Wednesday, August 1, 2012

An Ultimatum

With all of my business travel and my hobby, I don’t spend a lot of family time these days. So, last weekend, my wife gave me an ultimatum – “Spend some time with us this weekend!” So, knowing what is good for me, I capitulated to her wishes and we headed out for a family outing.

My wife had had an appointment in the L.A. Harbor area last week, and happened to drive past the U.S.S. Iowa. She was impressed enough to set her sights on getting us all down to the harbor. This actually sounded exciting! I am a native born Los Angeleno, but it had been at least 15 years since I was last in that area of town.

The first stop was for lunch at a great blue collar stop – Berth 55 Fish Market and Seafood Deli. I was careful to explain to the family that we would be stopping for lunch at a “seafood joint”. I cannot be held responsible if they interpreted the word “joint”  as “restaurant”:

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If you live in the L.A. area and you haven’t been to Berth 55, you need to go NOW! This institution has been around for 40+ years, and will be closing in a few months so the city can build a new home for its fireboats.

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(That last plate is your’s truly’s plate of yummy fried oysters).

Once we chowed down on gobs of the ocean’s harvest, we were off to our next stop, the U.S.S. Iowa:

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Impressive. What’s even more impressive is to think that 3000 sailors used to live on this ship. Believe me folks, it isn’t *that* big.

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The shells that come out of these guns weigh 2700 pounds and can be shot accurately 26 miles. That’s over the horizon folks.

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I can’t imagine piloting the boat from this bridge. It’s even painted gas chamber green.

Tomahawk Cruise missile anyone?

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If Naval strength is measured by “Projection of Power”, I don’t understand why these battleships aren’t still in active duty. All I know is that it made me proud to see that these ships were part of what made this country great, and that they will be preserved for all to enjoy.

If you are ever in the L.A./Long Beach Harbor area, I strongly recommend you plunk down your $18 and ooooh and aaaah at an incredibly impressive sight.

8 comments:

  1. I'm going to keep it in mind. We have the U.S.S. Midway here in San Diego, and it too is quite impressive. Thanks for the tip on the "seafood joint" too.

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  2. Awesome to spend time with the family. Looks like you had a great time too.

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  3. Nice post! I saw that on the news and thought about stopping by at some point. Those fried items = yum.

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  4. will check it out in Oct. after running Long Beach. i have been on the USS Missouri, it's sister ship, many times when it was at Bremerton, Wa.

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  5. Family time is my favorite thing to do. It looks like you had a great time. I would have thoroughly enjoyed doing those things with the family.

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  6. My brother toured the Midway in SD (that's the aircraft carrier?), he said it was really interesting. One of these days I'll see all that stuff.

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  7. This is from pacificbattleship.com:
    Proposition 65: The USS IOWA contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects, or other reproductive harm.

    I wonder what kind of warnings they posted on the ship during wartime? Warning: Being anywhere near this ship can be hazardous to your health!

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  8. Well the "restaurant" couldn't have gone over too bad if the ol' wife is still keeping you around ;)

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