Thursday February 12, 2015

Today was a shorter ride. We followed highway 90 all the way into Pensacola. It was a busy road going through Pace with a narrow shoulder and road works. There were three bridges to cross. The first two were concrete and not too bad, but the third bridge was a metal bridge and was awful to cross. Fortunately the cars gave us plenty of room and we managed to get over it without incident.

We followed the coastal road which was quite hilly, but nice to be able to see the coast. There were some big houses along this road and other house which made you wonder why?

We met the touring cyclists from Alaska again and told them about warmshowers, as it is getting colder at nights and they are camping most of the time. We thought it might help them if they can stay at a house occasionally. Paul said they already host people who come up to Alaska, but not through warmshowers.

We arrived in Pensacola and met Ray who made us welcome. He has a lovely house, which he renovated. The house had been empty for over 25 years, and was a real mess. In the bathroom it has an original claw foot bath tub, lovely.

We had a shower and then Ray drove us back into downtown Pensacola so that we could enjoy the Historic Pensacola Village on Zaragoza Street, Church Street and Government Street. He told us to give him a call when we were ready to come back to his house and he would pick us up.

We spent about three hours wandering around the old buildings. Some of the houses had been moved to the area and there were about eight houses that were part of a village tour. Unfortunately, we were too late to take part in the organized walking tour, but we could follow a self-guided tour.

Logging Train bought logs from Florida’s pine lands.

Pensacola was originally founded in 1559, but is not considered as the oldest town in Florida, as it has not been continuously occupied. A hurricane wiped out the settlement in 1559. Pensacola, is known as the Five Flag City. Pensacola has been under the possession of the Spanish, French, British, United States and Confederate States, and has remained a part of the United States since the end of the civil war.

We called Ray who picked us up and took us to the Fish Market, a tourist attraction in itself.

We had a lovely meal with Ray and his wife Donna and chatted to them about their upcoming trip to Europe.

I am really glad we had a warmshowers tonight as the temperature dropped down to -2! I hope the magnolia tree survives.