Pensacola, FL

After our time in St. Augustine came a big jaunt west, to Pensacola.  It felt good to head toward what we consider our home: the west.  We have so enjoyed our months in the eastern states, but the Catos are all feeling the itch to be nearer to friends and family.  We also miss the wide-open spaces that the western states offer.  Driving to Pensacola felt like turning a page in the book.

As much as we enjoyed our stay in Pensacola, I sure did a terrible job of documenting it!  Uploading photos for this post, I realized that I only took my camera with us for two outings.

Our favorite stop in Pensacola was to the National Naval Aviation Museum.  This was so cool!  We spent a few hours touring the museum, learning about flight and the Navy. 

This was quite a sobering interactive display.  They had video playing where POW's recounted their time in captivity, as well as photos of their poor treatment.  I'm glad they included it, because it's easy to tour a place like this and enjoy the big planes and not consider the humanity in it all.  Why these planes are made and what they are used for.  How people's lives are affected when they are needed.  It's just hard to watch.

Pensacola, Florida is home to the Blue Angels.  They are on hiatus right now, so we weren't able to see them but I plan to keep tabs on their touring schedule.  Hopefully one of their shows will line up with our future travels.

While Jackson and I did a flight simulation, Jeff and the girls checked out the cockpit in a few planes.  

We didn't get a photo of the simulator but let me tell you, that was quite the ride!  They asked me to secure my glasses with a strap, which maybe should have been my first clue that it was going to be a bumpy ride!  I had the controls for the first half, then Jackson took over.  That's when things got interesting!  He kept shouting, "And another barrel roll!"  I braced myself as he looped us again and again through the simulated sky.  He was cackling like a wild man, so pleased with himself.  I was like, "Ha ha, okay, that's enough now."  Lol.  Jeff said he is glad that I went with Jackson because nobody else could have stomached so much lurching and rolling.  Ah, motherhood.

On another day off, we drove south to Perdido Key Beach.  I read that this beach had a lot of neat seashells, and it did!  We found some beautiful, tiny shells, as well as a few other neat things.  We thought these colorful homes were kind of cool, too.

The beachfront condos in Florida are ridiculous!  I can't believe how many of them there are, just stacked up on top of one another.  Jeff and I were talking about how we could see the appeal, waking up and stepping out onto your own private section of the beach.

In addition to shells, we also saw two of these Portuguese man o' war jellyfish.  I've only ever seen colorless jellyfish in Oregon, so this was really cool.  One of them was still alive and moving, though, and we felt bad for him.

Also while in Pensacola, Jackson turned 12!  He was so excited for his birthday, and picked out this store bought cake for his dessert.  We don't normally do grocery store baked goods, but this cake from Publix was very good!  Even Jeff, who doesn't like cake, was impressed.  I wish we had Publix stores in the west.  We really loved the higher quality foods they sell in their deli and bakery.

And then it was finally time to end the Florida leg of our trip!  We spent an overnight in Louisiana and then pushed forward to our first location in Texas.  We've been here for a week and really love most everything about this area!  The only discouragement has been the amount of rain we had this week.  The park we are staying at turns into a mud pit when it rains, which makes walking the dogs a challenge.  But I guess no place is perfect, and we are enjoying the beauty of Texas and the warm friendliness of the people.  We are looking forward to the rest of our trip here.  

All right, now you're caught up on our travels.  We have two more stops in Texas and the kids are counting down the clock until our next trip to a Six Flags location.  They have been on the app, looking through the rides at the Fiesta Texas park, deciding which ones they want to do first.  Bring on the ginger capsules!