We started out Saturday morning with benigets, a little driving around, and then out to the Fort Morgan State Park, which is out at the end of one of the barrier islands under Mobile. This was Will’s idea. While driving around and looking at beaches and stuff, the grandparents were chatting about things we could do. They mentioned Fort Morgan, Prince William said “this is a good idea,” and off we were go, 30 or so minutes later.
Actually, it was a good idea. It’s a very old Fort, dating back from the war of 1812, and involved in some Civil War stuff. It had been “updated” over the years as a defensive post during WWI and WWII (I think) with some concrete bunkers and batteries for big cannons and stuff. It looked like the kind of place that would be a cool set to make a student movie. Some great views, but I was surprised to see dozens of off-shore oil rigs out there. If you look carefully over Will’s left shoulder, you can see one.
Went to lunch, and then we went on a dolphin cruise on this boat. I was a little dubious of the whole thing, especially since I do not enjoy boating in any shape and/or form. But it was a very pleasant day and a pleasant ride. We saw a surprising number of dolphins, and a bunch of them even ended up chasing after the boat and jumping out of the water.
Here’s some video; it doesn’t really do the experience justice though:
That night, we went to an extremely popular faux redneck place called Lulu’s where the entertainment included a band made up of guitar, harmonica, bongo-like drumkit, and tuba. One of their songs was “I Hope There’s a Trailerpark in Heaven,” or something like that, which fit well with a song I heard earlier in the day that had the line “It’s snowbird season, why we can’t shoot ’em?” (BTW, here’s a link to a bizarre video where this song is set to a clip from the cartoon series Teen Titans). It kind of sums up the whole area down here, really. It’s a land where Jeff “you might be a redneck if…” Foxworthy is surly worshiped like a God.
The big highlight of today was a trip to the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola. We took a tour of the main floor of the museum, and Will was just enamored with the retired pilot tour guide, hanging on every single little word. A lot of our fellow tour patrons felt the same way, basically because many were either ex-military folks or just airplane/Navy geeks. One guy was mumbling to himself about the connections between the various planes and Star Wars and Star Trek. Another guy kept nodding in agreement with everything the tour guide said. Or maybe it was a nervous tick, I don’t know.
There was also a bus tour through a parking lot full of planes they couldn’t get into the building. The tour guide was just horrible, but despite that, this was one of the highlights of the trip for me. For this part of the tour featured this plane:
Don’t recognize it? Well, you remember when Bush landed that plane on the carrier and declared “mission accomplished” with the Iraq war, right? Of course you do, but here’s some footage from Fahrenheit 911 as a refresher. Well, guess what happened to the plane?
Yep, there it is. I dunno, but it seems a pretty preposterous place for the plane used in one of the most dubious stunts in recent American history, if you ask me. “Mission Accomplished” sent to the back lot of a museum.
Anyway, here’s a link to a flickr set of the trip so far. There will probably be some more, but I need to get caught up with some school work over the next day or so first. Well, that, and play some golf.
1) “Faux” — that’s one of them thar fancy Yankee words, isn’t it?
2) Where else would you expect the plane to end up? (Actually, they are just holding it until the Museum of Shame is built.)