San Diego & the USS Midway!

After being home for a total of 51 hours I hopped on a plane to San Diego, California. I was headed there for the National Education Association's Representative Assembly (RA). I've been becoming more and more involved in our union in Anchorage and this was my first time attending the national gathering. I've been San Diego before, but it is a lovely city and before the real business got going I had a chance to visit the USS Midway, the aircraft carrier that is on display in San Diego Harbor. San Diego is home to a HUGE naval base, so this was no surprise. After watching the PBS show "Carrier" I had a real interest in seeing one up close and personal.
This was the view of the harbor from my hotel room. My room was on the 25th floor, which was really high up, I actually got a little vertigo the first time I looked down!
This was the view towards town from my room. My room was midway through an elliptical shaped building, so I got a view in each direction. What a great city!
Here's part of the Midway. It is a HUGE ship! So there was no way to capture the entire ship in one photo.
Just next to the Midway is this great statue of "The Kiss", that famous picture of the sailor and nurse kissing in Times Square at the end of WWII. There was also a tribute statue to Bob Hope, but I didn't get a photo of that.
Here I am in the brig! The USS Midway has this self-guided audio tour that you go to all the stops and then listen to what is said about that part of the ship.
Here is the laundry room. The USS Midway when it was running did something in the neighborhood of 6,400 pounds of laundry a day! That is more laundry than I want to do! And all of those clothes had to be pressed too...yuck!
There are four different dining rooms on the USS Midway. There is the general seamen's dining hall, the airmen's dining hall, the petty officer's dining hall, and the officer's dining hall. In the petty officer's dining hall they also had this. It is a table for one with a red rose in honor of the POW's and MIA's. Apparently, all carriers have one of these tables. I thought that was nice.
Here on the main deck you could sit in the seat of an F-15. It is an eject-able seat. At this point in the tour they had a little video of Top Gun stuff and played "Highway to the Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins.
Part of the main deck also had a glass floor to show you the depth of the carrier. My friend Pam, who went on the tour with me was afraid to step on the glass floor.
This is the view from one end of the flight deck looking back at the city. As I stated before, the USS Midway is HUGE! It was a great tour and I'm really glad I went!