Mid Week

Hey Everyone,

Currently I think I'm just writing to myself.  But that's ok I am "one of those" who actually enjoys writing, I had a diary growing up and now to this day I still journal.  Eventually I'll get more into explaining that, but that's a topic for a different blog.  I had a few minutes here before bed and wanted to share my trip to the Navel Museum in Pensacola with our youth yesterday.  Be prepared for more pictures than actual descriptions, mostly because all the facts I learned (while they were cool) I did not quite retain all of it.  I honestly did not even know this place existed!  And I made a new discovery while I was there...a light house!  Who knew Pensacola, FL had a light house, this has now been moved to the top of my "must photograph" list!  I apologize in advance that most of my edited photos posted have been edited through Instagram.  I haven't had time to sit and really edit these photos, but honestly I'm still working on finding the editing software I want to try next (my old computer crashed a month ago and I lost all my programs, so its sort of starting fresh!).



Watching the Blue Angels practice!

My arm rest in the IMAX theater, each seat pays tribute to someone in the military, and I didn't get a picture of it but its a huge theater!

We were so fortunate that while we were at the museum the Blue Angles were actually practicing!  I had not seen them since I was a kid at the Airshow on Camp Lejeune in North Carolina!  I am always in awe of their skill and precision, and if you want to know more about how they train you have to sit through their IMax movie, it is actually really great and informational!  And it certainly helps you gain perspective on just how much work and how difficult their stunts are, their goal is to make it look easy (which they do) but in reality its pretty tough!

Getting ready to go on our trolley ride!  And learn about lots of different military aircrafts!

I was the first one on, ok not really but I was the last one off, so had to take a few pictures!

The flight line where all the planes are! And so our tour begins!

They have a trolley ride, which I recommend to anyone who has an interest in historically significant military air crafts.  They have a restoration bay, where they take older/run down air crafts and restore them to museum quality.  Please do not ask me about any of the air crafts, as I get lost in names like "the destroyer", "HU-16 Albatross", "EC-121 Constellation", "F-48 Phantom II", and "SH 2 Seasprite".  One of these air crafts is where a president stood when he did something (I wish I remember the details because it sounded interesting, but I was trying to calm down one of our kids at the time and only half heard what the tour guide was saying).   But one looked like Kermit the frog and I didn't get the best picture of it because I was on the other side of the trolley but you can see the picture that I did get below.  I must say I was so impressed with some of our youth who actually knew about some of these planes, because I just felt like there was a bunch of numbers and random names rolling around in my head and that no matter how many times I have heard the name of any one aircraft that I will NEVER be able to look at one and tell you what it is (even though growing up military, living next to a Navy base, and now working on an Air Force base, I rightfully should be able too....Ooops!)

The Kermit the Frog plane!

This one reminded me of Shamu for some reason (I know totally off topic)

This one doesn't have a little sign so I can remember what its called, but I remember him saying it was the Military's biggest mistake.  For one reason or another it never worked properly and out of like 300 hundred purchased they only kept 10, and this plane has been restored it just got so little flight time. 

This was one aircraft I recognize!

The restoration bay, working on a plane as we were driving around.

As for the inside of the museum, I could have stayed and looked around by myself for hours!!  And when Matt comes home we are going to have to go together so I can go around and take pictures and hopefully learn something and actually retain it!  But there is so much to see, and if I'm not mistaken there are two buildings (bays) and we only looked in one!  So below are a few more pictures of the museum.  Oh and they have Blue Angel simulator rides which were pretty cool, and tons of aircrafts for kids to get in and take pictures with, and guns and information, its definitely worth the trip!