Day 2, Sun., May 9 - Pensacola, FL, to Vicksburg, MS

We knew that the drive from Pensacola to Vicksburg wouldn't be as long a drive as from New Port Richey to Pensacola, but we still didn't want to dawdle too much. That is, you see, until we found out that the National Museum of Naval Aviation was literally right across the street from the Navy Lodge on board Pensacola NAS.

I like planes, but Kelly's a real airplane buff, especially fighter planes from a war, any war, pick a war. This museum - did I mention it was right there in front of us? - had 150 planes in its collection. There was no way we didn't visit, but had to put a limit on the amount of time we could spend. Anything less than 4 hours was going to hurt, but we agreed to an hour-and-a-half. We had to leave by 10:30 AM.

We walked in - did I mention, also, that it's free? - set our phone alarms for 10:30, and started wandering. Holy cow, they had some great planes with lots of descriptions and informational placards all around. I took a bunch of pictures down on the main floor then wandered up to the mezzanine, which had a series of dioramas. One was of a Vietnam base, one was a mock-up of an aircraft carrier, another was of a Main Street 'back home.' It was captivating and fun, and I loved seeing KW having a lot of fun, too. Pensacola is the home of the Blue Angels, and had we been there on a Tuesday or a Wednesday (instead of a Saturday/Sunday), we could have watched them practice. Next time, we'll plan better!

On the way to I-20, we found our breakfast restaurant - Waffle House! Eggs and cheese, grits, bacon, raisin toast, and hash browns covered and smothered... yummmmmmy!

Got to I-20 West, crossed the state line into Alabama, made it through Mobile, then headed north on ... some road ... to cut over into Mississippi and connect with I-40 in Jackson, then on to Vicksburg.

Unfortunately, because we had stayed the extra hour-and-a-half at the aviation museum, when we got to Vicksburg, we didn't have time to go visit any of the Civil War battlefield museums. That turned out to be okay, because the hotel we chose, Cedar Grove Mansion, was practically a Civil War museum all by itself. The husband built the house for his wife, who happened to be a cousin of General Sherman. It was a huge white mansion on a hillside with property all the way down to the Mississippi River - and yet it only had about 40 cannonballs shot at it, with fewer actually landing. The prevailing thought is that the wife's ties to Sherman saved the home. The family built more houses on the property for their children, and many of them are also used as hotel rooms.

Because the house was virtually spared during the War, a lot of the furniture and structure is original; in addition, any decoration that isn't actually original to the house is an antique from that same era. We stayed in "Rhett Butler's Penthouse Suite," a quirky room on the 3rd floor, complete with a hole in the closet door where a cannonball came through! There was another cannonball hole in the floor of the main parlor, and just past that hole, there's an actual cannonball jammed into the door frame and wall! Very interesting and very cool.

We were too tired to go off property to find food, so we ate at the hotel's restaurant, which was a real find. The chef did wonderful things with my dish, shrimp and grits in an andouille sausage gravy, and Kelly's, a flatiron steak that had a lovely spicy rub on it and which was cooked to perfection. After the drive and the great meal, we were even to tired to make our way to the river to do some riverboat gambling - yes, just like in Biloxi and Gulfport, casinos are allowed on the water, and we passed two of them on our way to the hotel. Lights out in Rhett's suite was early this night.

On to Day 3, Vicksburg, MS, to Ft. Worth, TX!