Fri 26 October 2018
A lazy morning with a sleep in and leisurely breakfast (Reece
Puffs – taste like peanut butter cheerios?) and then out the front door around
10am. We walked down the hill and into
the Downtown area and on wards through the Gas Lamp District. It was about this time that Larry realised
that he had left his wallet back home!
We kept walking until we hit the harbour and then wandered
through Seaport Village which is a cute little touristy shopping area on the
water’s edge. We then wandered further
along the water’s edge until we got to the USS Midway which is now a
museum. This was something Larry was
going to do on his own whilst Jenny went to the zoo but seeing we were there it
made sense to visit together. It was
actually very interesting. I have a
vague recollection of going on an American aircraft carrier with Dad back in
the 70’s (when they still allowed the public on active ships) but that was a
long time ago and the Midway has an interesting history having been in service
from WWII through to Operation Desert Storm with its last active service being
in 1992. You can pretty much wander all
over it, from your ‘Top Gun’ moments on deck with the jets to exploring below
the water line in the engines room. The
Captains cabin had an animatronic captain which was cool.
It’s Fleet Week at the moment so San Diego is crawling with
serving and retired navy personnel and a number of the veterans were on the
Midway reminiscing about when they served on it so that was like a living
history lesson and very interesting. I
don’t really suffer from claustrophobia but I must say that wandering through
narrow passageways below deck and seeing the cramped quarters was a bit
stressful after a while. I can’t imagine
being down there and rarely seeing daylight and fresh air and with the stress
of being sunk and not finding your way out in time.
ike washing powder. There were 4500 crew on the ship in operation and there were very few jobs that appealed to me except maybe working in the post office.
We eventually left the Midway and walked a little further
along the harbour until we came to a barricaded off pier where the Navy band
were playing. You had to show ID with a
photo and go through metal detectors to be let in (luckily I had the passports
as Larry’s wallet was still MIA). Once
through there were heaps of military proudly brandishing all sorts of weaponry
and happily letting the general public get ‘hands on’ with all sorts of lethal
looking things. At the same time there
were soldiers on duty packing hand guns and rifles keeping a stern eye on everyone.
Eek. They had another big ship at
berth that you could go on (an active ship this time) and so there was a little
watch boat in the harbour nearby making sure no other boats got too close. We (read Jenny) couldn’t face going all over
it, nor the Coastguard ship also berthed nearby so instead we headed out and a
little further down the harbour to an outside bar where we indulged in a margarita
each. Had to be good for Larry’s cold
right?
By this time it was about 3.30pm so we decided to walk on into Little Italy and find an Italian
grocery store where we bought pasta, sauce, fresh bread and parmesan cheese and
then caught an Uber home as we had walked far enough and knew that the way home
was all up hill. So we made use of the
little kitchen in our home and cooked our own pasta for dinner which made a
nice change from eating out every night.
We then struggled to find anything worth watching on telly – lots of
Mexican channels we couldn’t understand and eventually settled on BBC TV!
Early to bed as ‘We’re all going to the zoo tomorrow, zoo
tomorrow, zoo tomorrow. We’re all going
to the zoo tomorrow. We can stay all day!”
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