Well, we pulled up stakes at Pensacola / Milton today and heaed to the Hollywood Casino RV Park in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi.  The park is nice... and almost deserted.  We kinda hated to leave the park in Milton, where we had this view out the windshield of the motorhome.

 

Taken through our windshield at Avalon Landing RV Park in Milton, Florida

We'll be in Bay Saint Louis until Thursday, when we head to my old stomping grounds of Lafayette, Louisiana.  See ya'll later!

After touring the Naval Museum and climbing the lighthouse, we decided to try out McGuire's Irish Pub in Pensacola.  McGuire's more than lived up to the high recommendations we had gotten from the RV park personnel.  Expecting a "comfort food" pub, we were surprised to discover that the restaurant has been featured several times on The Food Channel and has won numerous rewards, including the best steak in Florida.  Janice and I both had the filet, which was absolutely incredible!  As if the food wasn't enough, the ambiance is super cool!  The restaurant was started by William and Molly McGuire in 1977.  Molly wrote her name on the first dollar the restaurant made and stapled it to the wall.  Since then, it has become a tradition for customers to follow suit.  Take a look at the dollar bills in these pics:

Note all the dollar bills on the walls... and ceiling!

You have to remember that the restaurant covers a full square block!  There are now officially in excess of $1 MILLION in dollar bills stapled to McGuire's walls and ceilings!!  Do people try to lift a few every now and then?   Yep.  And there are several newspaper articles posted throughout the restaurant reporting the criminal prosecution of those individuals.  McGuire's takes the tradition (and the one million dollars the tradition has generated) very seriously!  Bottom line:  If in Pensacola, you HAVE to dine at McGuire's!

We visted the lighthouse located on NAS Pensacola.  Pensacola is the oldest European settlement in mainland America (1559), its location has caused great turmoil, with many buildings destroyed by wars, and by numerous major hurricanes. The location, south of the original British colonies, and as the dividing line between French Louisiana and Spanish Florida, along the Perdido River, has caused Pensacola to change ownership several times. Pensacola was Spanish, then French, then Spanish, then British, then Spanish again, before becoming American, then Confederate, and then the current U.S. city.

Congress authorized construction of the lighthouse in 1823 at a cost of $6,000.  The light was first illuminated a year later.  When Florida seceded from the Union in 1961, the Confederates dismantled the lens and extinguished the light to prevent the navigational aid helping the Union ships.  The Union regained the lighthouse the following year and the lens was reinstalled and the light turned back on.

Janice and I climbed the 177 steps to the top and were rewarded by this view

What astounded me was the size of the 1,000 candlepower bulb that, when transmitted through the French-made lens, can be seen 27 miles from the lighthouse.

The primary bulb, seen just to the left of the "P" in Primary, above, is the only bulb that illuminates.  The bulb looks like it belongs in an oversized flashlight... not a lighthouse!  If the bulb burns out, the block holding the two bulbs rotates and the Secondary bulb takes over.  The bulbs last 2 to 3 years and cost about $1,000 each.