Visit to the National Naval Aviation Museum

We slept in this morning and woke up to overcast skies and the feeling it was going to rain any moment. We called our friends Ann and Lance and arranged to visit with them Tuesday. 

Big Lagoon State Park is near the Pensacola Naval Air Station which is the home-base for the Blue Angels.This afternoon after lunch we drove onto the base and stopped at the post gas station to get gas ($2.779 a gallon). Then we drove over to the National Naval Aviation Museum. 

The museum is open every day except for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's days and it is free. The first thing you see when you walk up to the museum is this F-14A Tomcat.

We had to go through a security check, showing our ID and I had to open my purse for the security person to see what I had in it. Then we received a brochure that showed the floor-plan of the museum and what exhibits were in each area.

We started in the South Wing which had the WWI planes

and early aircraft  and early Cold War aircraft on display.

Then we went into the West Wing that had WWII aircraft,

and a mock-up of the USS Cabot Flight Deck.

We walked out of the main museum and went to Hangar Bay One which had modern aircraft,

several helicopters on display,

and an Apollo Space Exhibit.

We spent over an hour in the museum and Mike took a lot of photos. There is a cafe, the Cubi Bar Cafe, in the South Wing, but it had closed by the time we got to the museum. It would have been nice to have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie for an afternoon snack, but our timing was wrong. 

It was about 4:30 when we left the museum and went back to the campground. Tomorrow afternoon we're going to visit our friends Ann and Lance and we're looking forward to seeing them.

It started raining late tonight and it is supposed to quite sometime tomorrow morning. I hope so. since I still haven't take any photos of our campsite here.