Second Impressions...of Pensacola

 

Rules of the Road
(in Pensacola, Florida) 

Don't use your turn signal
It is okay to use the turning lane belonging to the opposite lane of traffic
Text and drive (a lot)
The median counts as a lane
You can turn LEFT on a red arrow, as long as no other cars are coming

If you are over sixty, drive however you want and make sure you honk your horn while doing it

Your car does not need a hood or a bumper to be road-worthy
Up to five cars may go through a red light - as long as they stick together

These are not isolated cases of bad driving that I’ve observed – they are pretty common occurrences. The senior drivers are just rude, but the college students are rude and dangerous.

Florida does not have a vehicle inspection requirement. Every time I’m tempted to think that they need one, I look at our faithful 1992 Toyota Camry, and am thankful that there is no vehicle inspection. After all, it still drives! We call it our beach car, because it’s okay if it gets sand in it…unlike our 2010 Honda Civic, which I’m not even allowed to eat popcorn in. 

In case you are wondering where your tax dollars go, I found out this week. 

Tim is in VT-2, a T-34 training squadron at Whiting Field. The T-34 is a Korean War era trainer turbo prop. Tim has pages and pages of emergency procedures to memorize for this aircraft, because there is no eject option. 

The T-6 is a newer training aircraft, designed by the Air Force, incidentally. This trainer aircraft has one main emergency procedure – eject. Before the student pilots fly this 6 million dollar trainer aircraft, they learn to fly in the T-6 simulators – the 16 million dollar simulators. If a student in this 16 million dollar T6 simulator accidentally touches the screen in the 16 million dollar simulator, his instructor has a heart attack. This is because the entire screen must be replaced at the low cost of 700,000 dollars. They say that in the long run, these 16 million dollar simulators save money.

Although Tim has a ton of stuff to learn, he loves it. He is so excited to finally be studying what he joined for in the first place. He had his first test yesterday on the aircraft systems, and got an A. I am very happy for him! I could go on and on about how smart and wonderful he is (and he is!), but then I remember OCS, TBS, and our stint in California, and I know that it is only by God’s grace that we’ve gotten this far. During each of these training experiences there were times that the training was long, miserable, or unfair, and we asked God to do a special work to get us through. And He did get us through. So here we are!