Vacation Mode ...

OK, so now I'm starting to get into vacation mode. Pensacola Beach is about as quiet and deserted as I've ever seen it. The beach roads going both East and West are closed a few miles out, still awaiting repair from Hurricane Ivan's damage. I'd be surprised if there are 50 people staying in the four high-rise condominium towers that comprise the complex where we are staying. I got up around sunrise this morning and put in around 25 miles up and down the beach, slowing down occasionally behind various large construction vehicles. Around mid-day we headed over to the NAS to check out the Naval Aviation Museum, arriving just in time to catch a little tour by a retired Naval Reserve guy. On the way in, we passed a whole group of junior ROTC students, reminding me of my days at Jesuit when we were all part of the Marine Corps JROTC, learning map reading, practicing drill in the yard, and disassembling M-16s in the dark. It was kind of fun except for the fact that the U.S. was still heavily involved in Vietnam, which was not exactly a popular place to be at the time.

So anyway, we got a pretty good tour of all of the airplanes, starting with fabric wings and ending with the Blue Angels. They didn't really have any aircraft from the last decade, but then again, it WAS a museum. It was also freezing cold, so The Wife and her sister were more than ready to bail as soon as the tour was over. I could have spend another hour there, easily. Maybe we'll make it over to the Air Force museum in Ft. Walton later this week? The weather here has finally cleared up, but we all just chilled out in the condo all evening. After all, I'm on vacation.

Granted, I did check my email three or five times today, and kind of lucked out on this Dept. of Education Hurricane Recovery grant thing that I was fully expecting to explode today when they were supposed to release their final "allocations" and then give us about a week to submit final proposals. As it turned out, the information leaked out that they were planning on expanding the awards to something like 41 institutions, despite the fact that the congressional intent was that they be limited to insititutions of higher education that had been closed as a result of damage suffered because of the hurricane(s). Anyway, it all blew up today and our congressional delegation was not amused, so it looks like everything will be delayed for a while. Should be interesting...

So I think I will end up driving in to N.O. Friday night so I can make the team time trial on Saturday morning, and then driving right back to Pensacola. Ahhhh, the things I do for the Team! I think I'll try and get in some real miles tomorrow morning anyway, because this whole relaxing vacation thing is kind of stressing me out.