On the Friday after Thanksgiving, we drove to Pensacola for
the Snowball Derby the following week.
It was one of our longer driving days but the weather was nice and it
was a pleasant ride.
Donald and Anna were coming in Monday to spend the week with
us so the guys could go to the Snowball Derby at Pensacola's Five Flag
Speedway. The Snowball Derby is a nearly
a week long racing event with several classes of stock car racing. A lot of times some of the NASCAR drivers
will come down and race in a couple of events.
It is also where you will see some of the young future NASCAR drivers.
On Saturday before Donald and Anna arrived, we decided to
get our exercise in by walking the 2 or so miles to the race track and
back. It was not the best location for
walking as there were no sidewalks but we got our exercise in and we were able
to go take a look at the track because none of the events had begun.
One day during the week while Donald and Anna were with us,
we drove to the Naval Aviation Museum.
We took a bus tour of all the old planes and helicopters they had on
display behind the museum:
We saw an retired Blue Angels jet.
The old Navy Blue Ghost
And a plane disguised as a frog.
Then we went inside the museum and
watch "The Magic of Flight" in their big IMAX theater. It was a really good movie but I think we all
got a little dizzy watching it. We
didn't try their flight simulator because we thought we would really get sick
on that one.
We walked around inside the museum
where there were more planes on display.
And Chuck climbed into the cockpit
of a Blue Angels' jet.
Ready for takeoff!
Chuck and Donald would go to the
races in the evenings and there was lot of good racing which they thoroughly
enjoyed. The rest of the time we got
some exercise in walking at the mall or playing cornhole and we also played
many games of Skipbo. And we got our
fill of Sonny's Barbecue and the Shrimp Basket for dinner that week. As always, we had lots of fun just being
together and laughing a lot.
