Fort Pickens/Pensacola/National Seashore

 Fort Pickens National Seashore Campground; near Pensacola, Florida

We'll see if I can get pictures posted or not. My confidence level is about 75% (hint, hint, I've finished the post and it does include picture).

Today is day 3 of 5 here at Fort Pickens. It's been on my list of future campgrounds for a while now. It's a National Seashore Campground which means my Senior Pass gets me 50% off on campsites. I actually had reservations for this campground back in the fall of 2023 but canceled them because my air conditioner went out and I needed to get it replaced. At that time, I said, "everything happens for a reason and for some reason I wasn't meant to camp here at that time". Well, I'm here now.

 

Travel Picture. Interstate 10 somewhere between Biloxi and Pensacola.

This is from the road on the barrier island headed to the campground. Sand on both sides with a warning sign that I didn't fully read about some animal hatching and to stay on the road. 

The white sands of Florida beaches and the Gulf in the background.

Entering the Gulf Islands National Seashore, Fort Pickens area.

Campsite C-1. Electric/water for $20 per night with senior pass.

The campground is usually hard to get reservations, but it's still early in the season, so I got lucky. Also, it is an old campground with smaller campsite pads which limits it to smaller rigs, like Liberty. They have a strict requirement that all tires, RV and tow vehicle, must be on pavement. Freedom and Liberty just barely made it. I would have been too large with my old fifth wheel. The beach and Gulf of America are about 1/4 mile from my campsite. I haven't made that walk yet but plan to today. On day one, after getting camp set up, I drove around and got the lay of the land. There is an interesting old fort worthy of exploring which will probably be tomorrow's exploration. 

My verizon signal is on again/off again. I've run across this before and assume I'm real close to being in the exact middle between two cell towers. One second I have a very strong signal and the next only one-bar. It's frustrating. The good news is Starlink has a blazingly fast signal. It's as fast has changing channels on cable TV. That blazing speed was a problem at first. It seems this new laptop came with something called One Drive which backs up files to the Microsoft Cloud. That sounds like a good idea, if I had known it was doing it. I had already transferred all 15 years of my pictures from flash drives to this new laptop. Unknown to me, One Drive was uploading them to the cloud. Due to the blazing speed, by the time I noticed what was happening, I had already blew through about 35 GB of data. Luckily I caught it before it uploaded all of them which would have been about 180 GB's. Oh well, although it will cost me a little, it was a lesson learned. 

Yesterday, I drove about 45 minutes to Pensacola Naval Air Station to see their museum. The museum is extremely massive in size and information. I think it is impossible to absorb so much in only one day, but I will not be back on this trip. I've been to aviation museums before but this one tops them all. I would rank it 8 out of 10. The one drawback for me was there wasn't a natural flow to museum. A person could easily get lost or miss seeing something due to the strange layout. Oh well, it was nice having a positive experience at a museum for a change. 

The entrance to the National Naval Aviation Museum is deception. Such a small entry point for something so large inside. 

This picture doesn't represent anything special, it is just showing a small part of the museum, a very small part.

This exhibit sparked my interest the most. I had not heard of this plane or what it had done. It is a Navy NC-4 and it flew across the Atlantic Ocean 8 years before Charles Lindbergh. I understand Lindbergh did it solo and non-stop, but for some reason I was led to believe he was the first "to cross" the Atlantic. It's not the only item of my childhood education that sort of led me in a different direction. Our children are different now a days, if they want additional information that can easily google it and find all they want.  

I guess I need to publish this post "WITH PICTURES" so I can walk to the beach and check it out. The problem of the day is what shoes do I wear? Hmmmm, walking shoes to get to the beach and then change into sandals/swim shoes to walk through the loose sand and then along the beach before changing back to walking shoes. Going barefoot just ain't gonna cut it for me, maybe once on the beach, but not getting there. Decisions, decision.  I guess I'll carry a walmart bag for the shoes. Surely no one will laugh, at least not to where I can hear them. But hey, I don't know anyone around here so I can do anything I want, as long as it's legal.

Ya'll take care of each other. Maybe I'll Cya down the road.