Gulf Island beach

Monday evening just before sunset.  The sky was cloudy all day.

Flying Sponge Bob today, winds are not as good as Sunday.

My kite is on the far right.

We enjoyed our time on Gulf Island but tomorrow we must move on to Georgia.  

Monday

Monday the morning was cloudy and windy so we decided venture into Pensacola to the Naval Aviation Museum.  We walked around looked at planes and took a tour of the flight line.  Matt wanted to take a ride in the flight simulator and convinced me to ride along.  We were put in this little pod and Matt was able to control the 3D flight and the pod moves as he controls it.  He did barrel roles, loops, and at several points we were hanging upside down.  I did a lot of screaming.  When we started the ride no one was around, but when they opened the pod we had an audience.  They said it sounded like I was having fun.  Later I was paying the bill at the cafe and this man asked me if I had recovered from my flight?  LOL!

On our way back to the campsite we stopped at Joe Patti which is a seafood  and gourmet market.  They had a huge counter of fresh seafood to by and all kinds of gourmet goodies.  We bought four mini quarter sized crab cakes and ate them with dinner, they were Delicious   

Random pics

This is one of the bridges leading to Pensacola Beach it is over 3 miles.
Below is the road on Gulf Island N. S. you can see the white sand, it looked like snow banks on the side of the road.

Interesting sign in downtown Pensacola Beach

This is a Walmart marketplace, it is only a grocery store.

These ice machines are everywhere.  Look carefully on the left hand side, do you see the silver chute   You pay money and the ice comes out the chute.

Funny sign

Sunday night

Sunday evening Matt started early cooking our gourmet dinner.  We had tortellini with mushroom Alfredo sauce and bean with peppers and onions.

That is the cheese and sausage before dinner.  Doesn't he look happy?

We also had toast with pesto sauce.  Mmm isn't he a great cook?

We had another fire and roasted marshmallows, sorry Em no smores.  That night unfortunately the patch on the mattress did not hold, but Matt saved the day by utilizing plan B.  He bought a new mattress at the Walmart, so he whipped it out and inflated it, crisis fixed.

                                               Enjoy the beach from home.

Gulf Island

Saturday night we spent our first night on Gulf Island National Seashore, you can see our campsite above.  About two hours after we went to bed we discovered our air mattress was deflated.  Oh no, its a hole!  So we ended up moving into the car for the night.  It is not comfortable to sleep on rocks and roots.  In the morning Matt found the hole and patched it, so we are hoping for a better night tonight.

The beach is a short walk from our campsite.  The tempature is in the mid 60s with light winds.  The sand is not hot, it actually is cool and easy to walk around on.

It was great weather for kite flying.  Can you spy my kite?

In the afternoon we took a walk on a trail through marsh land, we snapped a picture of these three birds hanging out together.

Observation Wheel

So on Saturday we headed off east out of Alabama to the beach front town of Pensacola Florida   First we drove to the Gulf Island National Seashore and set up camp at the campground.  That evening we drove 8 miles into the town of Pensacola Beach to see the sights.  The first activity was to ride the 360 Wheel of Excellence which they describe as an observation wheel.  This wheel is 200 feet tall and is the largest portable wheel in the world.  It has over 1 million white Led lights outlining the wheel and each of the 42 gondolas.  It was an exciting trip.

The gondolas

Look its Rachel!

After our ride we decided to eat dinner at Shaggy's restaurant.  This is a picture of fried eggplant with shrimp and crawfish sauce.  It was yummy.