Before discussing our adventures in this campground, we need to talk about an event that happened since our last trip in Rosie, our Airstream trailer.
We store Rosie inside a warehouse we call “Fort Rosie.” Of course, the owner of that facility has another name for it. We occasionally drop by to see Rosie while parked in storage. These visits are more for our peace of mind.
On one of our visits to Fort Rosie, we noticed that the new property owner had a crew painting the warehouse buildings. It is always good to see the owner working to improve the facility.
We had to go back to Fort Rosie the next day and saw the crew pressure washing the metal roofs over the warehouse buildings. The property manager said they were getting ready to paint the roofs.
I woke up early the next morning. I had an uneasy feeling about Rosie. All I could think about was how often rain dripped through the several small holes in the roof over Rosie and how likely it was that paint from the roof would land on our Airstream.
We discussed our options over breakfast and decided it would best to move Rosie away from the warehouse during these renovations and we knew that Rosie needed to move that morning.
We had an option because we made arrangements to park Rosie at a nearby military base when we first learned that Fort Rosie was being sold. This was to be a fallback in case the new owner had different plans for that property than RV storage. We were glad we had that option.
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| Rosie in the warehouse |
We loaded our hitching gear in our truck and headed to Fort Rosie. We were not prepared for what we saw when we opened the warehouse door. No, they hadn't started painting yet and Rosie wasn't covered with drops of paint. But, Rosie was covered with dirt and rust residue from the roof pressure washing. We quickly hitched up and pulled Rosie out of the warehouse so we could see her in the sunlight. It was a sickening sight!
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| Hooked up and ready to exit the storage warehouse |
Since we were planning to go on a camping trip in a few weeks, we brought some cleaning supplies with us that morning. We quickly connected a hose and started rinsing Rosie. We were glad to see the debris on Rosie rinsing away.
I found the property manager and was able to borrow a ladder to help rinse off Rosie's roof. He agreed that removing Rosie from the warehouse during the painting process was a good idea.
It took three or four long rinses to remove the dirt and rust residue from Rosie then we went ahead and washed her. It was great to see a clean Rosie that shined in the sunlight. That was confirmed at the military base's gate, where we were stopped by a military police officer for the normal ID check. After verifying our IDs the MP added, "Your Airstream looks great!" We knew if we had left Rosie in the warehouse, she would have been covered with paint blotches and rust debris from the roof.
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| Rosie parked in RV Storage on a military base |
We learned something about Rosie's solar panels while she was stored at the military base. One of the features at Fort Rosie is that we have an electrical plug we can use to keep Rosie's batteries charged. Of course, electricity wasn't an option at Rosie's temporary home on the military base and I was worried about keeping her batteries ready for our next trip.
A quick search of Airstream's online help pages relieved our minds. Airstream trailers are wired so that the solar system bypasses the "store" switch, which normally disconnects everything electrical when parked at a storage facility. That allows the batteries to be charged from the solar panels while in storage. That made sense.
We were thankful we had a back-up plan for storing Rosie and were able to get Rosie ready for our next adventure while parked on that military base.
We quickly fell into the camping groove once we had Rosie on the road. We were glad to be out camping again.
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| The check-in hut at Pensacola Naval Air Station's Blue Angel FamCamp |
Finding a site at Blue Angel Naval Recreation FamCamp can be described as a scavenger hunt. The hosts gave us a site tag when we checked in and told us to find the best site without a tag on it. Then there was a mad dash for the waterfront sites.
As luck would have it, we struck out and settled for a decent site deep inside the park instead of along the water.
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| First site in Battleship Row |
We saw some unexpected visitors our first night. Two deer were running through the campground between campers after sunset. We would see the deer several times during the evening in this campground.
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| Battleship Row |
Then a really unexpected thing happened. We were walking our dog the second morning in the park when we saw a camper packing up and leaving from one of the prime waterfront sites. We talked about moving Rosie, but decided it was too much work and the site would be quickly snapped up.
We went on a bike ride an hour later and were surprised to see that site was still open. We decided to quickly put our site nametag there to claim that site. We called the office and cleared the move with them.
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| Unhitching Rosie in our new waterfront site |
We were able to pack up and move in less than an hour. That meant we would enjoy the waterfront site for five more days.
The waterfront site gave us front row seats to watch all new trailers arriving and those departing. It also gave us great views of the sunsets. The sunsets were amazing. We made the right decision to move sites.
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| Watching the sunset from Rosie's site |
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| Rosie's site in Battleship Row |
We were able to visit with our grandson twice while in this park. We drove about 40 miles to watch his first “Coach-pitch” baseball game. For the second visit, he and his father, our son, came to visit us in this campground. It was fun to tour the Naval Aviation Museum and the lighthouse with them.
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| Grandson making a great play during his coach-pitch game |
A sign of the times was when we pointed out a machine gun on a World War II plane to our first-grader grandson. He immediately said, "I'm telling." I guess that was sadly the result of active shooter drills at his school. I thought back to my elementary school days when we had “duck and cover” drills, which were supposed to protect us from nuclear attacks.
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| At the Naval Aviation Museum |
It was amazing how fast a week went by. We enjoyed biking in this campground and going for walks on the beach at Johnson Beach.
Here are some specifics about this campground:
- There were two separate campgrounds in this park. The rustic side is Anchor Cove. It has more shade, water and electric hookups and sites are paved with dirt. The other side is Battleship Row and has full hookups, paved roads and concrete sites. We were in Battleship Row
- There were multiple loops in both Battleship Row and Anchor Cove
- Our site was a back in
- Our site had some shade
- Most sites had some space on both sides
- Our site was paved with concrete and was level
- Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service
- Our site had a water connection
- Our site had a sewer connection
- There was a dump station in Anchor Cove
- The trash dumpster was in the middle of the campground. It was easy to walk there with your trash
- There were two bathhouses in Battleship Row
- The park did not provide WiFi service
- AT&T provided 3 bars of 5G voice and data service over our campsite
- We were able to watch ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS using Rosie’s TV antenna. Digital channels seen were Antenna-TV, Circle, Comet, Court-TV, Dabl, ION, LAFF, ME-TV, Retro, Stadium and TBD
- There were restaurants and shopping nearby
- This was a pet friendly park
By the way, the Navy's Blue Angels flight demonstration team practiced over our site one day while camped there.
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| Watching someone fish with a net at sunset |
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| Selfie at the beach |
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| The lighthouse at Pensacola Naval Air Station |
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| Selfie at the top of the lighthouse |
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| Taking a display aircraft for a spin at the Naval Aviation Museum |
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