Sunday March 13

Blog, Saturday, March 12, 2005

I finally got to walk the decks of the USS Midway. It was not as satisfying as I had hoped. They have had her open since June, but the public portions of the ship are limited as compared to what it will be. The officer berthing area and wardroom (officer’s mess and lounge) are not open yet…so too the Engineering spaces where I worked. I won’t be satisfied until I can get down to the Main Engines Control where I stood watches and peek into one of the 12 fire rooms that I was responsible for. That will have to wait for another trip to SD.

For those of you who do not know, Midway (CV-41), is a sister ship to the one in which I served, F. D. Roosevelt (CV-42), Midway is the only survivor of the three carriers put into service in October 1945 of the Midway class. The third, Coral Sea (CV-43) is also gone. The City of San Diego rescued Midway and made a museum out of her…and they have a gold mine. We got there at 9:45 a.m. fifteen minutes before it opened and stood in line for the $13 tickets. The tour busses just kept coming in the entire 90 minutes we toured her…it was crowded when we got off. One of the old timers said that in seven months they have drawn more than the USS Missouri has in six years at Pearl Harbor. I believe it having been on both now.

There is a lot of history with those ships…too boring to mention here, but a lot of those thoughts flooded my mind as we walked around. Aleene was a trooper. She said she would give me an hour and a half to get this out of my system. One of the guide-type people said that it is not uncommon for the former sailors to take up to three hours to soak it in. When we were done, I was tired/hungry and ready to leave.

We got to down town by taking a bus from outside our RV park to down town El Cajon where we transferred to a very efficient electric train which took us the 20 or so miles to the tourist places. It took about an hour and fifteen minutes including the transfer to get there…but I mean we walked across the street from where we are parked here in El Cajon to within two or three blocks of Midway. But from that point on the walking got serious. They have a quaint outdoor shopping and eating area next to the marina. We though it was a lot like Mackinaw City but on a much larger scale. And of course it is summer-like year around here in Southern Caleefornia so it is much more efficient, I would think.

We walked all of that, ate crab cakes and fish tacos and around the convention center which is probably twice as big as DeVos Place in GR. Then we went through the “Old” Town which is nicely redone, and had coffee in a very Califorina style coffee house which sold Starbucks. Believe it or not, by this time it was close to 2:00 p.m. and I am not ashamed to say that I was whipped. So we headed to the Trolley (electric train) looking forward to the 40 minute ride back to El Cajon.

A comment on the clientele of the public transit system in SD…we got to experience what it is to be a minority. Most were Hispanic, there were some A-As and some Asians, but few Anglos…and those that were riding were suspect for mental illness. We engaged in conversation with a grandma who had a three year old boy…reminding us of Tru. What a cutie, but he finished off his snack with a bottle, which did not impress Aleene.
Grandma was cool.

There were kids making out of all races, there were mostly clean looking middle class Hispanics and they were very polite and quiet. We really enjoyed the ride and would recommend it to anyone. Incredible honor system for the Trolley…you buy your ticket from a machine that is very sophisticated as in you punch in your age, where you are going and whether you want a one way, round trip or day ticket…($5 for a round trip, remember 20 miles into SD from here) and step up to the platform and then do not show the ticket to anyone. You could ride that Trolley all day and not by I ticket as far as I could tell. We fought off the urge to take the blue trolley to Mexico…we stayed on the orange trolley.

It reminded me of the train in Pusan: pretty full and a bunch of people all shorter than I with black hair staring into space waiting for the automated voice to call out the station. The difference was that Lady Chatterley, Orange Juice On My Head was not uttered once. (That is an inside joke with Amy…since that is what the automated Korean voice sounded like it was saying to us English speakers.)

We got back into the MH at 3:00 just in time to rescue Rose…poor girl. She spent seven hours alone and I am sure she had almost given up on us. Fortunately, it was overcast and cool when we left and the park is very wooded, so she stayed comfortable; poor girl. We have her so confused…temperature, schedule, surfaces on which to do her potty thing…you name it. She loves the MH. It is her den, I think.

It gets dark at 6:00 p.m. so about 5:30 we walked down the block to an Aldi-like store and bough some water bottles and ice cream and a few other snacks. So we are all set and watching the basketball madness on ESPN, 2, FSN…it is all over the place.

I will post this Sunday morning when the office opens and then expect to meet up with Carol sometime for a meal. Looks like we will spend the afternoon with Carol and maybe the early evening...

We toyed with starting out Monday in the middle of the night to do LA before the morning rush, but I think we will stick to our original plan and travel during daylight; too much chance of fog around here at night this weekend.