Historic Pensacola Village

On Friday the 24th, Bill and I drove into downtown Pensacola to check out the Historic Pensacola Village. (http://www.historicpensacola.org/) This was the site of the nations first settlement, St. Augustine gets billing for the nations first city because the settlement at Pensacola was quickly wiped out by a hurricane, a trend that would continue through the ages. When we first arrived the tour through the Historic Village wasn’t going to start for a couple hours so we walked a couple blocks to the T.T. Wentworth, Jr. Florida State Museum.

This Museum is free of charge and hosts two stories of Pensacola history with the top floor (the third story) a place for kids to learn and play, called the Discovery Gallery. It’s set up as trading posts, a fort, a ship, and other things that kids can dress up and learn what it like during colonial times. Really a neat place. You can find more info about the museum and what’s inside at the link above. Probably my favorite exhibit was the one about the hurricanes that have devastated the area throughout history. They compare the two most devastating hurricanes in recent history, the 1926 and Ivan in 2004. This exhibit is bone chilling, they have recordings from 911 calls playing while you walk the exhibit and see how closely the timelines match from both hurricanes. At the end of the exhibit is a book with blank pages for people to write about their memories of Ivan, some of the writings are heart wrenching. You just don’t understand what these people have been through until you come here and see the devastation that still exists. All we hear about on the news is about New Orleans and Katrina, but these people are quietly still rebuilding their lives and homes from a year and a half ago. They aren’t bashing the government for not rebuilding for them, they aren’t looking for handouts and freebees, they got up off their asses and started rebuilding in whatever ways they could. I could never live here, not with the fact it’s a crapshoot every year whether or not my house will still be there. But it’s pretty awe-inspiring to see the people of this area just pick up and start all over. I’ve met a lady here in the Milton area (about a 30min drive from Pensacola) that was without power for 12 days because of Ivan and has only recently has her roof replaced, a year and a half ago…and she only had her roof replaced in the last couple of months. There just words to describe, there are entire roads and Florida State Routes that are still closed because of the destruction and mounds of sand that are blocking the way.

Anyway, after touring the museum we went to meet up with our tour group. The tour through Historic Pensacola Village is really a neat tour, it’s only $6.00 per adult and your tickets are good for seven days, you can come back and do the tour as many times as you want and your tickets also get you into two other museums and a couple more of the houses that aren’t on the tour. The tour lasts around 90min and is full of history and tidbits that are worth the walk. We ran out of time that day to check out the other two museums and houses so we plan on going back within our seven days. We will likely have more pictures and stories about it then. This village also acts as a Living History Museum, usually they have people dressed in period clothing doing period tasks throughout the village, I was told by my tour guide that they were short staffed that day, likely because of preparations for Mardi Gras, but that Saturday’s are the best days to come to see the Living History side of it. I’m hoping we can go back next Saturday and check it out.

;-)K

Trying to See the Gulf Coast...

Today is 16 February 2006, Bill and I drove out to the Naval Live Oaks Area (http://gorp.away.com/gorp/resource/us_ns/fl/nav_gulf.htm) and after walking the 2/3 mile loop we realized is was just a bunch of trees on the coast, they are special because people used them to make ships out of since they naturally bend and curve while they grow, the bends and curves work perfectly for ships. We also ran across this cute little guy hangin on one of the trees. The sad thing was that they have placards standing in front of what used to be the tree it showed on the placard, but the tree is now lying on it’s side having been ripped out of the ground by Hurricane Ivan in September of 2004. This kind of destruction is currently pretty normal for the area, driving around the Gulf Coast you will likely run into a road detour or just massive piles of rubble where houses used to be, and this was the damage from 2004, there are other areas who have been rebuilding just to be hit by Dennis in 2005, and also catching the edges of Katrina and Rita, etc. I could never live somewhere that it’s a crapshoot every year as to whether or not you’ll have a house.

After trying to see the beaches and FT Pickens (http://www.tulane.edu/~latner/Pickens.html) (we drove out there to see the Fort, but the roads where all closed as well as the fort because of construction and stuff), we hung out on the beach for a bit, collected some shells, and just enjoyed the beautiful beach and gorgeous weather, it got up to 72 degrees today…we’re having a heat wave…a tropical heat wave! Hi’iaka really prefers the beach to warm, me too. On our way to Pensacola from the beach we stopped and had lunch at Surf Burger….OH…MY….GOD…..they have really good food. Well, they have really good burgers. Bill and I both ordered the Surf Burger Fully Loaded, it had everything including jalapenos, it was a heart attack in a plastic basket and it was glorious!

Ok, enough about the food. From the beach we drove into Pensacola and stopped at Veterans Memorial Park. Here they have the only permanent replica of the Vietnam Wall, War Memorial. They have several memorials in the park that are incredibly moving and beautiful. It’s really a very nice tribute to our Vets! (http://www.pensacolawallsouth.org/)

From the park we drove back onto Naval Air Station Pensacola to check out some of the other things on base other than the Museum. The first place we went was Fort Barrancas; it’s really a cool place. In the pic of me I'm standing on the original part of the fort that the Spanish built in 1797. It was originally built by the Spanish in the late 1700s and then rebuilt and added to by the Americans. It sits across the water from Ft Pickens and together they defended the area. It was so cool to be able to walk through the halls and tunnels of this old Fort. You can see where the cannons used to sit and how they used to defend the bay. http://gorp.away.com/gorp/resource/us_ns/fl/his1_gul.htm

The last stop we made was the Pensacola Lighthouse. This lighthouse was built in 1856, its height is 191 feet and can be seen for 27 miles. http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=589

We had a pretty busy day today just driving around and trying to see the area. It blows me away how much destruction they are still cleaning up 18 months after the fact. There are several houses we’ve seen that are missing entire outside walls. You look at the house like you do a dollhouse, you can see all the rooms, some still have furniture, and it’s SO strange. This whole area was just devastated and is still working on rebuilding. There are TONS of property lots for sale if anyone wants beach property on the Gulf Coast.

;-)K