Oil Spill Moving Towards Land
You can follow the oil spill movement on this interactive map from usatoday.com
There are lots of meetings. The answer to most questions is the same “I don’t know.” “We don’t know.” Fishing has been banned in the Gulf areas where the oil spill may have effect.
The Shrimp Basket
Even though The Shrimp Basket has specials like 25 cent oysters all day on Tuesdays, and even though the first time, I really did order the steamed shrimp, it is hard to walk into the Shrimp Basket and not to order something fried.
I can go for years most of the time and never eat anything deep fried. It just isn’t that important to me. I can see that living in Pensacola, it is going to be a serious challenge, because so much is deep fried, and holy tomole, it all smells so good. Fried onion rings. Fried fish. Fried shrimp. Fried seafood platters. Fried grouper sandwiches. Stop! Stop! You’re killing me!
Pensacola is a real military town, and loves their Blue Angels, the Navy stunt flying team. The Blue Angels practice on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, and have autograph signings after the practice and anyone in Pensacola can go and it’s FREE!
There is often a waiting line to get into the Shrimp Basket because of their specials. On Fridays, the special is all you can eat Fried Fish for $7.99.
When you finish the first batch, you just tell the waitress you want some more. We ordered it, but we could only eat the first batch, there was so much fish. They also have very cool and colorful T-shirts for Shrimp Basket fans:
Roses Love Sun and Rain
The last two weeks in Pensacola have been gorgeous, and then, Friday afternoon, all hell breaks loose in huge, windy wild thunderstorms and torrential rains.
My roses are thriving. All of a sudden, there are roses everywhere, gorgeous, full happy roses!
Can’t take any credit; these were planted long ago by the original owner, and the good Lord provides the sun and rain. 🙂
One Moment in Time
I would have told you if I had known about it long enough in advance. The New York Times had a photo . . . not contest . . . opportunity. They asked people all around the world to shoot a photo at 1500 Greenwich Mean Time, which is 1000 Pensacola time.
As we were leaving for the Episcopal Lite service (0800; it is amazing, they do a processional, recessional, sermon, prayers of the people and communion in 45 minutes flat, amazing!) and I told AdventureMan I needed to take a photo.
It is what I love about AdventureMan. No matter what I propose, he is up for it. OK, sometimes I get a little foot dragging, but for the most part, he is Gung Ho. We hit church, we even had time for a little breakfast at the Shiny Diner, and then we went to take photos. This is what the New York Times instructions were:
Where will you be on Sunday, May 2, at 15:00 hours (U.T.C.)?
Wherever you are, we hope you’ll have a camera — or a camera phone — in hand. And we hope you’ll be taking a picture to send to Lens that will capture this singular instant in whatever way you think would add to a marvelous global mosaic; a Web-built image of one moment in time across the world.
Please keep your photos under 5MB in size.
I didn’t read the instructions. I sent them three photos. I was only supposed to send one.
AdventureMan is going down tomorrow to volunteer with the Fish and Wildlife service; they are going to need a lot of volunteers when the oil slick hits, Tuesday or Wednesday. It is going to be a horror.
Billy Bob’s Barbecue in Gulf Breeze
We had heard many people saying Billy Bob’s Barbecue was THE BEST, so when we saw that it was located near the Gulf Breeze Cinema Four, we decided it was meant to be. We’d give it a try.
First off, they have Beer Batter Onion Rings, and AdventureMan and I have been searching for many years for the world’s best onion rings, so we started off with them. When they came, hot out of the oil, they were real fresh onion rings (that scores big with us) and the batter was light and crisp. They were good, right up there with the best we have had so far:
When our dinners came, we groaned. We though we had ordered light. The portions here – for the price – were HUGE.
I had the dinner salad with smoked chicken, and I chose the balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing – it was fabulous:
AdventureMan had to try the pulled pork platter, and for his two sides, he chose the sweet and sour slaw and the baked beans (the two sides we think are critical to truly good BBQ, although we sometimes try other things, if the slaw and beans aren’t right, it isn’t BBQ). His platter was enormous, and delicious:
I like Sonny’s, and I like Dave’s Famous BBQ; they have good food. What I like about Billy Bob’s is that is has a real family feel about it, not a chain feel. The food feels more real and no less delicious, and the service feels more personal and like they take pride in their food and their work. You can tell the difference between hired help and people who really care whether you like the food or not. I give Billy Bob’s a big plus because I believed they really cared about what they serve. 🙂
We will definitely be going there again.
Señor Driving
You get a reduction on your insurance rates if you take the safe driving classes for seniors. AdventureMan still isn’t all that comfortable with being a senior, so he calls himself “señor,” which is ‘Mister’ in Spanish. He tells people we are taking “señor” driving classes, and everyone looks at him like he is a little nuts.
Well. . . he is, actually. More than just a little. And now he has the time and energy to be a full time nut, and more power to him.
The “señor” driving classes were actually all right. We learned some things we didn’t know, and we met some interesting people, one, a retired New York fireman, and his wife, a retired nurse. They invited us to go eat seafood after class, and we learned all kinds of things.
On our way back from the ladies room, his wife leaned over to me and whispered “Is he helping you?” I laughed. I knew what she meant. “Yes!” I whispered back, “So far, so good!”
Living in Kuwait and in Qatar, most of the people were younger than us. Countries with all kinds of imported labor put upper limits on workers, so they don’t have a lot of old guys kicking the bucket in their countries. You can get exceptions to the rules in certain jobs, and we had a lot of good friends around our ages, thank God, but here in Pensacola, we feel like YOUNG older people – there are so many older people, and so much to learn. They are all really good about sharing their tricks for survival, and we find that keeping our ears open is a good thing.
