Boating on Big Lagoon

Last week Jack's nephew Bill took us and his mother, Joan, out on his boat. It's usually a fishing boat for him and his son Ross, but he had converted it to a tour boat for the afternoon with some comfy lawn chairs for us. We went out of the Sherman Cove Marina at NAS Pensacola, the Cradle of Naval Aviation.

He's a retired Coast Guard officer so he can use the Naval Air Station's recreational facilities like the Sherman Cove Marina and the beach side cottages at Oak Grove Park where his family spent the weekend.

We had a wonderful time on the boat seeing NAS Pensacola from the water, the Pensacola Lighthouse and the city's skyline. We also went out into the Gulf of Mexico and saw lots of people on the beaches and sandbars fishing and drinking cold beverages.

I didn't get many good photos. It was my first time out in nature with the new digital camera and I was barely able to use it at all. But here are a few.


On the right, the wall with the cannons on top is Fort Pickens, guarding the east side of Pensacola Pass. Fort McRee guards the west side of the Pass. It was my first time taking a photo using a zoom lens from a rocking boat.

Thanks, Bill. We had a great time.

A side trip from Memphis

Our plans for the Memphis trip are underway. We have the hotel reservations and the train tickets. We are ready for a ride on The City of New Orleans, ready for the tour of Graceland and ready to eat BBQ.

While doing some research on the trip it occurred to us that Memphis is pretty close to Little Rock, Arkansas, about a 2 1/2 hour drive each way. And since Memphis is somewhat out of the way for us, we may never get back there. So if we don't see Little Rock on this trip we may never see Little Rock.

What's to see in Little Rock? The William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library.

The Clinton Library is the twelfth Presidential Library and it is administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.

The twelve presidential libraries represent all presidents from Hoover through Clinton. The Nixon Presidential Library, at the time it opened in 1990, was not administered by the National Archives. It was recognized by them in July, 2007.

The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park includes the Clinton presidential library and the offices of the Clinton Foundation and the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, established by Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States.

Click here for Little Rock Tourist and Visitor Information. And here, too.

"Good mornin' America, how are you?"

Sometime during the fall we want to take a trip on a train. It's something we love but rarely get a chance to do. It's not easy to find a train nearby and there is none out of Pensacola at all.

After the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes down here, AMTRAK, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, cut off most of the passenger service along the entire Gulf Coast and has no plans to restore service. "For safety reasons." Although freight trains safely pass through town on the same tracks several times a day.

If we drive to New Orleans we can take a train from there north to Memphis and even Chicago. So I checked out schedules online. I found we could leave from New Orleans at 1:45 P.M. and get to Memphis at 10:00 P.M. The trip is roughly 400 miles (640 km).


Best of all, the train is Illinois Central's "City of New Orleans." Yes, the one in the song written by Steve Goodman -- made popular in the early 1970s by Arlo Guthrie and later by many others including Willie Nelson and John Denver.

Maybe we will stay a couple nights at The Peabody Memphis. It the famous restored Memphis hotel with the fountain and the ducks. We can visit Beale Street and Elvis Presley's Graceland. And we can eat Memphis BBQ.

The trip back leaves Memphis Central Station at 6:50 in the morning and arrives in New Orleans Union Terminal at 3:32 P.M.

We don't know when we will take this trip but it's never to early to start planning.

Road trip, new shoes, flashing lights

Pensacola is a fairly small city, population 54,000 with a widespread metropolitan area that brings the total up to about 440,000. Despite the small size and the long distance to any big cities (see driving distances), we have some major shopping opportunities within less than an hour's drive.

Fifty miles to the west is the Tanger Outlet Center in Foley, Alabama with, according to their ads "more than 120 brand name manufacturers and designers outlet stores."

About the same distance to the east is the Silver Sands Outlet Stores in Destin, Florida. It claims to be the nation's largest designer outlet center. And it may well be true.

