Some Beach, Somewhere...but specifically Pensacola, FL

Leaving Baton Rough.  456 miles down, ??? to go!

We continued our adventure to the east with a stop in Pensacola, FL.

Back in the day, I was stationed at NATTC Pensacola for AT-O A-school.  It was a weird time in my life, but with fun in the sun, beach volleyball, and sand, sand, and more sand!

We pulled through P'cola, through Gulf Breeze, and over the bridge to Santa Rosa Island.  We walked the boardwalk, ate a yummy dinner with the salt breeze cooling us.  We put our toes in the sand and looked forward to tomorrow.

  We found our camp site at Ft. Pickens National Park, right on Santa Rosa Island.  After we set up the tent, we went to watch the sunset over one of the cannon stations, but missed the event.

Tomorrow is another day.

We got up early.  Like, stupid early.  5:30.  I checked my phone and found that sunrise over Ft. Pickens was at 5:50.  Kayleigh and I put three sleepy headed, pajama clad kiddos in the car and drove a quarter of a mile to another cannon bastile.  We were just in time.

Since we were up, and swimsuits were in the car, we opted to take the beach while it was cool and we had the place to ourselves.

The kids, of course, were excited!

I left my camera in my purse (sandy, wet cameras tend to not work as well), so you'll just have to take my word that we had a BLAST!  First, we chased ghost crabs across the beach into the surf.  Then, we covered Gannon in sand and gave him a mermaid tail.  Then, we watched dolphins (YES, HOLY GEEZ, WE SAW DOLPHINS) swim 100 yards behind us.  

By 0800, we were all swam out, and ventured to Ft. Pickens.

Ft. Pickens was both a Revolutionary and Civil War Fort, used to protect the Bay of Pensacola.  It was one of 4 forts in the bay, and a beautiful historic site.

The kids (and I) were amazed that the cannon holder is made of OAK.  Wood.  Crazy. 

This room was filled with gun powder!

Looking out on a series of tunnels that were used to run supply loads.

Prison.  They're lucky I let them out... ;-)

We had a fantastic time, the kids earned their Jr. Ranger badges.  It was hot, we'd started early, so we loaded the car, and Annika was asleep before we'd left the island.  

 We headed North to.........

The Route

So planning is a HUGE part of trips like this.  Just kidding.  Having a general idea of a plan and being ridiculously flexible is the MOST IMPORTANT THING I can tell you about doing a trip like this.
Gannon wants so badly to go to the Pentagon, that we actually booked that in advance.  Yes, I'm taking Gannon to the Pentagon.  I'll post a link for the GoFundMe for my bail money later.  We HAVE to be at the Pentagon on July 14th at 1400.  That's our only MUST.  So here we go....We leave Sunday at 3:00 PM.

Leg 1:  Leave Cibolo and go to Baton Rouge, LA.  Putz around the old capitol for a bit, see some of the history of LA.  Drive to P'Cola, FL!  We'll probably go across to Gulf Breeze and spend some time on the boardwalk, trying to not be eaten by sharks or contract flesh eating bacteria.  Next stop, Noccalula Falls in Gadsden, AL.  This, according to my friend Tammi, is a MUST SEE.  From there, we go to Lithia Springs State Park out side of Atlanta to see confederate ruins where Hunger Games was filmed, and see my awesome cousins Lenny and Sue!  North to Charlotte where there is an abundance of historical stuff to see and do.  We have to fit West Virginia in there somewhere, so Monongahela State Park is where leg one ends.

From West Virginia, things get CRAZY.  We spend a few days in DC, up to Gettysburg, over to Philly, PA, to New York City.  We could easily spend over a week in each place, but we're hitting the highlights.  From NYC, we're going to Plymouth Plantation, MA, then over to Boston to walk the Freedom Trail.  We won't have hit all the states without a stopover in Maine, so lobster dinner, here we come!  This is the end of leg 2 and the northern most point in our adventure.

From Kittery, we have a looooong drive to Niagra Falls State Park!  We were originally hoping to go up to Ontario, but opted to stick to our goal of 50 states before "international" travel.  From Niagra Falls, we head to Cleveland area for fun with Debbie, Thad, and the kids.  VERY excited about that time together.  Up to Detroit for the auto museum, then down down down to Mammoth Cave, KY.  I LOVED Mammoth Caves as a kid.  Back up to Indianapolis for the Children's Museum, then to see mom and dad in Galesburg.  From the 'Burg, we'll take an Amtrak up to Chicago and spend a day in the Windy City.  End Leg 3.

Leg 4 is where total whimsy comes in!  I want to go the Shreveport, LA on the way home to find out information on my great grandparents from Sicily.  Other than that, we can go to St. Louis, Kansas, Oklahoma, Dallas....wherever the wind takes us! (Hopefully the wind and not a tornado...).

So there you have it!  T-3 days and counting!  Now I have to disconnect from the computer so I can start packing.  Ugh.

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