A Slice of Life
Bill Lites
Day 7 Thursday 10/25/2018
This morning I headed west on SR-52 & I-10 towards Pensacola. Since I was going to have to do some back tracking once I visited the Pensacola museums, I decided to check out some of the museums I had missed on U.S. 98. I was hoping they would have had time to recover from any hurricane damage by now. I took SR-85 south at Crestview and headed for the U.S. Air Force Armament Museum located at Eglin AFB. This is a large two-story museum, with multiple displays, artifacts and memorabilia of the many types of armament devices developed by the U.S. Air Force over the years. Around the outside of the museum building, there is a large assortment of restored U.S. Air Force aircraft on static display.
Now I headed south on U.S.-85 and east on U.S.-98 (which was open by now) to visit the Fishing Museum located in Destin. They were open, and this turned out to be a very interesting museum, dedicated to the history of Florida Gulf Coast sport fishing industry in the Destin area.
Next I headed back west on U.S.-98 a few miles to visit the Camp Walton Schoolhouse Museum located in Fort Walton Beach. This restored 1911 schoolhouse is typical of the one-room schools of the early 1900s. What is interesting to me is that most of the desks and other schoolroom type equipment in this museum were still being used in the grade school I went to in the early 1950s (they built things to last back in those days). I’m sure, like me, this is the case with many older citizens today.
I continued west on U.S.-98, across Pensacola Bay on the Gulf Breeze Parkway, to visit the Historic Pensacola Village located just north of E. Main Street in the Old Pensacola area. This is a cluster of 28 beautifully preserved/ and restored buildings (including the Dodd House and Old Christ Church) that made up a 6- acre section of downtown Pensacola that gives visitors an idea of how the city looked during Colonial times.
Now it was time for Greta (my Garmin) to take me to tonight’s motel there in Pensacola. When I got to the motel, I was surprised to see the lobby full of guests milling around. I told the desk clerk I had a reservation and when he looked it up he said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you that we had a water main break this afternoon, and we had to cancel all the 1stfloor guest reservations” (my room was on the 1stfloor). He apologized and gave me the name and phone numbers of two motels in the immediate area that had vacancies. Bummer! I wondered what else could go wrong on this trip? I tried to make reservations on my phone, but that didn’t work, so I ended up staying in one of the motels which I had been given the name (at 3-times what I was expecting to pay for my original reservation).
By now I was tired and hungry, so when I saw a Sonny’s BBQ Restaurant, I pulled in for a plate of their delicious Baby Back Ribs. Of course this meal included baked beans, broccoli, and garlic toast. And, to cool me off, a BIG glass of ice tea. Things looked a lot better by the time I finished that meal.
—–To Be Continued—–
Old Things R New 
Old Pensacola sounds interesting. May have to include it on a road trip.
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Very good post, dear
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