We remember

Today is the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor so we hiked Santa Rosa Island to it's far western end. Fort Pickens sits at the far end of the island less than a mile across the bay from the Naval Museum and base we visited the day before. Fort Pickens is the largest of four forts built to defend Pensacola Bay, Florida, and its navy yard. The fort was built in 1834, and was named in honor of Major General Andrew Pickens of the South Carolina militia, who fought with distinction in several Revolutionary War battles.

During our visit we watched several fighters in tight formation flying above the base across the bay. These were not the Blue Angles even though they are housed at the base but, I'm sure it was in honor of this day.

National Naval Aviation Museum

On our way to Gulf Island National Sea Shore in Florida we made a stop at the National Naval Aviation Museum located in the Pensacola Naval Air Station. The Museum is free and we took two tours, one trolley ride through the field and hanger where they restore old planes and a walking tour of the museum itself. Both tours were conducted by volunteers that were former pilots and well worth the time. The museum is so full of planes that I wouldn't know where to start but the tour guide did a great job of filling in much of the detail on almost every plane. One of the first planes we passed was a Sopwith Camel. Most civilians know this plane as the one that Snoopy flew when chasing the Red Baron. The plan was used during WW1 and a note of special interest is the engine turns with the propeller. This made the plane very difficult to turn. It also had the guns mounted directly behind the propeller. Need I say, this was problematic.

Armadillo visitor

For the first time in our travels east, we found a live Armadillo just outside our rig this morning. The little guy let me get very close before dashing into the bushes near our site. I'm sure that Blue has been watching him at night as he searches for bugs.

In our walk on the beach today, we found two tar pattys. The rest of the beach was clean and beautiful. I noticed that while we walked the sands along the white beach I could hear a sound that I've heard in the past while walking on Madeline Island in Lake Superior. There is a beach on the island that has what they call singing sand. Today I stopped and moved my hand back and forth through the sand and it sang! Just like the sands on Madeline.

Nothing says Christmas like a Bud

Gulf Shores lives on tourism and the only place we found people in numbers. Christmas is getting in high gear with camels for the nativity scene and Budweiser horses pulling beer wagons in the local parade.

We continued to enjoy the local shrimp before we left Ocean Springs.

The Alabama Gulf and tar ball clean up

We walked the beaches and found nothing but clean white sand, as far as the eye can see with almost no people. We did drive by teams that are cleaning the beaches of tar balls in the more remote locations. They keep a low profile but I'm not sure it matters, unfortunately, the Gulf Shores area is empty. You can't help but feel for the local people as the losses are huge and it is so beautiful here.