Midway

With Hannah again occupied by her conference, Tessie and I set out from the hotel to visit one of San Diego's newest attractions: the USS Midway Museum.

The Midway has been converted from an aircraft carrier into a museum and is now permanently moored at the Navy Pier, close by the hotel. We walked past the Seaport Village mall and through the "National Salute to Bob Hope and the Military" sculpture garden, which features a giant statue based on the famous World War II photograph by Alfred Eisenstadt. It looks, well, creepy in color and in larger than life size. You be the judge:


From there it's a short walk to the museum entry. After paying admission, visitors enter the museum on the hangar deck, which is one level below the fight deck. More so than the 4-acre-plus flight deck, the hangar deck is what really gives a strong impression of how big the ship really is. The hangar deck is essentially a big room, designed for the storage and maintenance of up to 40 aircraft, and there are no pillars or other supports in a space that could accommodate nearly three football fields end-to-end. The Midway was the first ship built too large to fit through the Panama canal, and she was the biggest ship afloat for ten years. At some point, it hits you: this thing moves. Or rather, moved. Her sailing days are over and the hangar deck is given over to a variety of display aircraft and exhibits.

Tessie is of course too young to appreciate the ship's history, but she sure likes pushing buttons and flipping switches:

From the hangar deck, it was easy to get up to the flight deck; there is an elevator that allowed me to bring Tessie's stroller topside. We also explored two decks below the hangar deck and saw mess halls and wardrooms, the officers' quarters, the ship's Post Office, and many other aspects of the "City at Sea." The only areas we couldn't visit were in the island, the superstructure that rises up from the flight deck; Tessie didn't meet the minimum height requirement, so we missed seeing Flight Control and the Captain's Quarters. Other than that, I was impressed by how easily I could maneuver Tessie's stroller through the ship, and I was also happy to find an oversize family restroom on the hangar deck.

Up on the flight deck, Tessie and her wingman lined up for takeoff on catapults 1 & 2:

Tie-downs every three feet? Good idea! Hannah's conference ended right about the time we were ready to go, so we met in the Seaport Village and headed off to the Gaslamp Quarter, San Diego's historic/tourist district. We had a tasty lunch at the Rock Bottom Brewery and then walked around the district window shopping. We finished the evening back at Seaport Village, where Tessie had her first ever carousel ride:
After dinner at the hotel we got ourselves to bed and rested for a day at Balboa Park.

To be continued...