My dad was on this aircraft carrier in WWII. I went to Corpus Christi Wednesday to see it, and take pictures. It sits in about 16 feet of sand, anchored in the bay. The museum is well done, and more work was underway. As always, click on any picture to see a bigger version.
It is huge. Big as 3 football fields.
You can see how big it is here, this is the walkway to the ship.
This is the hanger deck where planes were stored, as a museum it has several exhibits, a snack shop, gift shop, restrooms, etc.
I went below to see things. This is one of many stairs I climbed, narrow and steep.
One of many portals I passed through, I didn't bump me head even once!
Enlisted sailor's quarters, 3 bunks high. I'm glad I was in the Army.
Barber shop on board. Also in the museum self-guided tour was a large dental area, sick bay, machine shop, and food preparation areas. It really is a small city.
Junior Officers got a little better quarters, but not much better. At least I hear the Navy food was the best of all the services.
There were these array of gages for each side of the ship.
Lots of beautiful brass fittings, probably more covered over in paint.
Huge is all I can say about the engine room. Twin turbines and double reduction gear drives for the two propellers.
Power cables, instrumentation cables, what a huge cable bus!
The bridge.
In addition to being a ship, they had to control all the aircraft. The Lexington was used as a trainer for new pilots up into the 80's.
I have a map like this at home, it was my father's. The Lex was reported sunk by Japanese radio about 4 times.
I enjoyed the trip to Corpus Christi, about a 3 hour drive each way. I had a great lunch at Pier 99. Emo spent the day and night in a local kennel, I picked him up Thursday. Not much else to report, just day to day stuff. Meeting last night. Rain predicted for the next few days, so no long hikes, but we will walk in the preserve and I have some clean-up and such to do, washing the rig and truck, etc.
I changed my reservation, I'm going to Medina Lake TT next. I also see I am over my free days, and am being charged $5/day on my Medina reservation, it will be an additional $3/day if I get a 50 amp site. Still a bargain. Well, thanks for reading, I'll post more after a few days, I don't expect anything exciting to happen until later next week. We are out of here Feb. 8.
1 comment:
Great keeping up with your travels. What a ship. Boated by a carrier in San Diego after the convention way back when. First full week of work in months it seems. Good news! Our prodigal cat was returned thanks to his finders' practically starving him and their noticing the pellet in his butt and the vet finding his microchip. Been gone since September. He's readjusting and gaining weight. Don't let those depression demons win. Take care, Tom.
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