Pensacola

Starting off
         A couple of late night outs into 2 AM early this week, working from home had caused me to feel tired and decide on an early exit from office on Friday at 6 PM with the plan being to sleep it out. Just before I left office,  was talking to Chris and he mentioned about his plans to have oysters and how only months with 'R' in it are the right months to eat oysters.
        As I picked my wife and kids from our apartment park, Divya said 'Why don't we go for a trip?'. I said 'Sure' and we would have left just like that without any luggage, planning to buy stuff from walmarts on the way. Divya mellowed it down and said let us go back to the apartment and pack some stuff and leave.
     Once at home,  there was a struggle to pack in clothes , book a hotel, pack the kids in and get out. We had also had our dinner at home. Since I was quite tired already,  I could focus easily on just the drive without any distractions. It was a nice long drive.
Red roof inn
      We left around 9 PM and reached the red roof inn at 2:30 AM. We were first put into a queen room which was too tiny for the four of us and luckily got allotted a double bed quickly. Tired, I slept like a log till we got up to make it to the breakfast.
         Breakfast was modest, bordering on poor.  I did some research on fodor's choice places to visit in the panhandle area and they were all to the tune of 100 miles away.
Pensacola beach
Finally we decided to hit the Pensacola beach first and then decide on further plans as time permits. The vacation was quite typical - sea sights, sea food, sunset chase. Florida was sunny, warm, green , pleasant and felt very familiar as we have done quite a few florida vacations earlier as well.
      Sea food included shrimp, crab, red snapper, raw oysters, salmon and mahi mahi. Pensacola beach was pleasant with soft white sand, light greenish blue water.
    Jelly fish started appearing in the waters suddenly due to the winds and the      crowd started dispersing quickly. We had not understood why the crowds had dissipated. We guessed there was an impending rain or something. We realized this when Niya started having trouble walking and we noticed a tiny jelly fish sting. A teenage boy from the 'lifeguard' group poured some vinegar on her legs thus breaking the proteins in the jelly fish's venom. That was when we understood why the crowd left in a hurry.
Johnson beach
     

 It was around five pm now and rest of the known sights were either far or closed. So, we found a new site - johnson beach, coastal isles as that is good for sunset.  It was a nice secluded beach with hardly any crowd. Divya and Amey chose to sleep in the car. Niya played with the sand at the beach while I lost myself in the sights of the sea on to infinity, trying to capture some photographs. When dusk set in, insects started appearing and this time, we just left right away from the beach.


Oysters
      Oysters. On the way to the johnson beach, we had seen a big Oyster Bar / Marina neon sign from a flyover. That is where we headed for dinner, in Perdido key. I got myself ray oyster dozen while Divya had to order blackened oysters to satisfy my oysters drive. Great food. Great ambience inside/ outside. Niya had hot dog.
         That was an eventful day.

Sunday
NAS ( Naval Air Station) 

Today we return back. Another 6 hours back of drive. Fodor's choice item was 'Naval air station' , Pensacola which has 'Naval aviation museum' and 'Pensacola' light house.  As we reached NAS, ID checking was in progress and as Divya did not have an ID, we were 70% sure that we would have to go back. But we went right in and stopped first at the light house. Amey did not satisfy height restrictions. So Amey and myself walked to the beach behind the lighthouse while Divya and Niya climbed the light house as Niya wanted to. I was still tired and welcomed the nap on the lush white sands with Amey on me.  We walked back to the car.Niya/Divya reached back quickly too and we drove a few more yards to the museum. Chance of a formal lunch was slim. So we had pasta, gold fish etc and called it a lunch.
       The museum was striking and continued to hold fodor's choice listing in good honor. Reminded me of the DC museum of aviation. Many striking planes enough to feel like a feast.

  

We were allowed to get into the cockpit of a few planes and while Divya,Niya and Amey were hopping around into various planes, I photographed them.

      At one such plane, an old person came by and introduced himself as the pilot who had flown the plane way back in 1954. That was a unique experience.

Return
       That was about time, we had to go back. Niya has to go to school, I have to go to office. We roamed around looking for the next seafood restaurant, essentialy wasting time, ended up in Miller's  ale house where we had superb blackened Mahi Mahi, Fish Tacos, Salmon dish, hot dog and chocolate ice cream cake. Great food.
       Then we drove back and reached around 2:30 AM to Atlanta.
   It was a fun trip but was quite taxing. Weekend trips need to be to closer locations. But it was a pretty full fledged a trip for an extempore like that. 

