The USS Midway

Last weekend, my family came and visited for my birthday. Amy stayed an extra two days and so we showed her some of the San Diego sights. On Monday, we rock climbed a fun 5.7+ in Mission Gorge for a little while and then went to the USS Midway (thanks Tammy!).

The USS Midway is huge. We spent at least 3 hours there and we felt like we practically ran through the whole thing. Apparently, we missed the mess hall and a few of the other places. But, we did get to see a whole bunch of cool stuff!

At one point, we tried to pick up these anchor chains. Each link weighs approximately 130 lbs. Needless to say, we didn't even make them budge (by the way, check out my sweet Hawaiian shirt that I got from Ashley for my b-day).

Here's one of the mission briefing rooms. "XO" is not "hugs and kisses," it stands for executive officer. "OPS" I think represents the operations officer. (If you're wondering what the things hanging around our next are, they are an audio tour player - very nice).

This is the flight deck . . . which is huge.

If you weren't a good sailor, or an enemy, or a tourist, you get thrown in the brig!

Back up on the flight deck, they have all kinds of planes and helicopters that you can look at and go in . . . so we did!

After touring the flight deck and learning about "meatballs" and catapults and "brown shirts" and Hueys, we went into the "island," or the big tower growing out of the flight deck - it's basically where all the commands are given from . . . although some of those guys giving the commands had some funny names . . .

After walking around the "island," we headed under again. If you like playing with buttons and switches . . . you need to come to the Midway!

As if there weren't enough switches, knobs, levers, and buttons to play with on the ship, they have cockpits that you can climb into! Bingo! Joysticks, levers, pedals, throttles, and more buttons and knobs!!

And then, Tammy hooked us up with a flight simulator! That was sweet! For the most part, I "flew" and Amy manned the weapons. We took down two enemy fighters while I was flying. We switched roles . . . we crashed . . . we didn't even get shot down . . . we crashed . . . thanks Amy. But, it was really fun!

Thanks again Tammy for hooking us up with the Midway! Thanks Amy for hanging out! Thanks Ash for coming, too! We had a blast! If you're looking for something fun, educational, and inspiring to do - check out the USS Midway in downtown San Diego.