Florida, Day 7

Our last day in Florida started out early in the morning. Uncle Jim had found out that the Navy Blue Angels were having a practice around 8:30 that morning. Since it took about an hour to get there and park, we had to get up pretty early to get all of us through our morning routines. It was a cloudy day and we weren’t sure if they’d still practice, but we decided to head over anyways.

Sorry, but this is another long post. I had so many great pictures from the Blue Angels that I wanted to include. I’d never seen the Blue Angels in person, but we’ve always watched them on tv when they come to Seattle Seafair every summer. Seafair is a huge fair that last for two weeks (or so) and includes a big parade, the Hydroplane races, and the airshow that includes the Blues. When the Blues come to Seattle, you know that their part of the show is starting when you see Fat Albert flying across Lake Washington. Now for Fat Albert’s close up (on the ground):



Behind me is the list of the pilots:



Aunt Diane and Uncle Jim at the start of the show.



Here’s some of their first flybys:





Now for a close up of Plane #3:



Smokin’:



They started out with 6 planes, but the #6 Plane dropped out. We’re not sure why it dropped though:



I couldn’t decide which one of these three to post, so I’ll post all three. I’m using my zoom lens to take these, the only drawback of this was trying to find the planes all the time and getting my camera to focus on the plane and not the clouds. How close are they!?







Here’s Plane #5:



I still can’t believe how close they fly to each other, even while flying upsidedown:





More flybys:











After this the #5 Plane disappeared and the other 4 planes finished the practice. Flying over us:



After they flew over us, they had to end the show. The clouds were pretty low, so they couldn’t do the rest of the show for us. When they land, they stay in formation and lucky for us, they came right in front of us after landing:







Plane #1:



Plane #2



Plane #3



Plane #4



Planes #1 & 2 in formation:



Planes #3 & 4 in formation:



Close up of the pilot of Plane #4:



All four planes from the back:



We got to take a tour of Fat Albert, so here’s my picture as we get closer to the entrance:



Now here’s the back end of Fat Albert:



Behind the Naval Museum they have a huge hanger (closed to the public) that they use to restore planes that they find. After the Blues show, we were able to stop in the doorway of the hanger to see what they were working on:



I’m guessing that they have the door open at least when the Blues are practicing, because it was roped off and they had a sign that talked about the plane:



As we headed to the van, I spied this plane that people were taking pictures in front of. Aunt Diane took my picture:



After the Blues, we went to another area of the base to see Fort Barrancas:



At the entrance to the visitor center, I saw this beautiful Amarillis:



We had to walk a little bit from the visitor center to the actual fort and I had to stop to take a picture of this cute purple flower:



Here’s the view straight out from the top of Ft. Barrancas:



Towards our left we could see Fort Pickens:



Fort Pickens is actually on Pensacola Beach and the road out there was very badly damaged during the 2004 and 2005 Hurricanes, so it is still closed. Using telephoto, I was able to get a pretty good picture of it. You can still see the cannons on top of the ridge. The Bay is below us and the Gulf of Mexico is on the other side of Fort Pickens:



This is where I was standing to get the pictures and the white area is called the Water Battery and has an underground passage way into the Fort. It was found that the cannons fired from the Battery would skip over the surface of the bay to hit ships at the waterline below. The Water Battery was originally constructed by the Spanish in 1797 and named the Bateria de San Antonio:



Mom (can barely see her with the red shirt on), is standing on the bridge that goes across the moat into Ft. Barrancas:



Now I’m on the bridge crossing the moat. I just have to say that I didn’t get too close to the edge of the bridge:



This is one of the locations for the soldiers to be with their guns:



We didn’t explore all of the passageways, but there were a bunch of school kids that we could hear running around in them all. Look at how thick the inner walls were:



We made our way outside to the top of the fort. At left center, you can barely see the water that we were looking at earlier. In front of us are all of the places that they had cannons:



Uncle Jim (taking Mom and my picture) and Aunt Diane, just coming outside from the inside of the fort:



Aunt Diane (towards the left) and Mom (center in red) as they walk around the Parade Grounds:



After visiting Fort Barrancas, we decided to tour around town. We were leaving in the late afternoon, so we had some time to kill. All growing up, whenever Mom needed pictures of old churches, we’d stop at them and Dad would take a picture. If you’ve taken some of Mom’s classes, you can see a lot of those pictures. To keep up that tradition, I am now taking pictures of old churches for Mom. This one is called Christ Church. It was organized in 1827 and the church building was built in 1832. I think it was moved to this site, but I could be wrong. It is located near a bunch of old buildings that make up the “Old Town.” It has beautiful stained glass windows, but access to the back of the building was blocked and the view through the front windows wasn’t very good:



Pensacola is the only place in the U.S. that could claim that it was under 5 different nations. Just before going across the bridge to Gulf Breeze, they have the 5 flags that represent the 5 nations. I don’t know if the flags are big enough, but can you name the 5 countries?



Answers are: U.S., France, Great Britain, Spain (Castile), and the Confederate States of America.

Next year (2009) Pensacola will be celebrating their 450th Anniversary.

After checking out the town, we headed back to Gulf Breeze to head east to Navarre Beach:



Along the way, we saw some of the destruction from the last hurricane in 2005. This used to be full of trees:



The Gulf of Mexico from Navarre Beach. Part of the pier was destroyed in one of the hurricanes:



My feet in the Gulf of Mexico:



After Hurricane Ivan in 2004, the rules changed for building near the water. I guess if you were flooded, you had to build on stilts. I was amazed at how big some of the houses and buildings they were putting up on stilts. This isn’t the biggest one, but I have to say that there were some big mansions and hotels on stilts. I didn’t get pictures of the bigger houses near my aunt and uncle’s, but this is one out at Navarre Beach:



Water tower at Navarre Beach:



Gulf of Mexico from our drive back to the house:



After packing up, we headed to the airport. The whole time there, I kept trying to get pictures on our drive between Pensacola and their house of the destruction at the Naval Live Oaks National Seashore. On the way to the airport, I was finally able to get some of it:



On our flight home, I got these awesome pictures of the clouds and sunset: