Yesterday we got to visit the Kitty Hawk. What an awesome ship !




She is being decommissioned - so this was a last chance visit on CV63

The USS Germantown docked and was open for tours . . . very cool !

About to come aboard

On the Bridge


This is Chief Galindo. She showed me a little extra on the ship. She has an interest to address our Midway Education group - which will be cool because she was very inspiring.

I've been to several ships - lots to see

The Golden Bear is a school from the Maritime Academy in the Calif State Univerisity system.


A nice greeting

On the Bridge - in the Capt's chair !

The SE tonight was PayPal. I met people from accross the country that came to town for their convention.

They had a band on the flight deck and a well-stocked bar.

Meet Eric - he was in the Marine Corp, now he manages the Flight Simulators in the Hanger Bay.

We had the Jewish Jr Olympics group on board for an SE.

There were over 1200 kids from all over the country. They are in town for their Maccabi Games. As far as I can tell, that's kind of like the Jr. Olympics.

The adutls had their own little section, with a wine bar and the kids had the hanger bay and flight deck. The kids weren't too interested in the ship, and the coaches mostly wanted to get to the wine bar.

Here is the VIP section with food and wine, and mugging station worker:



Here is the DJ stand - the kids really flocked to them:


The kids are in full swing -




The kids got to eat too. Some of the food they made smelled to high heaven !

but they ate it

Meet John Holtz. He was a Midway Vet on the ship from 1958 thru 1962. He served under Capt Blackburn, Capt Mini, Capt. Cousins, and Capt Dose. How about that ! I gave him a tour of the hanger bay, the flight deck and the Bridge. He had a lof of memories of the ship - it was great meeting him and hearing his sea-stories.

The 'next day'

This is the flight deck being cleaned up and re-set like an aircraft carrier - not an out-door restaurant !


and take that band-stand down too !


See - this is what it is suppose to look like ! Call this the 'after' picture:




Getting all the tables, chairs, and equipment off the flight deck, on the elevator, and off the ship. Those guys do a great job setting up the events and re-setting the ship afterwards

The SE on board tonight had over 2,000 guests !

They had 33 bars set up ! Imagine that. Here is a look at a couple of the bars:






My flight deck was full too - imagine 2,000 + sitting down for dinner



Don't forget the full orchestra too


But - the group was real interested in the ship. I was stationed on the Hanger Bay for the first half of the night, then on the flight deck afterward where I got a good view of the food we didn't get:


Oh well - they don't often feed us anyway. I still had a great time.