Vacation Adventures Part Three!

Oysters....mmmm, what a lovely way to start the day. We had to make sure we got our fill of oysters on this trip. That was half the reason for coming. We went over to Pensacola today to see Fort Pickens. All through this trip Amber has been learning her Civil War history. There is tons of Civil War and World War II history all along the Gulf Coast. Joe had been to Fort Pickens once before as a Boy Scout. There are a number of forts guarding the bays along the Gulf Coast and Fort Pickens is the biggest and most interesting of all. On the way there, just past the Fort Pickens park entrance it was strange to see that alot of the beach parking lots off the road were submerged under water and sand. We were trying to think if there had been any storms lately to cause the road to flood. Also the campgrounds and the stores were closed and boarded up, how strange.
We got to the fort and noticed that there was a diesel generator outside the visitor center. We toured the fort, and learned about the battle of Pensacola Bay, that never was. This fort is interesting in part because it was built for the Civil War, then used again in World War II, so it was a mixture 1800's and 1900's technology. It was also interesting to see that part of the fort had been blown up and was missing due to a fire that got to the powder rooms. Oops! I'd hate to be the one responsible for that mistake. Walking around the fort got us really hot and Amber was ready to go, while Joe wanted to explore more. So I guess it was time to go. We bought a couple souveniers and found out that the fort had just opened a week before. It had been closed since Hurricane Ivan hit..... 5 years ago. Wow, guess that explains the submerged roads and closed up stores on the way here. They didn't even have water and electricity yet, which is why they had a diesel generator powering the gift shop. What timing! It's a good thing we came this week instead of last week.
On the way back to the condo, right before crossing the forever long bridge over Pensacola Bay, Amber started screaming because a spider decided to drop down from the rear view mirror to say hi. Of course he had to make himself known right as we started crossing the bay. We couldn't find him, hopefully he enjoyed the ride. We haven't been down here since the hurricanes, so a couple of things were different since the last time we were here. The biggest thing we noticed was that the old Pensacola Bay bridge next to the current bridge that used to be open as a fishing pier was now in pieces and was creepy to watch as we drove alongside it. There were sections of the bridge that were intact, but there was a majority of the bridge that looked like the sections had been picked up and dropped like lego blocks. We guess that happened when the storm surge came into Pensacola and made the water rise really fast, picking up sections of the bridge with it.
We got back to the condo and there was a beautiful sunset on the horizon. We couldn't miss this moment so we ran out to the beach where we could get a good view of the sunset so we could take pictures of it. After taking the pictures, Joe noticed how beautiful Amber was in the light of the sunset. So he had to get some pictures of her of course. Much to Amber's surprise Joe got into a romantic mood. We decided to go for a little walk on the beach to the dunes away from people, and did some kissie kissie smoochie smoochie on the beach in the light of the sunset. Yep Joe can be romantic sometimes.
On our trip, we promised Amber's little cousin, Brianna, that we would find some cute little sea creatures and take a picture for her. We went crab hunting after the sun went down. We've never looked for crabs at the beach before, but we see people doing it all the time with their flashlights, buckets and nets, and figured how hard could it be? At first we didn't know where to look for them. Do we dig holes? Are they down by the water? Or are they up closer to the dunes? We went down and walked along the shore sweeping with our flashlight looking for any signs of life. For the first few minutes nothing, but as we walked further down the shore, we started to see white things sitting still, and as we got closer to them they ran really fast into the surf. And as we walked, we saw more and more of these. They were crabs!!! After seeing these over and over again we started getting creeped out because we didn't realize the crabs were out in plain sight. Never again will we walk along the shore at night without a flashlight.
Trying to catch them was interesting, they're so fast. Even if you try to sneak up on one, they can still see you and they run into the surf or they disappear altogether. That got us really baffled. Eventually, we were able to catch a couple of little ones and figured out what they were doing. They were hiding in footprints where they think they're safe, even if you're hovering right over them. Another reason that we're not going to walk on the beach at night without a flashlight anymore. It was fun catching the big ones as long as we kept them in our sights and blocked them from going into the surf. We just followed them until they hid in a footprint, then captured them with a net, trying not to get pinched. We bought them inside to take pictures. Of course Joe thought he was smart and tried to pick one of the big ones up. He thought if he picked them up by the body from behind they wouldn't be able to pinch him. That wasn't the case. Man, those little things are strong! He could reach all the way back behind him and pinched Joe's finger. It didn't hurt until he found the cuticle and pinched the crap out of it. Ouch, scream, back into the bucket! We were finally able to take pictures of them by dumping him into the sink. Poor thing was scared to death. He was kinda cute in a crab sorta way. We took them back to the beach and let them go.