Danny - the jamaican driver

     On one of the return trips from airport to home,  the driver was Jamaican and named Danny. I tried to strike a conversation with him by mentioning that I just read about Jamaica on the flight. 'What about Jamaica did you read?' Then he mentioned that he did not go to Jamaica in the last twenty years. So he is not going to get me free tourism information.
      He spoke about how he feels that unfortunate people who do not have enough to provide for themselves should be helped and about how he is not actually helping them himself because by doing that he would make them dependent on him and that making someone else dependent on oneself even in the slightest sense is not a fair thing to do to the other human being. Also, by just providing the poor man free food, he would make the poor man lazy.
       These thoughts can be interpreted as genuine or as escapism.  Danny feels sorry for the unfortunate people but does not really want to give out his own money to help them out and feels guilty about it and hence cooked up for himself the theory that he just spoke about in the last paragraph. I would not be surprised if he means it genuinely as I agree to everything he says.
     The reason Danny made a place in this blog is that he echoed the exact thread of thoughts that I have running within  myself. I believe I paved this neural pathway of thoughts in the early years after I got my job. I am unsure if I myself am sincere / I am just trying to justify non-action.
     The striking thing was that a man is here on the other side of the continent from when I had run through this exact same thought stream.  It is truly amazing that we pave the same roads. It is a statement about universal brotherhood(same-ness). We are all essentially the same.
     This is the second time I have been surprised with someone expressing my inner thoughts which I have never spoken about to anyone. The first instance was with Mithun, a colleague who spoke about how even when you do things for others, you are essentially doing it for yourself. So you don't have to feel bad about not doing anything for others. People who do stuff for others do it for themselves. So you are not wrong if you don't exercise a lot of kindness. Justification again. This thought has hence been seen to be very mainstream and common.
       Point is even when you get into the finer thoughts, thoughts that are not easily, commonly expressed, you are still the same as someone somewhere in some time whom you will never see. Country is not fundamental. Humanity is.  Animals are different. However, I believe there is a layer of thoughts/ thought trains that would overlap even with animals as these are fundamental to survival and all of life has a common point of evolution. In other words, any animal's spectrum of thoughts should ideally be traceable to a human as well, assuming that animals are just dump eat and live organisms without  capacity for intellectual thinking. Specifically , motherhood , survival , family and related thought mechanisms should coincide.

Holi at Sai mandir, suwanee

          Shwetha, a neighbor at duck pond started a group chat on attending Holi celebrations at Sai mandir today. Divya was quite interested in attending it and we did go and attend it.
      It was fun. We were all dressed in white clothes, ready to throw them off it they get colored beyond wash. Temple was not all that far. As soon as we reached, we decided to buy our lunch - 3 tasty mango lassis,  1 plate samosa and one plate paav bhaji. While I was waiting in the queue, Divya and Niya had gone into the crowd to join the rest of the neighbors.
        I had hitherto looked at holi celebration with apprehension as it is a crowd celebration and what amounts to crossing the line can be different for different people. However, I could quickly see that here everyone was well within limits limiting their holi play to the groups they were part of.
     When I reached back with the food, Divya's and Niya's white clothes were all colored. I was watching the stroller with Amey in it. Shyam, neighbor came by and offered to watch Amey so that I could get into the crowd. Took a few snaps of our neighbors, exchanged a few holi hugs. Meanwhile, seeing my clean white t-shirt,  one of our neighbors poured a mug of colored water on to one side, presumably carefully, as my camera did not get wet.There was a tank of water from where people were filling water guns and playing.
     Divya had more interest in the festivity than myself. So I spent most of my time with Kitta, trying to use my camera. Camera itself had become a colorful sight by now with the sprinkles of color. Niya enjoyed and put color on myself/Divya and her friends. At the same time, she was also not very happy when some one poured water on her and started wimping. Quickly went back to playing. It was quite loud and Amey was staring from his stroller - not crying/complaining. Mean while, a kid walking by the stroller, slipped and spilled a little speck on yellow powder on him.
      Duck pond crowd started dispersing as the rest of the crowd was there a little earlier than us. We were there till the last song by DJ Amit which was 'Rang Barse' by 'Amitabh Bachchan'. Great song as it was, the crowd had dwindled down heavily.Earlier, the crowd in general was dancing to the music and enjoying themselves making it a good sight to watch. One female had shot Divya/Niya  dancing and later on as we reached our car to go back home, we saw her completely drunk being managed by her friend.
    It was nice on the whole. We may not have been able to enjoy it as much as it is kind of our first holi celebration.