Pensacola Beach, Florida
November 17, 2007
Comfort Inn Wifi occupied us for some time this morning after leaving the Walmart. A short distance down the road we found the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Our trip to the visitor center was fun. Kathy pulled on pulleys showing how different woods weigh; the two-foot square block of life oak was the heaviest thus good for early ship building. The orientation film, a movie of still pictures showing the mainland, ocean, barrier islands, bayou and all that goes on between and amongst them gave us one new piece of information: waves come in every 12 seconds! We will have to time them. We did pick up on a little history. It was in the early 1500s tha early Europeans visited the northern Gulf of Mexico. They found American Indians settlements thriving. There was a long stuggle for the control of this region between Spanish, French and English. Eventually, Florida and Mississippi joined the United States. In 1825 the US government began to develop Pensacola as a naval base. The national seashore was established in 1971. We drove through the old live oak farm of days gone by (The big ones were cut for the shipping industries. only to find small struggling trees and saw palmetto, a palm leaved plant that grows close to the ground.
We drove another short distance across Pensacola Bay Bridge to Pensacola Beach. We walked on the white porous sands and found sand dollar pieces everywhere, but non complete. A little Fiddler crab scampered to its hole in the sand. It was quiet and cool. Mostly young people were on the beach playing games, sunning and chatting as college or military young people do when together at such a fine place. We walked the shore with the water rushing in. Yep, waves come in about every 12 seconds! The dunes of white sand, like snow that is dry, are mostly quartz with lots of seashells and sand dollar remains mixed in.
Up the beach we found a parking area where we made dinner, roasted chicken severed with celery filled stuffing. We watched the sunset fill the sky with rose colors and walked out to the edge of the water feeling the breeze and darkness fill around us. Planets could be seen, a few stars and a crescent moon. We drove a short distance to West Pensacola Wal-Mart where we watched Brad Pitt and Robert Redford in Spy Games.
Comfort Inn Wifi occupied us for some time this morning after leaving the Walmart. A short distance down the road we found the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Our trip to the visitor center was fun. Kathy pulled on pulleys showing how different woods weigh; the two-foot square block of life oak was the heaviest thus good for early ship building. The orientation film, a movie of still pictures showing the mainland, ocean, barrier islands, bayou and all that goes on between and amongst them gave us one new piece of information: waves come in every 12 seconds! We will have to time them. We did pick up on a little history. It was in the early 1500s tha early Europeans visited the northern Gulf of Mexico. They found American Indians settlements thriving. There was a long stuggle for the control of this region between Spanish, French and English. Eventually, Florida and Mississippi joined the United States. In 1825 the US government began to develop Pensacola as a naval base. The national seashore was established in 1971. We drove through the old live oak farm of days gone by (The big ones were cut for the shipping industries. only to find small struggling trees and saw palmetto, a palm leaved plant that grows close to the ground.We drove another short distance across Pensacola Bay Bridge to Pensacola Beach. We walked on the white porous sands and found sand dollar pieces everywhere, but non complete. A little Fiddler crab scampered to its hole in the sand. It was quiet and cool. Mostly young people were on the beach playing games, sunning and chatting as college or military young people do when together at such a fine place. We walked the shore with the water rushing in. Yep, waves come in about every 12 seconds! The dunes of white sand, like snow that is dry, are mostly quartz with lots of seashells and sand dollar remains mixed in.
Up the beach we found a parking area where we made dinner, roasted chicken severed with celery filled stuffing. We watched the sunset fill the sky with rose colors and walked out to the edge of the water feeling the breeze and darkness fill around us. Planets could be seen, a few stars and a crescent moon. We drove a short distance to West Pensacola Wal-Mart where we watched Brad Pitt and Robert Redford in Spy Games.
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