April 17, 2005

Kinder To Niceville

We left Kinder in the morning with a destination of Niceville, Florida.  As the previous day was, this day also provided copious amounts of sunshine and beautiful riding weather.  We continued our drive along Route 12 to the east until just west of Baton Rouge.  Then we diverted south to IH 12 to avoid the secondary roads through that city.

Louisiana is a lush state with plenty of water...everywhere.  Although I have driven through this state many times, I have never ridden through it on a bike.  The immenseness of the swamps, rice fields, and such is ever more evident on a bike.  The smells and sounds make the experience much more realistic than the air conditioned comfort of a car or truck.

We stayed on IH 12 across the top of Lake Pontchartrain to Gulfport, Mississippi, where we dropped down to the gulf and some wonderful but slow travel in the sea breezes.  The old houses along Route 90 on the Gulf of Mexico are beautiful and historic.  It was a wonderful ride but the stop and go traffic and excessive number of autos were slowing us down so much we would never make our destination if we stayed there.  So we swung back up to IH 10 for a high speed jaunt to Pensacola Naval Air Station for an interim destination visit.

I was hired onto the Thunderbird team by the members of Commander/Leader Lt. Colonel Joe Moore's team.  His life was cut short by ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) on April 17, 2001.  As it was, we were riding through the Florida panhandle on the anniversary of Joe Moore's death.  He is buried in the Barancas National Cemetery  and a marble bench some of us team members had built and installed was on display.  We journeyed there and paid our respects to this patriot and leader.  It was a touching beginning moment on this trip of memories.

On our way out we stopped briefly at the Naval museum on Pensacola and took a picture of the Thunderbike beside a Brand X airplane and one of the F-14 outside.

We then continued back on Route 90 to Niceville, Florida, to the home of Herb and Diane Pangle.  Herb was my boss in one of my jobs at Headquarters TAC at Langley AFB shortly after I was on the Thunderbirds. A delightful evening with the Pangles expanded into a wonderful visit with Beverly Moore as well when she joined us for dinner.  The anniversary of Joe Moore's death was complete with friends who new and admired him and a wife who loved him deeply.

Some Pictures (full album HERE):