USS Iowa: Battleship of Presidents
A Time Travel Adventure in Los Angeles Valley
The day finally arrived. The car is loaded up and we’re off on another naval adventure. I’ve been wanting to see this battleship for several years and I was excited to take my son down with me. This will be the second longest trip I’ve taken him on. The best part about this trip, post Texas, is there was nary a turd in sight. Along for the ride on this trip were the same dynamic duo that visited the submarine in San Francisco with us a number of months prior. Here we go!
I was quickly thankful about the lack of turd on this trip given that it started with me at the store and a broken flip flop before we left. An omen?! Hmmm…
Not quite what I was hoping for, but it was still kinda funny and I thankfully had a spare pair at the house.
The drive down was pretty uneventful. We ran into some CRAZY bad traffic over the grapevine. It delayed our arrival at the hotel almost an hour and caused a detour for dinner. We ended up at BJ’s Restaurant. It was pretty tasty and the boys had a good time. My boy kept getting distracted by all the people moving around. I couldn’t get a good picture of him to save my life. LOL!
We finally got to the hotel and the room was HUGE! Perfect for two old men and two very energetic boys to run around in.
Thus ends night one.
The morning finally dawns and we’re off to the rather good free breakfast at the hotel and then off to the USS Iowa! During the drive over we, obviously, went to the docks where our beloved government administration had caused a major backlog in shipping. At the time, we had been waiting for an important shipment of gear at work. I told my boss before leaving on this trip that it’s probably at the docks and maybe I could just pick it up. We all laughed.
So, we’re driving near the docks. One could easily conclude that bridges would be involved and there is one thing I don’t like driving on…Bridges. Sigh. I made it and we just took our time. No biggie.
That ship is huge, but there was a commercial cruise ship boarding passengers near the same dock which made the battleship look smaller in an odd way. Lo and behold, a battleship doesn’t have the people capacity and is certainly lacking in creature comforts compared to a cruise ship. Duh! Cabins vs. a make-shift cloth shelf.
We arrived a bit early and finally got on board for the self-guided tour. Below is a sample of the places we went through, but there is so much more! Apart from the size and uniqueness of the ship, there is a great deal of history to watch on board.
The boys seemed to very much enjoy themselves too!
Too funny!
After the tour we drove out to Chick-Fil-A for lunch and then back to the hotel for some swimming. Chilly swimming. Apparently I misread the information on the hotel and thought their pool was heated. Nope. The boys were tough enough to give it a try for a bit anyways while the old men marinated in the spa, but even youth can’t handle the early Spring pool temps for too long. The boys crashed into the spa and we all hung out in there relaxing until it was time to prepare for our evening adventures.
After swimming we went back to the room and watched a couple of Youtube videos about the ship we had just been on. The boys seemed to enjoy it and I was really hoping to give them something to think about beyond a check-box experience. I’ve found it important to train my sons on how to thank more so than necessarily what to think. Both of my boys are still young, but I’m slowly edging my oldest into that mode. So many things change in the course of one year.
It was now time to get in the car and drive to Medieval Times! One of my favorite places to go when down in the Anaheim area. My nephew and son had never been to see one of their shows so I wanted to ensure a more inventive experience for them – VIP passes. It was pretty cool, but they were pretty insistent on the widely debunked masking which kinda killed part of the excitement. We were still able to take a group shot without them for a few moments. It’s one of my favorite pics of the trip. At the time of this posting, I can’t find the thing…I’ll scan it in later…
I didn’t take many pictures when we were there for some dumb reason, but I got a few.
One of the neat add-ons we did was the formal knighting ceremony for the boys. The audio isn’t great, but you get the gist of it.
And to wrap up the evening, there was the reading of their names in front of the crowd.
Kinda silly, but I enjoyed seeing all of this. In these latter days especially, I’m really trying to focus on investing in my boys and my nephew when I can instead of mere spending time or spending money just for the sake of doing so. I want to have experiences with them and I hope those who stumble across our little adventures will be encouraged to do their own. It’s doesn’t need to be extravagant or costly…It only needs to be deliberate. When my son still talks about this or our other adventures he almost never mentions the things we bought. He remembers the time we enjoyed doing things together.
References: USS Iowa - Museum Website Naval Legends - USS Iowa - World of Warships Medieval Times - Buena Park, CA
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