USS Lexington

Our 2nd day, we enjoyed a hot breakfast at the Drury Inn and then headed to see the USS Lexington.  This naval airship served in WWII.  Without kids, we could've spent all day reading all the amazing things about this boat, but we were moved through the ship swiftly and were able to get a glimpse of the magnitude. Lots of pictures here, but this ship was soooo cool.

Took the tram up.  Had lots of fun listening to this veteran's stories (well Glen and I did.  Andrew kept whispering to Glen "Can we go now?")

Why are the wings like that?  It's to save space up on the flight deck.

See how high up we are.  And we aren't even on the flight deck yet.

Alex checking the height from a safe spot.

In the women's bathroom were tons of posters from the WWII era promoting the Waves.  I'd never heard about these women serving on the radio waves during the war.  They had women on these navy ships when I'd always been under the assumption that there were only men back during that time.  This poster was my favorite. 

Of course every tourist destination has lots of display sections.  Lots of model planes.

A whole art gallery (4-5 of these rows) of different kinds of planes.

This was where I would've loved to read everything and watch the video they had set up.  This section was talking about the kamikaze's which always fascinates me.  This flag had the signatures of some soldiers before their kamikaze missions.  In this room my heart could feel the sadness; the sadness for the families and soldiers from both sides.  This ship was hit by a kamikaze which explains the big display about it.     

This is a sample bedding area.  Could you imagine sleeping here for 6 months or more?

Izzy and Alex trying it out.

A cool mural in the barber shop.

A dentist office.  This place has everything but I guess it would have to if you're living in a ship more than 6 months out of the year.

There were so many flights of stairs and they were steep.  Alex needed Glen to help her cuz she was scared.

On the flight deck.

Alex can find a horse in anything.

We got to try out the guns.

I love seeing the pelicans everywhere.

Could you imagine sitting here to be in charge of steering the ship?

The escalator was added later.  Going down it was fun reading a lot of facts about this particular ship.