Wednesday 23 July
This morning we checked out of our hotel after another hearty breakfast and drove South for an hour on the freeway to San Diego. We drove just past the airport to the USS Midway, a retired aircraft carrier (ship) that has been turned into a museum. We parked on the pier and, after paying our fees and convincing Sam once again that this was not a dangerous activity and he would be safe, we boarded the ship. To give you a hint of what ran through his mind before and after the visit, in Sam's journal for today, he drew a picture of the USS Midway being swamped by a ginormous wave, with "infinity ladder steps" drawn above the flight deck.
After collecting our audio tour and the question sheets for the kids' discovery tour, we headed into the crew quarters, or cabin section, of the ship. The beds were only 6" long, so Mr Jackson would not have fit in any of them without bending his knees, which might have been hard to do since the bunks were stacks of three, not the usual two, and each had room for 30cm of storage space below the mattress, with all of this fitting into a cabin with a roof not much higher than 6". The bunks were close together as well, with photos on the walls of sailors attempting to dress with their knees in another sailor's face, and other contortionist moves. The officers only had it a little bit better, with slightly more space to stow their kit in a cupboard next to their bunk. The most senior officers had a room to themselves; but it doubled as an office and the off-duty bunk became a sofa for sailors reporting to their officers during the on-duty hours. The worst part of the accommodations MIT have been the showers. The water pipes ran alongside the aviation flues oil pipes, and apparently the stench of the latter carried over to the former. Then, because of the scarcity of that most precious commodity, fresh water, sailors had to keep one hand on the water tap at all times to keep the water running. So, showering was a matter of getting wet, then soaping up without water, then hastily rinsing off.
After that, we wandered through the control rooms, where the decisions were made to plan each day's flights, which must have been an amazing task of operational ingenuity, with tens and even hundreds of helicopters and planes taking off and landing each day before they were stowed away in the hangar below the flight deck. We also saw the briefing room, where pilots were given their flight plans for the day. It was a room laid out much like an old fashioned classroom, with rows of chairs looking towards a whiteboard; but the seats were much more comfortable than any I've ever seen in a classroom.
Next, we explored the brig, where naughty sailors were punished, before traipsing through the engine room. By that time, I was almost as anxious to get off the ship as Sam, having had my fill of cramped stairway ladders on one crutch. We headed up to the flight deck to observe several helicopters and planes on display, and walked to the end of the surprisingly short runway. I am mighty glad I never had to land a jet on that deck! Inside, in the aircraft hangar, we had seen a tiny plane that had to be landed on the USS Midway by a civilian pilot in a wartime evacuation manoeuvre, with the pilot's wife and five (probably terrified) children on board, escaping from a war zone. I am even gladder that wasn't our family.
At last it was time to head off the museum ship and dash to return our rental car before catching the shuttle bus to the airport. On only one crutch this time, I was much faster at limping through the airport but we still had to "stop.screen.go" three or four times before we were allowed on the plane. Boarding began just as we arrived at our flight's gate.
You might have noticed I made no mention of lunch. We had an apple each while we waited for the shuttle bus, but there was no meal on huge plane (which we hadn't expected) so we arrived very hungry into Chicago. The O'Hare airport must be huge, because it took over half an hour for the plane to taxi to our terminal after we landed, and we almost began to wonder if the pilot was planning to drive us back to California! It took hours to collect our bags, find the blue line train to the city, purchase tickets and finally, slump, exhausted, with suitcases everywhere, onto our train seats. We couldn't sleep though, because we needed to get off at the right stop I the city. At time the train was on rails suspended above roads below! and at other times we were underground. When we finally emerged from the train it was darkest night, but the city lights lit our way as we dragged our luggage,several city blocks to our hotel. We stayed at the historic Congress Hotel on Michigan Ave, perfectly situated between Grant Park and downtown Chicago. Providentially, check in was quick at that late hour, and everyone was in bed in our suite by about midnight - and fast asleep not one minute later!
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