Rainy beaches of Florida (08/01/03)

Last updated 8/10/03 Russian translation here

Why Bombers instead of Beaches

Some of you might wonder why there aren't any pictures of pretty, white-sand beaches on this page. Well, you probably didn't read the title then.... our entire trip to the south east region of the country has been filled with rain (and plenty of it), so when we arrived in Florida, instead of going out to the muddy beaches, we decided to visit the National Aviation Museum (one of the 3 largest such museums in the country according to the brochure), located on a Naval base in Pensacola. After a few misadventures (Microsoft sent us to the main entrance where, apparently due to some security concerns, we were redirected to the back entrance, quite a ways away, since we weren't military personnel) we finally managed to get to the place. This is a pretty neat place, but you probably don't want to plan a trip to Pensacola *just* to see it. However if you're in the area and you have any interest in naval aviation history or just wanna see a bunch of cool looking military planes you should definitely stop by. We got to see many different planes and helicopters, with many dating all the way back to WWII -- admission is free to the museum, and they have an IMAX which shows a couple of flicks as well as a coffee shop lined with all sorts of military memorabilia.We watched "The history of flight" (narrated by Tom Seleck -- Magnum PI for those in the know) at the IMAX, which started with a brief history of flight (Wright brothers and all that), and ended with a lot of stuff on the elite Blue Angel flight squadron which puts on many exciting air shows throughout the country. Not too many pictures shown here, but they should give an idea of the size of the plane replicas they had there.

Pictures

Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola