Hi!  Miss us? :).  We have been busy relaxing and seeing what this place has to offer.  On the 9th the weather was so nice here we decided to go to the beach.

Gary on the beach

Gary is sitting next to his invisible wife, Colleen.  Love the blue shoes ;).  The sun was at such an angle that I could sit there with my biggest hat on and my face was total in the shade.  The warmth of the sun felt really nice for a change.

Pier on Beach

This beach access is about a mile from the marina.  See the pier in this picture?  It is a good place where I can be in the shade and Gary can be in the sun.  The first time we visited this spot there was a square drone helicopter that was flying up and down the beach.  We couldn’t see anyone running it and it went such a long distance, it must have been a really expensive one or it was Big Brother keeping an eye on us 🙂

We were reminded that spring break starts in March so we figured we better enjoy the empty beach while we could.  Although I am sure Gary won’t mind watching the young things that will be walking around on the beach LOL.  Hey, he ain’t dead yet!

On the 10th, we went to the Navel Air museum in Pensacola, FL.  We are really close to the Florida border and heard this museum was really cool.  I have posted some pictures on the “Points of Interest Page”  It was free to get in.  They give guided tours every couple of hours.  We had a really good guy who’s name was Oz Nunn.  The tour was only suppose to last for 1 1/2 hours but he had so many interesting things to say about the many planes we looked at that his tour lasted 2 hours.  He was really good.

We also did a little more walking along the beach before we headed back to the boat.  Here is an inlet for the Gulf

Gulf Entrance

There were quite a few people fishing from the shore there.  I think Gary is going to have to get his fishing license pretty soon and catch us some dinner.

On the 13th we did a couple of things.  There are some really nice trails about a mile from the marina.

Trail Map

Here are the trail maps.  There are benches that have been donated by various people and organizations and the trails are marked every 1/4 mile.  Nice black topped walkways

Heading down the trail

Besides the people you see on the trail, we saw an aardvark!

Aardvark eating

Aardvark side view

This is the first time I’ve seen a live one, usually they are road kill on the side of the road.  He really didn’t seem to mind us.  He was foraging for food and we weren’t going to get in his way.

When we go to the end of the trail, there was a nice little swing to sit and relax

End of Trail

I guess I am working Gary too hard :).

Next we went to the Gulf State Park Pier.  We had heard you could go there to get a fishing license and they would also have a book with the rules and reg of fishing plus show what kind of fish to fish for.  Cause you know, fishing is different all over the country.  We might think carp are nasty fish but in another part of the country they will have another name for them and they think they are fabulous.

Entrance to the Park

I know that is a fake turtle but apparently during the summer you can come here and watch the baby sea turtles hatch and head toward the ocean.  Cool!

Park Pier

This is the walk way to the pier.  It costs $2 per person to walk out on the pier.  We are on a budget now so we skipped the walk and just took pictures from the building here, cheap, cheap 🙂

Picture from Pier, for free 🙂

Look at the nice picture I got, and it didn’t cost me a penny.  There were two girls under the pier in summer dresses and barefoot getting their picture taken as they stood in the waves.  It wasn’t really that warm and I know the water was cold.  You could tell their feet were freezing.  Boy….what you have to do to make a living now a days.

When we got back to the marina we saw some of our boating neighbors had hired a diver to clean the bottom of their boats

Diver

That guy dressed in black standing on the dock is the diver.  We will have to hire one too before we leave.  As the boat sits in the salt water, all sorts of creatures attach to our boat bottom.  These creatures will slow down the boat so you must have a diver clean them off.  That boat, Sundancer, that they are working on, was a shrimp boat that was never an official shrimper.  They gave us a tour the other day…..nice boat.  The previous owner enclosed the back part and they had to cut a few parts off that a shrimper would use.  They even had a piano in it!  Wow!  One of the nice things of having a shrimp boat is when you go thru the locks, they think you are a commercial boat and they let you thru before the pleasure boats.  Sneaky, huh?

That was a full day.  The weather seems to be turning for the better.  Keep warm you people up north, it can’t keep snowing for ever…..can it?