After that, we grabbed food at Jaco's and did a little walking around to explore and scope out a good spot for the fireworks. (While we were waiting for our food to arrive, Moose's orthodontic appliance fell out of his mouth while he was drinking ice water. Being a holiday, I couldn't contact anyone about it, so we held onto it to bring home with us.) The kids fished while we figured out the plan for the evening.
Bear's second grade teacher, Ms. Mac, moved to Pensacola when Bear moved on to 3rd grade and we have kept in touch ever since. I reached out to her to see if we could meet up while we were there. I hadn't heard back from her for a few weeks, and I told Bear I wasn't sure it would work out. A few days prior, I tried connecting with her once again and we figured out we could make it work. Bear never asked again about seeing Ms. Mac, so I decided to make it a little surprise.
The kids were fishing off the dock, with the dogs on watch duty, enjoying some downtime. Bear decided to come inside for a bit to cool down. Ms. Mac let me know she had parked and was headed to the marina gate with her 2 year old identical twin boys, who we have enjoyed watching grow since they were in her belly! I snuck out to let her in at the gate while Bear was hanging out on the couch watching a movie.
Moose and Roo barely remembered her since they were so little when she moved out of Colorado. Because of this, we were able to sneak on the boat without a big commotion.
When we got the twins onto the boat, I started to open to door to the cabin and put one of them in front of the glass door, so when Bear looked up she knew EXACTLY who was here! She immediately jumped off the couch and ran up to the cockpit for hugs!
The girls and I walked around Palafox Pier with them while the boys made a run to a parts store and picked up some milk. We stopped at the Pensacola Bay City Ferry dock and hung out on the steps catching up, snacking, and playing for a bit before walking them back to their car. Our hearts were so full!
After we said goodbye, the 5 of us put bug spray on, grabbed ice cream along the way, and ended up over on Bayfront Street to find a viewing spot for fireworks. As the show started, we decided there were too many trees blocking our view, it was too people-y, and that we'd actually rather watch from closer to the boat, and honestly, it wound up being the perfect spot. The fireworks were great, the walk back was short, and we were all in bed at a reasonable hour. That's a win!
We knew we had to get up early the next day to go to the National Naval Aviation Museum at NAS Pensacola. One of my unspoken agreements with Ben while on the Loop has been that we stop, explore, and learn as much as we want to. Although the 5 of us have varied interests, we continue to find and enjoy something for everyone- history, military, science, animals, exploration, nature, novelty... you name it! This is one of my favorite parts of our summer adventures.
Getting to the NAS was a small adventure in itself. Lyft and Uber aren't allowed on base, so we called a taxi company and stated that we needed a taxi driver who's base-approved. We hung out by Jaco's waiting for ours to arrive, which took a few tries to get one who had the right approval.
When the approved driver finally arrived to pick us up, he took us to the east gate. The sentry turned us around and sent us to the west gate, which is exactly where we told him to go in the first place, but he insisted he could go through either gate. Apparently, once you have civilians in the car, east gate is a no-go, even for drivers with clearance for both. NAS Pensacola is one of only three bases in the world that allows civilian entry, so it was pretty cool to be allowed there at all. After a fatal shooting in 2019, access was tightened up significantly, which is why the west-gate-only rule is in place. Our driver gave us his number and told us to call him for a ride back to the boat so we didn't have to wait and find someone who had base clearance again.
The museum itself was incredible. So. Many. Planes. This was everything I expected the Air & Space Museum in DC to be and, IMO- wasn't. We watched two movies, wandered through more aircraft than I could count, and we all took advantage of the obligatory photo op- sitting in an old Blue Angel cockpit with actual controls. That alone was worth the trip.
Leaving, our driver tried to take us out the east gate again. The sentry turned us around again. The driver was unhappy with this and decided that he wanted to talk to someone to understand why. We didn't realize this meant he was going to park at the west gate and get out of the car, resulting in a different gate sentry approaching us in the car with his AR15 slung over his chest. Ben informed him that we just wanted to go home and we didn't know anything about the driver's intentions. The driver got back in the car, still grumpy about the situation, and drove us back and dropped us at Lucy's in the Square, where we had street tacos and played some games before walking back to the boat. We ventured out again a little bit later for boba and called it a night.
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