Hell
Hell is unwrapping household goods when every tiniest piece is wrapped in a whole sheet of moving paper. Every spoon. The stopper for a crystal decanter. Every single piece, individually wrapped. It is endless. . . .
It is also why I do so much of my own packing. That, and finding my muddy riding boots packed with my formal gowns.
An occasional mover cares.
Most movers are casual labor, insufficiently supervised. Things can disappear.
This move is in waves, and we are in the biggest wave right now, the goods that have been in storage for 12 years. It had gone well, but we think some things are missing. Also, some serious pieces of furniture are incapacitated. One in particular, a china cabinet, handles the gazillion pieces of china and crystal collected through years of Army wifedom, but lost a foot. You can’t store china in a very tipsy cabinet, and I don’t know how we are going to get it fixed. Meanwhile, how to store all these pieces???
Aarrgh.
We are just taking a break before we submerge into the world of putting things away again. Aarrgh.
The Hacienda Restaurant in Pensacola
While we have really missed GOOD Mexican food during our time in the Arabian Gulf countries, we find that we are on an endless search for our favorite Mexican restaurant here in Pensacola. We have had good food – and then had bad, umm. . .er . . . repercussions.
Finally, we found a restaurant we loved. The next day, we also realized that we were fine! No gastric fireworks, no problems.
First, the Hacienda is very welcoming, and the service is fast and attentive without being intrusive.
Second – the restaurant is colorful. You really know you are in a Mexican restaurant:
Third – the food was really good. Chips were thin and quickly cooked so they were not coated with fat.
AdventureMan had a tamale with shredded beef, and he says it was outstanding:
I was not so hungry, so I ordered a taco salad – but it was really delicious, too.
The ’50’s Automatic Car Wash
Not too far from where we will live is this old fashioned car-wash, with all these car washing machines.
It costs $5.00. That is it. No additional taxes, it is all included. You can get the fancier treatments, but I just needed to get the pollen and sap off my new car. Within seconds, I was in, and finished.
It could make you a little claustrophobic (well, it makes me just a little claustrophobic) because you have NO control! You have to keep your hand off the steering wheel and your foot off the brake! You just sit there while water shoots from different directions, and then you are covered with soap suds and you cannot see a thing except the lights from the car in front of you, oh no!
And then huge gusts of wind and it is over except for the optional – and free – vacuums you can use to clean out the car interior.
My car looked like new! I think me and the 50’s car wash are going to be good friends.
It does remind me of the automatic car wash we used to visit in Saudi Arabia. In a country where labor is cheap and the harshness of the weather and climate makes specialized machinery hard to maintain, things happen. We don’t know if the machines broke and couldn’t be fixed or whether they were sabotaged, but while it was billed as an “automatic” car wash, it was this thing where the car got on tracks but while water squirted and suds squirted, there were people, not brushes, with rags and towels, washing, drying, spraying, scrubbing and finally buffing. The end result was the same, but people, not machines, did the work.
Pensacola Ale House and Customer Service
“I think she’s having a problem,” I said to AdventureMan as he huffed because the waitress hadn’t been by the table and he needed something. She – and the manager – were at the table behind AdventureMan, and that couple was raising a stink about something and the waitress and the manager were placating them.
No matter what they did, the woman kept complaining. The man looked embarrassed; you get the impression the woman was trying to get their meals comped or something.
When the waitress came to our table, she took our orders and then we waited again, a long time, before our meals came. The waitress was running around, there was a huge crowd in the Ale House, and we could tell she was a little flustered from her experience with the couple at the next table.
This being retired and living temporarily in a hotel is a real change for us. It means when things are slow, it’s OK. We aren’t in a hurry, we don’t have anywhere we have to be and AdventureMan is only as tired as his exercise program and jet lag force him to be.
Our appetizer came, smoked fish spread and crackers and oh, YUMMM. So good. When our main dishes came, AdventureMan got salad and a big bowl of chili, but I got Chicken Oriental, not Oriental Chicken Salad. I sent it back. No big deal, but I really, REALLY love their Oriental Chicken Salad.
The waitress apologized, and apologized, and we could see she was having a bad night. Of course, it took a while for me to get my order, but it was worth it. Did I mention how I love their Oriental Chicken Salad? There used to be a chicken salad at Chili’s that I liked, Crispy Chicken Salad, and I loved that, except I only wished the chicken were grilled, not fried. At the Pensacola Ale House, the chicken is grilled. There is nothing not to love. The crispy noodles, the tangy salad dressing – it is all good.
It was our son and his wife who told us we would like this place, and they were right. It has a great variety – we could see a lot of burgers, steaks, chicken, Osso Bucco – and everything that went by us was something we would love to try sometime.
When we had finished, the waitress came by again and we assured her we were fine, she had done fine with us, and the mistaken order was no big deal, and it wasn’t. She brought the bill, we paid, and then, when she brought back our change, she brought this – “on the house,” she said, “for being so nice:”
We were so full. Dinner had been so good. But we took a couple bites, just to be polite. It was an Oreo cookie crust, with vanilla ice cream, and another layer of gooey warm caramel before another layer of Oreo crust. It was DIVINE. We ate the whole thing. Well, we left a couple bites, just to be polite. We have a very funny Kuwaiti friend; we could hear him saying “haven’t you ever seen food before?” It was irresistible. It was amazing. Can you tell, we hardly ever eat desserts?
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