Pensacola On My Mind

We are back from our little trip, and Pensacola Beach was very nice. There is still so much evidence of Hurricane Ivan’s destruction (2004) that one wonders how they will handle the crowds on their big weekends, including Memorial Day weekend when thousands of gays flock to Pensacola, and the Blue Angels weekend in July when thousands of everybodies flock to the island. We visited there in 2005, just months after Ivan for the 4th of July and Blue Angels and they handled the crowds then, so I guess they will do OK. The road to Ft. Pickens is still closed, and the road to Navarre is closed a couple of miles in to Gulf Islands National Seashore, but I assure you that is where the crowd will be this weekend. In fact, the road is washed away, with parts of the blacktop and center stripes lying on top of the sand a few yards inland from where the cracked and rumpled under layers of the road are still visible. I guess the Park Service on both ends of Pensacola Beach either are in no hurry to repair their roads or can’t find construction workers to do it since they are all building condos and repairing existing commercial properties.



Anyway, even a week before Memorial Day, you see this kite flying and you know you the area has been staked out for gays and gay friendly folks. Need information: http://www.memorialweekendpensacola.com/




Remember the Tiki House? Their sign proclaimed it “A 50’s Place” and it is where Bobby and I met (not in the 50’s). This is all that remains, the motel site is now used as a staging site and parking for condo construction that is going on across the street












This crab kept trying to creep up on us. Nosey little critter.

Next weekend there will be a hundreds of these rainbow colored umbrellas lining the beaches. Not this year for us though.

Tomorrow I will post my weekly column from The Western Tribune, Bessemer's newspaper. And any news I might have about the pot boiling over.