The Deep South US Tour Pt3 – Pensacola
Jetlag has us again, so we’re up at 6am. This means we can take our time getting ready, have breakfast and set off in good time. It’s going to be a long drive, but one that I’m craving again. The only downside is that I’ll miss the Carabao Cup Final, but when you’re on such an adventure, the tendency is to care a little less about the result of your favourite football team.
Once we reached the freeway, that’s when the playlist went on – starting with ‘Thunderstruck’ by ACDC to begin the journey in pulsating fashion, and then letting ‘shuffle’ do the rest.
Not long into the journey it became apparent that Florida is just a tsunami of lush greenery and staggering trees that loom by the sides of the road, with pockets of swamp like lakes percolating the thick growth every so often. It’s on journeys like these where you see the Romans inventions at work. Straight roads that go for miles upon miles!
Stopping at a Denny’s Diner just over halfway into our journey, I was able to check the Man Utd score and see that we’d won 2-0. What I said about caring a little less about my team on these journeys turned out to be bollocks… maybe it’d be different if we’d lost.
The final 2 ½ hour slog into Pensacola flies by after an impromptu game of ‘Rockbusters’ (courtesy of Karl Pilkington on the Ricky Gervais Show). My driving becomes more confident as I push further on the gas and start overtaking vehicles, feeling like Withnail ‘making time’ in the film, ‘Withnail & I. It was strange that at some point we jumped back an hour in time too. I had no idea when that happened.
The layout of Pensacola is crazy. It’s located in Florida’s panhandle, surrounded by bays and gargantuan bridges that eventually meet at the Gulf of Mexico with a stunning long, narrow strip of white sandy beach separated from Pensacola’s mainland.
We arrived at our destination in what was a gorgeous, quiet neighbourhood away from Pensacola’s beach or bustling Downtown area. I chose this place purposely as we always enjoy staying in a typical neighbourhood of the area that provides a different experience to what a hotel could. This particular place appeased that appetite. The bungalows are huge and the gardens are pristine, most having large boats sitting in the driveways. It has to be one of the quaintest and loveliest neighbourhoods I’ve ever seen.
We had a lowkey night on arrival, taking the advice of our host, Courtney, to go to a nearby pizza parlour called Rotolo’s, which was incredible. The pizza was that large we had to take half home in a box and use it for tea the next day (our room with a fridge paying dividends). These little tips are essential when travelling. As was our decision to go to Walmart as we entered Pensacola, so we could stock up on a few things for breakfast and snacks… it’s all about acting like proper roadies.
Again, we were up early, so by 9:30 we had driven to Pensacola Beach, having to cross yet another vast bridge that dissected the frightening bays. There’s something about human engineering on this scale. It can be overwhelming at times. The beach was practically empty when we got there as we are out of season for the locals, but for us North of England folk, this weather is heaven, although it still didn’t stop us getting burnt (typical Brits). After half a day of lying around and having food and coffee in the beach bars, ‘The Dock’ and ‘Crabs’, we headed back to the Airbnb to get ready for a night on the main street of Downtown, Palafox St.
Whilst waiting for our Uber, neighbours were out in their gardens and waved at us as if we were fellow residents. They even came over for a chat, highlighting the friendliness of the locals.
With it being a Monday, the strip seemed very quiet, so we only settled on one bar, O’Riley’s. We sat outside watching the world go by, getting a feel for the area. It also turned out to be happy hour, so we were buying 241 drinks. We again had an early night with our body clocks still being a little off kilter, but this enabled us to be fresher for the next day where we’ll be driving to New Orleans and the proper nitty gritty part of the trip comes to fruition.
