He was able to get the 8 of us long-termers free VIP passes to tour the ship today. We all went to the early service at Jamul Community Church, had a quick lunch at Rubios (Mexican fast food chains that are all over southern California), then met him at the ship at noon.
The Midway is immense. It had 4500 personnel on board when it was on active duty; was commissioned in 1945; was remodeled twice (once to put in an angled runway and the second time to expand its length) and served until after the first Gulf War. The following two pictures are views from "the island" (the helm) looking down at either end of the runway:
The next picture is one of the docents (who were all retired aircraft carrier Navy) explaining to us how the catapults worked:
We spent three hours on board and I'm sure we saw less than half of it. They give you little recorders with headphones and you can stop at any of the numbered spots and listen to the information about it. Then there were several spots like the one above where docents explained some of the more complicated stuff. The ship has examples of all the retired Navy aircraft that ever flew off the carrier.
We tried to stop for ice cream on the way home but couldn't find a Dairy Queen or even a McDonalds that had some. So came home and ate leftover pizza.
We have a large group (19) of volunteers who drove all the way from Manitoba, Canada in a bus. They arrived a little after eight this evening. They have several children with them -- I guess we'll send them out on the job with their parents...
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