After a tearful meeting, we said goodbye to Abbeville’s big crawfish. They were waving their big claws until we were out of sight. It rained off and on across LA, MS and part of AL where we turned south off I-10 to the FL panhandle to Big Lagoon CG, about 350 miles and 6 hours later.
It was Saturday when we arrived, the CG was quite full, but we had reservations. There was lots of vegetation between each site which gave us privacy.
We were anxious to visit the beach so we went to Perdido SP and walked along a beautiful sandy beach. Some of the beach on Florida’s panhandle is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Later we went to a local restaurant and had a fish dinner, I had Redfish and Joy had a Grouper filet. Both were grilled and good. We did suffer from a flash of Crawfish withdrawal, but it soon passed.
Today, Sunday, we started with a visit to the Pensacola Lighthouse and National Naval Aviation Museum. The Museum is located aboard Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola, Florida, the Cradle of Naval Aviation. Established in 1914, NAS Pensacola is the oldest naval air station, and all Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard aviators and Naval Flight Officers pass through her gates. The museum is housed in a large hanger, packed with planes that served the navy over the years. It is a hands-on museum, with active navy personal ready to answer your questions. In addition, there were also many naval retires who had flown some of the planes or those who had maintained them. This is truly an outstanding museum and its free.
NAS Pensacola also serves as the home base for the world-famous Blue Angels Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron. The Squadron was out of town, but were due back the day we were leaving. However the evening before we were leaving, they returned and they did a fly-by right over our campsite, at a low altitude.
Nearby is the Pensacola Lighthouse, first built in 1858 and recently reconstructed to its 150 foot height. The lighthouse played an important role in the Civil War, being first a confederate light and then later in the war, it became a Yankee light. The Pensacola Light remains an active aid to navigation.
The hour is now in pm territory and we are ready for a meal, so we headed for Joe Patti’s seafood restaurant. When we arrived, we found a lot of cars and figured this must be the place. Wrong! It was the Joe Patti market. The restaurant was on the other side of the parking lot and was closed. At the Joe Patti market people were lined up, 3-4 deep at a 100 foot long counter. The counter contained many, many kinds of seafood and fish, all very fresh. There were items in the showcases that we never heard of. At the far end of the counter was a sushi bar and an area of cooked food for take-out. After spending more than two hours just gawking at the variety of fish and other things from the sea, we figured we should take something back to the campsite for supper. Perhaps you can guess -- crawfish, you got it right.
Our last day at Big Lagoon was spent hiking some of the trails, getting our NPS passport stamped and another good fish meal at Flounders.
Tomorrow we head for Atlanta and to see my granddaughter.