Fort Pickens Exploring

If you are going to Pensacola you might want to stop by Fort Pickens in the Gulf Islands National Seashore to explore.  If you have a National Parks Access Pass, or a Fourth are a 4th grader and have your pass for the year you can get in free!  

  

I love the National Parks and am on a mission to visit all of them with my family. Fort Pickens is a historic fort.  While visiting you can follow the numbered signs on sidewalks and fairly easily maneuver around the fort due to improvements they have made.  They have added many sidewalks and smoothed out rough surfaces to help view the fort easier. The numbered signs can tell you where to go and if you download the app in advance you can read about each sign location and its history.  Some of the sidewalks had some sand on them and would be a little difficult to maneuver in a manual chair.  

  

The first thing that we saw other than the brick structure itself were the cannons.  At first I did not think I would have access to get up close, but if you keep going you can find the path that circles back to allow you to get up close to explore the cannons.   There are a few places with stairs that you cannot go up.  I found it interesting that they had long passageways that they filled with gun powder so they could blow it up to destroy one side of the fort if needed.   The fort shared about its history, even the parts that they are not proud of.  It talked about holding Geronimo there away from his homeland and everything that he knew.  They also talked about the slaves building the fort and the slave owners being paid for their work.  The history is important to understand so we can learn from it.  The main location had a gift shop where you can get your National Parks stamps and souvenirs. They had up to date bathroom, water fountains, and even a dog watering fountain.  Their was a museum and a few older buildings that were not wheelchair accessible.  They had a ramped dock that led out to the water that Tibbs and I enjoyed walking and exploring on. They had several other locations that you can use the app to learn about and make stops along the way out of the park. It was very hot with lots of asphalt so make sure to have water and a bowl, dog shoes and mushers cream. As this was our last day in the area we took our time to enjoy then started off on our journey home.