Their brochure says:
"With over 100 designer names and located just minutes from the beautiful white sandy beaches and emerald green waters of Destin, Silver Sands is a shopper's paradise!" It's so scary (I'll just stay in the car).

Jack needed some new Rockport deck shoes to wear around the house. We decided to drive over to Destin and get a new pair at the Rockport store in the outlet mall. It was a beautiful day, lots of little fluffy clouds, blue sky, sunny but not too hot.

On the way along Interstate 10, I was driving, there was no traffic and suddenly I realized, (A) I was going way too fast -- close to 80 miles an hour -- and (B) there was a Florida Highway Patrolperson hiding in the bushes up ahead. Suddenly there were flashing blue lights. A speeding ticket, the second one in 49 years of driving. Oh, well. I don't usually drive that much over the speed limit. The fines and fees came to a total of $80.50.

The Gulf of Mexico was beautiful in Destin, blue sky, white sand and many shades of green water. We had lunch on the beach at a favorite seafood restaurant, The Back Porch Seafood & Oyster House. Then we went shopping for shoes and found them at the Rockport store. We got home easily, we returned along the coast road instead of the Interstate highway. And without any more flashing blue lights.

Today's Holidays

Today is Labor Day holiday here in the U.S. -- and in Canada it's Labour Day -- always on the first Monday of September. It's the end of summer vacations.

In the U.S. as it is September 3, it is also National Welsh Rarebit Day. Click here for a list of the official September national food holidays.


I always thought it was Welsh Rabbit, not Welsh Rarebit. Perhaps it was originally a light-hearted aspersion on the Welsh character by the Brits? But Rarebit isn't new, it has been the standard spelling in America since the early 1800's. Why, I cannot imagine.

The dish, however you spell it, has been around for centuries with many variations. Over-consumption is known to cause nightmares or at the very least, vivid dreams.

Here's a history of the dish and it's spellings. And for even more information check out the Wiki.

ultrasparky: on teeny houses

American type designer, graphic designer and photographer, ultrasparky, is currently a master's degree student studying typeface design at the über-cool (and wildly selective) program for typeface design at the University of Reading in the UK. It's the world's top school for type design and research.

His blog discusses his artistic world, personal life and a wide range of other interests. Plus daily photos of ultrasparky himself.

I enjoy reading his posts about the school and his progress through the design curriculum, but best of all are the posts about what it's like to be an American spending an extended time in the UK -- a place he seems to love as much as I do.

Sometimes he reports on teeny, wee houses such as the Single Hauz designed by Front Architects, his post has links to both sites.

Sparky says,

"So pretty. So teeny. So sleek. I want one on a glacial lake somewhere, and another rising like a pretty, rectangular flower over an urban factory or something."

Here's an earlier post from Sparky about teeny houses.

Now don't leave his site without viewing some examples of his beautiful font, Gina. Two links to check out: the story behind Gina and the Gina specimen book.

Road Hazards

A couple of Tuesdays ago we decided to spend the night at the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi. The Beau Rivage is a beautiful place, perhaps the fanciest hotel in the whole state of Mississippi and it's officially the tallest building in the state.

Constructed in 1999 by Mirage Resorts, then owned by Las Vegas' Steve Wynn, it was soon was acquired by MGM through the merger of MGM Grand Inc. and Mirage Resorts, Inc. in 2000.

All of Biloxi's beach resorts, and most of the city, were badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina. All of the casinos were destroyed and the hotels unusable. The Beau Rivage re-opened in August 2006, exactly one year after Katrina.

We decided to go over and spend the night to help support the revived tourist economy. Also the Beau Rivage Casino had offered us a free room for the night in their luxury hotel.

"Why don't we drive over early and go to New Orleans for lunch?"

So we called ahead and made a reservation at the justifiably famous Commander's Palace on the corner of Washington Avenue and Coliseum Street in the Garden District.

I should have read my horoscope it must have warned that it was a bad day for travel. On the way over the traffic was terrible. It was congested and erratic, wildly fast and then slow.

