"Pensacola, Florida" Pensacola by noidiotsplease

With a modest skyline of mid-rise buildings downtown and more ambitious towers along its beach communities, Pensacola is the Florida Panhandle's biggest population center west of Tallahassee. It is also home to one of the country's newest minor league baseball teams, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos of the Southern League. Not to be overlooked, however, is that Pensacola is also one of the oldest cities in Florida. In fact, at one time Pensacola and St. Augustine (the nation's oldest city) were the two most prominent cities in Florida. After statehood was established and a capital city was needed, Tallahassee emerged due to its location about half way between the two cities. Today, Pensacola is more closely tied to Mobile, Alabama than to any of the big cities of modern Florida. In fact, it's even in a different time zone! Nevertheless, Pensacola offers a historic district and, like many Florida destinations, a fabulous strand of white sandy beach. The city also has a proud military heritage, serving as the home base for the famous Blue Angels.

I have been through the city of Pensacola's Interstate 10 corridor on multiple occasions, even staying once at a Ramada Inn just off the interstate and near Escambia Bay when I was a kid. My most recent drive-through was in 2008, but we only stopped at a Cracker Barrel then. Back in 1993, I did pass through the heart of the city, and through the neighboring coastal towns of Gulf Breeze, Pensacola Beach and Navarre Beach while en route to Ft. Walton Beach. While Pensacola's beaches are known for having spectacularly white sand along the emerald green Gulf of Mexico, we were simply passing through. Instead we saw the facades of beachfront buildings and backsides of dunes. We did cross the wide expanse of Pensacola Bay, however, on US Route 98 between downtown Pensacola and the peninsular community of Gulf Breeze.

Visit my FLORIDA page.