Pensacola Lighthouse Visit

Pensacola Lighthouse

View from the lighthouse.

Blue Angels

Today I visited the naval base and had lunch at the commissary.  Not used to military life, I find it very strange. The uniforms, the signs, and the hustle are all foreign to me. Strangest of all is the saluting.  It used to be Offspring #1 saluting others outside.  Now that he's an officer, they're saluting him and he returns the salute.  Weird!  They do this every day?  After lunch at Panda Express, I went to visit the Pensacola light house because he had to go back to work for a while.  I toured the lighthouse keeper's house and then ascended the 177 stairs to the top of the lighthouse.  Heights scare me just a little bit so I'm not relaxed up there.  I went outside and met the volunteer guide.  This senior citizen also has to ascend 177 steps to do her volunteer work. I look out.  I can see the Florida seashore to the east and to the west.  The tall building of downtown Pensacola are visible.  As I walk around I see a C130 plane go by and three people jump out spreading pink and purple smoke.  The lighthouse is across the street from the Navy airport and the Aviation Museum.  Saturday is the big air show and today they are practicing.  The three parachuters don't have the typical chutes.  These look more like hang gliders.  The shoots are rectangular, not round and they're moving them fast through the sky like hang gliders or air skiers.  They start out really close together and then move apart.  I watch all three land on their feet and walk away unharmed. Next I see a helicopter rise in the air straight up.  As it gains heights it starts to spin.  I nervously wonder why it is spinning when it stops and flies forward, up and over.  This helicopter flew upside down!  I didn't know helicopters could do that?  Why wouldn't the blades push it crashing down?  I am freaking out a little, some of it out loud, and I see the other observers smile at me.  They're watching it too and they must be used to air shows because they act interested but calmer than I do.  I think the top of a lighthouse is a fine place to watch a free air show.  The helicopter does all kinds of barrel rolls and tricks and then it goes down.  I watch in horrified fascination,  Next another fighter jet takes off.  I ask a man next to me and he say's it's a F18.  Up goes the F18, straight up, upside down making a sonic boom in it's descent.  Wow.  It flies super fast really low past the airport.  Before I know it it flies right past the lighthouse.  I can see the guy inside.  I'm hanging on for deal life to the railing wishing this guy would get the h___ away from the lighthouse.  He does aerial acrobats for 15 minutes and next a little yellow plane is up.  This one if much more maneuverable.  The yellow plane does not need as much height to do it's barrel rolls.  By this time the anxiety of being up so high added to the anxiety of watching dangerous feats of flying has put me over the top.  I decide to watch the rest of the show from ground level.  I descend the 177 steps.  I buy a diet Coke from the concession stand and sit on a wooden rocking chair on the veranda to compose myself. I can hear the occasional sonic boom from the practicing and decide to go to the other side of the lighthouse so I can watch more of the show.  I sit on the steps to the light house.  Trees are blocking some of my view.  All of a sudden I hear and feel the sonic boom.  Two blue angels roar past the right side of the light house and two more on the left.  They scared the crap out of me.  I think they were lower than the top of the light house. The sonic boom rocked my chest cavity.  I'm alone out here so despite my best intentions a swear word comes out out loud.  I don't count silent swear words; audible ones cost $1 in my self-improvement program.  Swearing out loud seems to vent the steam of my anxiety.  I don't know why I am so anxious because I'm on the ground.  I think it's the fact that I can't see them coming is bothering me.  These blue angel bastards are unpredictable and it's driving me crazy.  Sometimes I can see them flying low between the trees and that is okay, I know the sonic boom is coming.  Other times I see five of them flying high and in tight formation way up in the sky.  As they break away they release smoke forming a chevron in the air.  I'm cool with that.  When they come flying low and loud beside the lighthouse I start cursing like, well, a sailor.  "G-- D-- F---ing blue angels!"  I think I owe approximately $27 to the swearing envelope.  I photograph the butterflies in the butterfly garden next to where I am sitting.  The garden is full of colorful bugs, bees and butterflies.  One dark butterfly flies over my left shoulder and I flinch mistaking it for a blue angel.  By the time Offspring #1 comes to get me I am close to nervous exhaustion.  I have a little too much excitement today.