Naval Aviation Museum

Sunday, May 22 - Our campsite here at the Gulf State Park is really nice; it's right on Middle Lake, which has a canal leading out to the Gulf.  We've seen lots of seabirds, but no alligators.

On our way to Pensacola, we passed this guy who was really all set up for fishing.

We found our way to the Naval Air Museum, home of the Blue Angels.  The Blue Angels were doing an air show in Virginia this weekend, so we didn't see any of them, but they do hold practices on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, which are open to the public.  Right inside the museum was a really nice statute representing the 5 wars we've been involved in:  WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, and Desert Storm.

We got on a trolley right away for a tour of the 150 planes outside, including some of the retired Blue Angels' jets.  This was No. 3, and the one they had to tow off the runway in Corpus last month was No. 3, so I asked if this was a recent addition, but the guide said it had been here since at least January, so it was not the same one.  The second one is Fat Albert, their support plane. 

This is the only way we could see them, and our tour guide as an ex-navy fighter pilot, and he had flown several different planes like these, even some of these exact planes.  I'll just post a few of the photos.

This next one was the precursor of today's AWAC plane, and he said that after they flew over an area they often had phone calls reporting that one of our planes had been captured by aliens from outer space.

This next plane was named for the pilot's girlfriend - I'm not sure what year - but there was also a Hurricane Brenda down here in 1955.

After we finished this tour, we went back inside and went on another guided tour.  Again, we had an ex-Navy fighter pilot for our guide.  He started this tour as if it was 1919, and he was Glenn Curtiss, the father of Naval aviation.  He provided a lot of history of early aviation and Curtiss's involvement with the Wright Brothers, who accused him of stealing their patent on controls (which he didn't).  The war dept. eventually gave them $2 million each and made them work together during the war.  Eventually, Curtiss got out of building airplanes (by then, he was a millionaire) and continued his development of real estate in Florida.  This tour lasted almost 2 hours, so that was a lot of standing and walking, but it was very informative.

This is a Blue Angels Atrium where they host a lot of events, including both naval and community.  While we were here, they held a Girl Scout "graduation" event.

Another interesting exhibit was this partial MIG.  Our guide said that in every war, the U.S. has managed to capture at least one of the enemy aircraft, and they would tear them down, then rebuild them and fly them, to learn what its capabilities and vulnerabilities were.

They also had several exhibits, including this one of bunk beds on the ship.  Joe said this is exactly what he slept in on the ship to Viet Nam, except there were a lot more of them, since they had to sleep 10,000 troops on that ship.  They slept head-to-toe so they were not breathing on each other (hope their feet didn't smell worse than their breath).

 We had lunch here, then took in a IMAX movie, which was "Born to be Wild," about orphaned elephants and orangutans.  We thought all the movies were the same, and that they would be about airplanes or the navy, so we were quite surprised.  But it was a nice rest and the photography was phenomenal.   We finally left the museum and headed back to camp, to rest for a little while.  Then we changed into our swimsuits and headed for the beach.  Joe got set up pretty comfortably, and he was good for a while.

But by now, it was after 6:00, and it was probably about 80.  We got in the water a couple of times, but I really needed some sunshine, especially after I got surprised by a wave.

This is a beautiful beach, and the sand is really fine, but we were getting shaded by the condos here, so we only stayed about an hour.   We went back out together and I got knocked down by a wave, so I was a little chilly.  We really wished we had our grandkids here with us, they would have loved this beach.