San Diego, Part 3

San Diego, CA, USA
Sunday morning in San Diego was filled with museums, if you cannot tell. In addition to touring the Maritime Museum, we got to go explore the USS Midway, an aircraft carrier. The aircraft carrier was so incredibly interesting to tour -- and attempt not to get lost in. This thing was HUGE! We spent a few hours longer than we expected there (so long, in fact, we returned to a parking ticket).

The best part of the USS Midway was the wonderfully knowledgeable staff, most of whom had previously served on the carrier. In fact, a few of the people touring in front of us were telling stories of their own from when they served on the Midway -- apparently, one guy said, after a few weeks in the bunks, even if you were an officer and were bunked in the slightly roomier quarters, you wanted to get out because it smelled so much like sweat. At least the had racks (bunks) with a little more space to stretch. It was also interesting to see the links of the chain to the anchor. Each link weighed 140 pounds.

This was my favorite of the two museums we saw, not only due to its sheer size. My grandfather was a test pilot in the Navy when he was my age, and while this carrier was a little different than the destroyer he was stationed on, it gave me an interesting look at what he was doing. I thought about him a lot as we went through the kitchen, seeing their corn chipped beef ("Shit on a Shingle," as I always knew it and was also told by one of the former Navy museum volunteers it was called). We got to talk to an amazing volunteer in the office of the XO (Executive Officer). Our guided audio tour was telling us that if you got in trouble and were sent to the XO's office, you were in deep. I asked the volunteer if he had served on the Midway, and if he had ever gotten in trouble in this office and he laughed and told us a story where he thought he had gotten called in to be reprimanded but instead received a promotion.

Up on the flight deck, besides getting to look at, and even go walk through if you wanted, helos and planes, you could also see the coast of Coronado. It was warm, sunny, windy and perfectly San Diego. I couldn't imagine what it would be like to live on a ship like the Midway. It was amazing. And, in the bay below us as we stood on the flight deck, a handful of jet skis were flying back and forth, giving us an idea of how to spend the rest of the day.

(See Part 1, Part 2)














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