March 16, 2015    Up at 6:30 a.m.  Our site for the night was in a prime sunset/sunrise spot.  It’s not just birds that I like taking photos of 🙂

Big Lagoon State Park is small area wise,  but BIG when it comes to natural beauty.   I am going to humble myself and say I have been pretty tough on the gnats and mosquito.  We have chosen to hang out in marshes and lagoons on hot humid sticky icky days.   The gnats and mosquito,  have I mentioned some of these mosquito are the size of a quarter,  were here first.  I still think they are nasty,  but will stop dissing them on principle.   Besides we stopped at Walmart  yesterday and stocked up on bug spray 🙂

The sunrise was well worth getting up for early.

We are 3.8 miles from the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola and have been told  “do not miss it”.    I am impressed!!!  If I lived closer I would be here OFTEN with the grands.  David and I had great fun climbing into the simulators and letting our imaginations go wild.    Some people will never grow up!  We went to the IMAX Theatre and saw “The Magic of Flight”  a documentary about how much scientists and engineers have learned about flight through the study of birds and how through these studies they were able to acclimate both the planes and aviators with such great success.  The documentary was narrated by Tom Selleck, who I think has a very “nice”  voice and  features  the Blue Angels who are mechanical genius’  both mentally and physically.

Included in your FREE admission are a Trolley ride out into the “restricted area” to see the planes that are being worked on and the hangers where the planes are prepped for flight.  There are also,  guided tours inside the museum,  which were awesome for people  like me that had no concept of the intensity of support,  influence and importance  that military branches,  outside the Air Force, had on air protection and security.  The Museum does honor,  to not only the Navy, but the Coast Guard and Marines.

There were flight training sessions going on while we were there and we got another sneak peek at the Blue Angels.  Wednesday morning we are going back for an “official” Blue Angels training session.