Day One: USS Midway
I woke up fairly early and headed down to the coast to see the USS Midway an aircraft carrier that was turned into a museum after it was decommissioned in 1992.
The USS Midway was constructed at the end of WW2 and was commissioned in 1945 with a steel deck (previously ships had wooden decks) it also had the compartmentalized structure to allow parts of the ship to be sealed off in event of a torpedo or bomb hit and stop flooding spreading. The Midway is 972 ft long 238 ft to the flight deck with a displacement of 65000 tonnes it could carry 100 aircraft and had a crew of 4104. It's literally a floating city supporting its flight crew as well as a massive support staff. The museum has a self guided audio tour and a load of docents and some guided tour sections (through the island where the bridge is).
You start off wandering the main hanger they have a load of planes of various dates in there from prop driven planes to jets and helicopters. They also have a load of simulators you can pay to have a go on. Heading up on to the flight deck they have a load of planes and helicopters. it also gives a fantastic view of the bay and the downtown area. You could see across to the US Navy ships moving about and one of them is one of the current aircraft carriers the USS Carl Vinson a United States Navy Nimitz class nuclear powered supercarrier. There were also some support and supply ships and what seemed to be cruiser sailing out.
After wandering up and down the top deck I took the tour of the Island which took us into some really quite tight staircases and confined passageways. We took a walk through the area where they coordinate the flights landing and taking off where the air boss sits. Then we clambered up through the map room where they did the navigation. I'd earlier seen the ships inertial navigation systems which has a gyro accelerometers and other sensors all tied in to a UNIVAC computer which was state of the art in 1963 once properly calibrated and aligned it can accurately tell how the ship is moving and use that to get an accurate fix on position it also fed into some of the more advanced aircraft for their own guidance systems. From there we headed up to the bridge.
We could see where the ship was commanded from originally it had quite a small bridge and you can still see where the original bridge ended and the extended area begin. It's still a small area even with the extensions and with everyone in place it must have been hard to move about. We also saw the captains at sea bedroom, he had two bedrooms in the ship an at port one and a smaller at sea one just behind the bridge.
I next went to see the Admirals quarters which has one of three beds on the ship. Here the floors were all blue to show it was admiral country and it would have been guarded by marines. The admirals quarters were pretty plush and next to it was the various rooms the admiral would use to control the fleet etc. Next was the radio room where the messages were sent throughout the ship important or secret ones uses a series of pneumatic tubes. Next was the captains in port quarters which had the second bed and was where the captain would entertain dignitaries and the like. It also contained a horrific animatronic captain that talked to you.
After that I headed to the canteen where the normal enlisted men got their food and the mess areas where they ate it. There were also a series of more fancy ward rooms for the officers and the chief petty officers and the various classes of people all with their own kitchens. The main kitchens were huge and the tour had a beef stew recipe that required some 100 tins of tomatoes. There was also the XO's cabin which was bed number 3.
There followed the support areas of the laundry, the dentists, the sick bay, the dentists, and all manner of functions to keep the crew working. After that I went to see the enlisted mens bunks which were quite dense 3 bunks high packed in to a tight space. The junior officers area was slightly more luxurious but still packed in. By this point I was getting a bit tired and the rest of the ready rooms and the brig I went through fairly quickly.
I finished off with the engine room. Like it's modern equivalents its all driven by steam but this time rather than nuclear generated steam this comes from diesel boilers. The number 3 turbine (of four) was on display and it was a large chunk of machinery. All the Americans pronounced turbine turban which I found fairly amusing and I was surprised I hadn't noticed that before.
The day was a bit gray to start but by mid morning it was a lovely day and caught a bit of the sun I was out more than I thought as I was going to be as the spend the morning there and then see something else but it took me all of the morning and into early afternoon to see most of it. By the end I was tired from all the walking back and forth in and out of the tight confines of the ship it's a huge area to cover.
So I wandered back to the hotel to get some drink and have a sandwich and recover a bit. In the evening I grabbed a bite to eat.
San Diego Arrival
So I was busy for the weekend of my birthday but I decided to take a trip the weekend after to celebrate and see more of the US since I'm out here.
I picked San Diego as my destination. I've been in the area before while on business taking a side trip to sea world driving down from So Cal but never visited the city proper so I decided now was the time. I got a cheap hotel in the downtown / marina district which turned out to be a Westin and a cheap flight via southwest from San Jose airport which is my local airport of choice. I booked friday and monday off and set off on thursday after work for the airport.
The TSA decided to massage my hands with a detector wand thing and so I got to go down the pre-approved tsa line which is a new thing. It meant I didn't need to remove my shoes laptop belt or anything and didn't queue at all just shoved my travel back on he xray and empty my pockets. It was pretty quick and easy makes me want to try and get the approval thing for real.
After that I settled in to wait. I grabbed a seat by the window and watched the sun set over the mountains which was pretty nice. They had to move my flight to another gate so I had to hustle down a few gates to meet that but then they boarded pretty quick.
I had a fairly good position so got a window seat and settled in for the one hour flight time I snoozed for most of it. When I got to San Diego I found on the hotel website that there was a shuttle bus for free so I found the stop and waited. About 9:50 ish the shuttle turned up and it turned out I should have phoned them to tell them I wanted it. But the guy let me squeeze in the front even though he was picking up a load of air crews.
A wait and a short drive later I was at the hotel and I checked in, because I was only here for a few days they offered me a green package where they don't automatically replace towels etc (you can still request it) and I get a 3 vouchers for 5 bucks off food and such. I decided to hit the bar and headed down enjoying a pint of lost abbey then one of Mission Heferweizen and a stone ipa all local beers. The heferweizen was my favorite so I rounded the evening off with another pint. I found when paying that the vouchers were only for food which wasn't what the girl on the desk said but still not really the end of the world. I headed up to my room and feeling a bit peckish ordered a sandwich and caeser salad. It is my birthday treat after all.
After that I watched some tv read a bit then turned in ready to hit the town tomorrow
Final Travel Day 20/9/13
We got up at 6 and then struggled to disable the various alarms festooned about the room. We had the forethought to pack almost everything the night before so we just needed to wash dress throw out junk pack a few things and check out. We were out of the room by 6.50 leaving behind a present of a jar of branston pickle, a bottle of ketchup, a jar of instant coffee, a lynx aerosol deoderant, and some chewing gum winter mint flavor.
