Chapter 9: The One Where We Almost Get Struck By Lightning and Run Out of Gas
If we had one regret about New Orleans, it’s that we didn’t get to visit the
National World War II Museum. I’d heard great things about this museum and it looked like a really worthy visit when I had researched it. Unfortunately, we’d had a trial run at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, D.C. a couple of months prior to this trip, and at that time, Drew had been terrible. He constantly ran off, forcing us to chase him all over the place, worry about losing him in the crowds, and generally keeping us from being able to see any exhibits or enjoy the museum. So we made the difficult decision not to spend the money on the WWII Museum. It would have been over his head and he would have made it miserable for the rest of us.
Instead, we set out east from New Orleans on another lengthy drive.
Along the way, as we drove through Mobile, Alabama, we spotted the
USS Alabama, a U.S. Navy battleship which had originally been commissioned in 1942 and served in World War II in both the Atlantic and Pacific. I’m sure that would have been a neat tour, too. Oh well, at least we can now say we saw something in Alabama.
A short while later, we found a familiar sight for many of you:
We got off the interstate at the city of Pensacola, in the Florida panhandle. We made our way through the city and across a couple of bridges to the outlying
Gulf Islands National Seashore.
My kids had never before laid eyes on the Gulf of Mexico, so I would have been remiss if I hadn’t made it to the shore at some point on this trip. I had two basic goals in stopping here: 1) get another National Park passport stamp (obviously), and 2) let the kids dip their toes in the Gulf of Mexico. With a 3-year-old along for the ride, surely the toes would be the only part we’d have to worry about getting wet.
Once you’re past the admissions gate (thanks again, annual National Parks pass!) you can park at various stops along the shoreline, or you can continue on to the remains of
Fort Pickens, a U.S. army installation first constructed in 1834 as a defense for the major port of Pensacola. It remained in service until 1947. Just like ironclad gunboats, old forts are always awesome.
Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
We barely spent any time here exploring the fort, however. There were two reasons for this. One, you can see the skies in the first photo of the fort above. We could see thunderstorms in the distance and so we were rushing to make sure we’d be able to get down to the beach before the weather turned nasty. And two, we were all wearing sandals in preparation for the beach. But as we walked the grounds of the fort, we found that when we stopped, our feet were getting completely swarmed with ants. Which was…uncomfortable. If not a little Moses-and-the-Ten-Plagues scary. So we bailed on the fort after stopping long enough for a bathroom break.
We drove a short way back down the road to a parking area near the beach. The skies were looking ominous.
But the beach is absolutely gorgeous. Pristine white sand, dunes, and warm, clear green-blue water in the Gulf. And, since it’s National Park land, no houses or development other than a couple of restrooms and lifeguard huts.
Mission accomplished.
It was nice just to take a break and enjoy wandering the beach and getting our feet wet. Julie fell in love with the area and immediately started trying to make plans to go back.
Whoops. I guess we got more than our feet wet.
Well, that’s no big deal. I mean, who cares if you ruin a rental v—oh, right.
In any case, we had a nice time.
Oh, and the Blue Angels just happened to be practicing while we were there. So that was awesome.
I think it’s safe to say we’ll be back someday. It was such a gorgeous beach.
Once we started feeling the first few drops of rain, we moved back to the van and ate our PB&J for lunch inside. It was obvious the storm would be around for a little while, so we drove away from the beach/park and back towards town, where we stopped for a bathroom break at a
crappy tourist t-shirt shop. Then we were once more on the road, headed toward Tallahassee. We were trying to cover the distance of the entire panhandle that day.
The Florida humidity was bringing about the usual pop-up thunderstorms that afternoon, and we ran into several downpours along the way. Most of the afternoon was spent getting up to cruising speed for a few minutes only to hit a torrential wall of water and be forced to slow to a crawl in order to have any chance of seeing what was ahead. Sadly, we were never able to reach ludicrous speed. Somewhere along the way, just as I was starting to accelerate, we heard an incredibly loud crack, and our entire view outside the van flashed white. In the corner of my eye, I saw the zap of a bolt of lightning. I turned my head quickly, and just on the other side of the highway I could see a pine tree smoldering, with smoke wafting out of the top. It had been less than a hundred feet away from us. I vowed immediately to never make fun of anyone ever again and to always eat my vegetables.
We continued on, and began to notice that the numbers on the GPS and the van’s mileage calculator were starting to look very similar. Namely, the number of miles left to go was awfully similar to the number of miles the van calculated we would be able to travel on the current tank of gas. I pointed this out to Julie and told her how I thought this would be a fun experiment. Let’s test the accuracy of our van’s mileage formula! I mean, it was looking like we’d reach the hotel with five miles to spare, so it’s not like it was urgent or anything.
Julie thought this would be a wonderful idea, and readily agreed, by which I mean she immediately freaked out and started loudly threatening me with bodily harm if we ran out of gas on the side of I-10. Some people have no sense of adventure.
Anyway, being the loving and considerate husband that I am, especially one who just narrowly escaped being struck by lightning, I immediately pulled over for gas. By which I mean I kept on driving, being sure to announce the countdown of exactly how much fuel we had left frequently as we drove.
As we approached Tallahassee on fumes, we were all getting hungry. I had researched a couple of placed in town, but it was getting late, we were all hungry, and somebody was worried about our fuel consumption. So we opted for a
Cracker Barrel next to the highway. We had less than 10 miles to go to reach the hotel.
Totally could have made it.
Anyway, I didn’t worry too much about food photos since most of you have probably been to a Cracker Barrel before. As chains go, it’s a pretty good one. I think I had some sort of chicken dinner there. The important thing is, I upheld my recent vows as a changed man and ordered broccoli with my meal. And I ate it, too. So there.
Coming Up Next: We subject the kids to cruel and unusual punishment.
back to the boards! No lie, I was actually thinking of texting you this morning just to make sure you were ok. Glad to have you back.