In Mississippi we found ourselves at the end of a long line of cars and trucks. There was a wide load ahead. The widest wide load ever. It was the roof for a pre-fab house and it was fully two lanes wide. The pilot truck was making the oversize truck drive in the ditch long enough for one vehicle to pass by, then the wide load would resume driving down the middle of the two-lane highway. At last we got around it. Very scary.

Then as we entered New Orleans' French Quarter, nearly at the restaurant, all five inbound lanes stopped and we sat -- moving ahead one car length at a time. -- for about 20 minutes. There had been a multi-car accident ahead of us and it took a while to clear the road. When we got going again we got to the restaurant too early and spent about 30 minutes driving around the narrow streets of the scenic Garden District looking at the old homes. Very Anne Rice.

At Commander's Palace, quietly in command of the reception desk was the very recognizable Ti Martin, daughter of Ella Brennan. We arrived at 1:00 P.M. and the dining room was nearly full of happy customers and lots of very attentive staff. Great food and great service. Jack had their famous turtle soup, I had their gumbo. For the main course Jack had a grilled filet salad and I also had a salad, mine topped with crisp fried oysters. For dessert we had their signature bread pudding.

By the time we left it was really getting hot and humid. The temperature was 95 degrees and the heat index was 115. After a long wait for the valet parking guy he came running back to say the car won't start. Dead battery.

Of course -- a half-hour stuck in the traffic jam and another slowly driving around the Garden District looking at the old houses -- keeping the air conditioner on for so long at slow speed had drained the battery. The people at Commander's Palace were very helpful. We called the Auto Club but they were very slow so some gardeners spotted us waiting in the hot sun and gave us a jump start.

By 3:30 we were on our way out of town and got to the hotel and a beautiful room about 5:00 p.m.

A question for Jae

Very sneaky are you. How did you figure out how to place those cool quotation mark images in the block quotes on Walk This World with Me?

I liked the effect so much I just had to steal it. Well I didn't steal the image but I did steal some of the code. What other BloggerSecrets do you need to let us know about?

I'll Be Back Soon

I know it has been ages since the last post but it has been a busy time here in Pensacola. And it's August. With lots of heat and humidity.

Regular posts will resume very soon. Meanwhile here's a car commercial you may enjoy. It takes a while to load. So relax.

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Oh, and check out WhoIsTheMonkey.com & UmmYeah.com. Maybe your productivity will drop to less than zero, too.

Grand Princess Ports of Call Planner

Western Caribbean Cruise, December 2007

It is very likely we won't step off the ship at all. But just in case we decide to see the sights ashore, here are some links to information about each port of call the Grand Princess will make.

I will add some more links as I find them so check back often.

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First Port of Call -- Ocho Rios, Jamaica
Here are three links with info about what to do around the port area whilst dodging aggressive street vendors: Frommer's Ocho Rios Guide, OchoRios.com, Ocho Rios Shopping Centres.

Local News -- The island's major daily newspapers are the Jamaica Gleaner and the Jamaica Observer. And there's a weekly tabloid, The Star.

From Kingston, the Gleaner's radio station, Power 106 FM, has news, talk and music of Jamaica.

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Second Port -- Grand Cayman, Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands have the highest standard of living of all the Caribbean Islands. But there is also Hell. Some links, Cayman Islands Restaurant Guide, Grand Cayman Wiki, Maps of the Cayman Islands.

Local News -- For local and tourist news check out the national daily paper, Caymanian Compass, and Cayman Net News Online.

For online local radio there's Z-99 Radio Grand Cayman and you can listen here.

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Third Port -- Cozumel, Mexico
Guide to Cozumel, Los Cinco Soles, Mexican Arts & Crafts Store.

Local News -- Cozumel Today, The Island Tourist Newspaper

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Fourth Port -- Princess Cays, Eleuthera Island, Bahamas
There's not much to do except enjoy the beach and the BBQ. Shopping is limited to some local handicrafts.

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