Monday, March 28, 2011

The USS Intrepid (also Good to Wow: Green Edition, SOOC)

Note: If you're here from Jill's blog and don't want to see a million pictures, scroll down to photo #5.

We spent this past weekend in New York City, and one of the fun things we did was visit The Sea, Air, and Space Museum, which houses the Growler Submarine, the USS Intrepid, and a British Airways Concorde.

Our tour into the belly of the Growler Submarine was very interesting.
2 - Submarine


The control panels were fascinating to see, especially considering what these types of panels might look like on a modern submarine.
4 - Controls


3 - Sub Control Room


Here is the submarine mess hall:
5 - Sub Mess Hall


And what good is a submarine without weapons? The missile was pretty impressive.
(Good to Wow photo):



Our next stop was the USS Intrepid.
1 - USS Intrepid


It has an impressive history. Commissioned in 1943, it saw 2 wars as an aircraft carrier, held up under the attack of two suicidal kamikaze airplanes,
13 - Gun


16 - Michael on cannon


14 - Planes


15 - Planes with skyline backdrop


served as a recovery vessel for a space mission,
8 - Space Capsule


and filled in as the temporary FBI headquarters following 9/11.
7 - US Flag


It is as impressive in stature as in history.

We ate in the main Mess Hall
12 - Mess Hall


and also got to see the Officers' Mess Hall.
9 - Officers Mess


10 - Coffee


We also saw some of the living quarters.
12a - Bunks


12 - Sink


11 - Red Pipe


Following our time visiting the Intrepid, we boarded a British Airways Concorde.
17 - Concorde


Nothing particularly impressive except possibly the bragging rights I now have to say I've been on one. The one interesting fact that stayed with me is the fact that a flight on the Concorde was very quiet because it flew faster than the sound of its engines.

Definitely more impressive was the short movie we saw about the Intrepid. It presented a history of the ship and included interviews with a couple of POWs like John McCain. I was struck by this quote from Commander Paul Galanti: "There's no such thing as a bad day when you have a doorknob on the inside of the door." Now there's perspective.

18 - Control Tower

19 comments:

Unknown said...

Cool pictures. I can now strike this off the list of places that I need to see. Can I send requests?

Tara said...

Very neat shots! You are all over country :)

Gina Kleinworth said...

How fun! We went to see the Midway in San Diego once- the kids loved it. Long ago I met up with a friend of mine when he docked in Hawaii & got an awesome tour of the Independence- it was AMAZING. All your shots really brought back some memories! So cool!

koreen (aka: winn) said...

Very cool!

Ashley Sisk said...

You're always visiting the neatest places! How cool are these shots!

melissa said...

This looks like an incredible place to go! Beautiful photos! xo

Unknown said...

wow! what a fun place to visit! awesome shots!!!!

Courtney said...

Looks like and exciting trip! Looking forward to seeing what you do with your "green" photo!

Cedar said...

That looks like it was a really fun trip and you got some awesome shots! Thanks for sharing. We won't make it to NYC any time soon.

jillconyers said...

Wonderful photos. Looking forward to seeing what you do with your green edit.

Sarah Coggins said...

Looks like a fun trip! I would love to see all of that in person - especially the Concorde. My mom actually got to fly on it once for business. Always been in the "cool" category to me. ;) Love your choice for the green theme this week. Thanks for leaving a comment on my shot!

mountain mama said...

the tablecloths and ferns made me laugh!

love the pics, i've never seen a sub in real life before!!! cool!

Unknown said...

Hi! Thanks for stopping by my blog and telling me about resizing sidebar photos! I only started my blog 12/10 and didn't know you COULD resize them (although I wondered how others had smaller photos). Not sure when I'll get to the resizing though! LOL Oh, and great field trip and photos!

Jessy

Amy @ Cheeky Cocoa Beans said...

You have quite the list of interesting field trips you've taken recently! Looks like it was a great one. I have to say, though, a sub is one place I definitely do not enjoy staying for long--even a tour through one is just about too long for me. ;) Loved the quote. Fantastic shots!

So, yeah, I loved all of it. :)

Michelle R said...

How fun!! You all go to some of the coolest places! Looks like a great learning time, as well as just getting out and exploring!!

Rachelp said...

I loved the painted checkered boards on the tables.. I wonder if hte checkers would actually stay put if they tried to play. :)

Unknown said...

many moons ago when john was in the navy his first ship was the USS JFK which was an aircraft carrier.

they had a "family" cruise one day in april & it was windy & cold, when it's windy & cold near the dock it's very windy & cold 8hr into the atlantic.

it was very cool watching the jets drop bombs in the water and watching them break the sound barrier. i even chuckled a few times watching so many of the women puking their guts out on the flight deck. up & down that huge ship went - that pretty much nixed my desire to ever go on a cruise.

Rosie Nixon Fluerty said...

Great shots - especially your tilt shift with the city in the background.

I would have likes to have seen concorde. I can remember seeing one of them landing in Heathrow in the late 70's but many a time found myself under it's flight path and those sonic booms were something else!

CrossView said...

Cool shots and cool trip! And those subs? New or old, I've never been on one that didn't make me feel panicky. Way too squooshed.