Trans America Cycling Day 41 - Orange Beach, AL to Milton, FL

May 11, 2019

The link to today's route and statistics is found here.

The highlight of the day was visiting the National Naval Aviation Museum at Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola. There are over 400 volunteers at the museum, many of whom lead excellent tours explaining the significance of aircraft on display. In this way there is no entrance fee to the museum, making it the number one tourist attraction in Pensacola. Many airplanes are on display in multiple hangers, with more outdoors. We could have spent days at the museum.

Cyclists posed in front of a fascinating sculpture at the entrance to the museum. The sculpture depicts a WWII pilot reliving his flight with Naval Aviators from WWI, Korean conflict, Vietnam and Gulf War.

5 cyclists (Jim, Ray, Roberto, Barry and John) and
5 pilots (WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Gulf War)

Outside the front door of the museum is an F-14 Tomcat fighter, the type of aircraft flown in the movie Top Gun.

Gruman F-14 Tomcat, the aircraft from the movie Top Gun with Tom Cruise,
sits in front of the Naval Aviation Museum

We watched the IMAX movie "Magic of Flight," narrated by Tom Selleck with extensive footage of The Blue Angels and of naval aviators flying from aircraft carriers. Ray took some photos from the movie.

Ray's photo of carrier landing in IMAX movie

Then Ray got a little cocky and dreamt of being a pilot.

Engineer wanted to fly

We ate lunch at the museum. In the eating area there were copius displays of flying unit artwork, typically at the Squadron level.

Cafe at Naval Aviation Museum

Flying unit motivational sculpture with names of unit members

Flying unit typical naughty artwork

Concise statement of Naval Air mission on an aircraft hanger near the museum

If we were at the museum on the flying day, the highlight would have been watching the Blue Angels Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron practice for the summer air shows around the country and around the world. The Navy is smart to have the flight line for the Blue Angels demonstration adjacent to the museum. Viewers of the flight demonstrations rent chairs and buy food, drinks, and souvenirs that help support the museum. Viewers sit right next to the flight line, the best viewing possible for the show. Here are two photos taken by the blog author of the Blue Angels flying in 2017 when the tour happened to come through on a flying day.

Blue Angels flight demonstration, one up and two inverted, flying McDonnell Douglas F/A-18D Hornets

Shortly before a pull-up that applies bone-crushing g's to the pilots

On our way we stopped at Flora-Bama to take pictures in front of the line separating Florida and Alabama.

Ray from Pennsylvania in front of the dividing line between the two states

Today with mixed emotions we rode into the state of Florida from Alabama. This sadly is the eighth and last state crossing on our tour, but all fourteen riders are very happy to have made it this far. Count your blessings. Perdido Bay separates the two states by the gulf coast.