Pensacola Beach | Spring 2014

The middle of April this year, my family had a week where we didn't have anything going on, so we packed up and headed for Pensacola Beach! We hadn't ever camped there, and hadn't been to the beach since the November after 9/11 when the annual Blue Angels Homecoming airshow was flown over the beach (instead of NAS Pensacola).

Pensacola Beach, on Santa Rosa Island, is known for its beautiful white sand and crystal-clear water. It was a bit chilly and rained a lot the week we were there, but we made the most of it. (Blog posts coming soon with pictures from a Blue Angels practice show, and the two days we spent at the Naval Air Museum!)

We camped on the western end of Santa Rosa Island, and one day, when the weather was nice, we drove out to Fort Pickens. It's another Civil War-era fort that was built around the same time as Fort Morgan in Gulf Shores, and it looks much the same - we had fun exploring in it. You can read more about the fort here.

(Notice the different colors of the water!)










































































One afternoon we stopped by Blues Angel Music in Pensacola, because music stores are one of my favorite things.

And also because this store is home to a real drum set turned into an aquarium that was featured on the TV show Tanked!














I have never seen that many ukeleles in my life.






I got to play around on this Eastman T386, which is equivalent to a Gibson ES-335. Nate Dugger of Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors plays a Gibson, and it sounds so cool that I wanted to play something at least similar to it. Check out the second part of the video below to hear what it sounds like!


At the music store employees' recommendation, we ate a scrumptious lunch at a local Mexican place - Vallartas. Go there if you're ever in Pensacola! It's wonderful.

These last few shots were taken on my iPhone, and I didn't edit them at all (in terms of lighting)...for some reason they look like HDR/super-saturated pictures! The skies weren't really quite that blue, but that's how the pictures turned out. It looks cool, though. :)

And....here's the video! Enjoy!

For the love of the beach, and music,

Rebekah