USS Alabama

We started our second quarter road trip with a stop in Mobile, Alabama to tour the USS Alabama battleship, now retired from military service and parked in Mobile Bay. It's an entire military park with the battleship, lots of old military planes, and even a submarine, the USS Drum. We were able to tour the ship and the sub, and look at a lot of planes. Some of the planes were parked off to the side near the parking lot and rather banged up - it was damage from Hurricane Katrina that still hasn't been repaired.

Favorites: The girls loved climbing up and down on the triple bunks in the ship and the submarine. They kicked off their shoes to "take a nap" for a few minutes. They did this every time we came across a bunk area.

Not so much: Posy was not happy with the whole outing - something about the ship and the submarine made her really nervous. She seemed to think something was going to happen while we were on the boat - it would sail away or something. We kept telling her that the boat wasn't going anywhere - it's a museum now. I don't know that she was ever entirely convinced. The submarine wasn't even in the water - it's on land. But it still made her jumpy.

And the heat. Wow. I thought going in May would be okay but it was already really hot and muggy.

We learned: a bit of Dad's personal history. When AC was in Boy Scouts, he went camping on the USS Alabama. He explained a lot about the ship, and told stories about when he was a kid. One of the kitchens is blocked off with only windows to see the area - it was open when he was there before. AC pointed out the huge kettles in the back and said he played hide-and-seek in them.

AC was even wearing a BSA cap when we went down Memory Lane with him.

Sunny and Posy thought the bunks were SO. COOL. Every time we found another bunkroom, they had to climb up on the beds to "take a nap" for a few minutes.

Sunny driving the USS Drum submarine. Which was on land.