It's a wanderful life, so it is

Back in 2018, we visited the Naval Air Station museum in Pensacola and watched the Blue Angels flight demonstration team show off their skills. We enjoyed it so much we were going to repeat the experience but security has tightened since then and non-US citizens can no longer access the base as easily. Not to be deterred, we jumped on a boat that takes people into the bay to watch them. It was well worth it and they even patched in to one of the pilot’s radios so you could hear him talk during the show. An awful lot of that was him saying very, very slowly, “Nooooooooow puuuuuuullllll” and the rest didn’t mean much to us but we still felt close to the action.

The USS Alabama is an historic Naval destroyer that is now parked up in Mobile, Alabama, some 50 miles away from Pensacola. Along with its rich naval history, it was also the ship used in the 1992 film Under Siege starring Steven Seagal. A very corny action film, but one of our favourite go-to movies, so that enticement made it a bit more fun. We hired a car to get to Mobile and they upgraded us to a bright red Chevy Camara sports car. Such fun! The ship has 3 self-guided tours onboard that are supposed to take half an hour each but we’re such geeks that we took over 3 hours to see everything. A great day out.

Florida has some dangerous wildlife and there are helpful signs to remind you of this. Not an experience we crave, so we made sure to always keep our distance!

There are also some nicer creatures nearby. We saw 2 dolphins frolicking in the bay as we walked through a park. One caught an enormous fish and swam happily with it in its mouth, showing off, but we didn’t capture that bit on film.

There were some great pubs and restaurants in Pensacola and since everything is in walking distance, you don’t need to worry about driving home. Not that that seemed to deter the locals. We had Sunday brunch at a local Blues restaurant, The 5 Sisters. The brunch was accompanied by live music, although the music selection was more Yacht Rock than Blues, but entertaining nonetheless.

It’s a musical area. Just a few streets from us is Jim Morrison’s family home. Yes, the Lizard King from The Doors grew up only a few steets away and his dad learned to fly combat aircraft at the Naval Airbase. Don Shirley, the pianist who was the inspiration for the film Green Book, was also born here. After watching it, I remember looking through a 1960’s edition of the book from which the film’s title was taken and thinking about how necessary it must have been at the time. And how barbaric that is.

Our local Irish Bar bent over backwards trying to get a feed of the mighty Celtic for us, but no luck. We had to watch it from our apartment. That bar did, however, introduce us to the concept of Fireball shots in our Angry Orchards. Tasty but lethal, so we limited them to our final drinks of each visit.

Another favourite meal was lunch at Peg Leg Pete’s down on the beach. Mhairi and Niall shared a feast of shrimp, lobsters and crab legs.

Yet another hurricane struck Florida while we were there but, thankfully, it once again missed us completely. The storm did bring huge waves to Pensacola and we had a ball with Niall trying, often unsuccessfully, to stand up against them.

It’s a change of pace for us next, as we head north to Richmond, Virginia and a big city with cement and history. Our favourites! 😁