binoculars from Walmart, we went to our first site: Big Lagoon State Park. This must be off season as all we saw were a blue heron and a couple of egrets. The place was very quiet. We then drove across Perdido Key which is shared by Florida and Alabama, ending at Fort Morgan. Quite a few high rises – most barely occupied – along the way. Houses are all on tall stilts, I guess both to have a view of the ocean and to avoid flooding during storms. Waited about half an hour for the ferry to Dauphin Island: a 30 minute ride on a boat that can take 25 or so cars. Many rigs in the water, this area is one of the high natural gas producers. The water is quite shallow (11 feet per poster) but the gas fields are 20,000 ft deep. It is evening by the time we got to the other side, and we drove in the dark to Mobile. Couldn’t see anything at night, but we visited the state for the first time! And crossed many bridges, this being “bayou” country. Dinner at Outback’s in Pensacola. It was about 8 pm when we got back to the hotel.
Fort Morgan, LA to Dauphin Island Ferry Terminal. Notice the oil rig (natural gas, actually) in the Bay. Our camera's battery ran out at this point.
This area was threatened with the BP oil spill. We saw miles and miles of beaches, there are tar balls here and there, but they don’t detract from the overall beauty. There is a lot of clean up activity involving scooping up the sand, sifting out the oil (not sure exactly how that’s done) and then returning the cleaned sand to the beach. We saw some “before” and “after” stretches right outside our hotel and frankly couldn’t tell the difference. The claim is the oil is somehow buried in the sand – in which case do we really care? Also, there are a lot of safety officers asking beach-goers to be careful, to the point that the make crossing guards downright careless in comparison. Makes you wonder if that’s the best way to spend the $20B or so (or whatever fraction thereof) set aside for the cleanup.
Signs of Oil Spill are posted throughout the area. They are more conspicuous than the spill itself.
A stretch of Beach with quite a number of tar balls on it.
Beach cleanup in progress.
Meanwhile many businesses are closed because of the drop in number of tourists. They are many posters out telling people where to make claims for economic damage.
Monday 11/29/2010. First stop was Naval Live Oaks Station where we saw an interesting introductory film that talked about the barrier islands, how oak trees were used in ship-building, and the forts in the area. The guns in the Forts were never used to defend the USA from other countries, but shot at each other during the civil war. Drove across the Garcon Point Bridge which is very long, sparsely used, and cost $3.50. Went on a bird watching trail and saw a few small birds – couldn’t identify them. We then drove to Milton and visited the Blackwater River State Park. The river has banks of white sand, is quite shallow but flows rather rapidly at 3 miles or so per hour. Didn’t do much walking as it started to rain. Late lunch at Shrimp Basket in Milton. Headed back to the hotel after that: it was about 4 pm when we got back to our room.
Naval Live Oak with Spanish moss. It takes acres of this to generate enough wood for a battleship.
Blackwater River in Milton.
We wanted to have a “light” dinner so we drove to a Whataburger place in Pensacola. There are quite a few of them in the area, yet I don’t recall seeing one anywhere else in Florida. The burger was okay, but nothing special.
It was quite a bit warmer today, but the sky was overcast most of the time. We ran into a few showers, and there was a stretch of heavy thunderstorm while we were driving.
Tuesday 11/30/2010. Mostly overcast today, and rainy. We drove back to the Fort Pickens area, today there were quite a few pelicans and other shore birds. While at the Fort we decided to drive to the Pensacola Lighthouse, which is less than two miles away as the crow flies. To drive there would take over half an hour, and involve going through a check point as the lighthouse is on Naval grounds. We didn’t go into the lighthouse as the weather was quite ominous, we wouldn’t know what to do if we got caught in a thunderstorm. There was also a Naval Air Museum which seems to be quite popular with the large number of cars in the parking lot. Afterwards we decided to call it a day and had lunch (at about 2 pm) at a Siam “diner” close by the airport. The 3-variety combination was freshly prepared, and cost only $8 or so.
Pensacola Lighthouse up close. We didn't go because it was threatening to rain, with lightning in the area.
We were booked on the 6:30 pm PNS-Houston flight, and couldn’t get on the 3 pm flight. Many flights at PNS were canceled or severely delayed because of thunderstorms east of the area. Our flight left on time, but we had to rush from the commuter terminal in Houston to the main terminal, with a few minutes to spare. The plane was late getting into Newark, the luggage (which we had to check because we boarded too late) took a while to find its way to the carousel, and the taxi line though not long moved very slowly. We got home at about 2:30 am.
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