Patriots Point:

Yesterday we took a day trip to Charleston, and went a ton of places we have not gotten to go yet.
I have been talking Hochi's ear off about wanting to go to Patriots Point, and yesterday we decided to wake up early so we could!

Patriots point is home to the USS Yorktown which is an air craft carrier known as the Fighting Lady, the USS Laffey destroyer, the USS Clamgore submarine and various air craft.

Here you can see the Yorktown and Laffey, from the shore. I've never been on any kind of naval ship before, so I had no idea what to expect. 

I couldn't help myself with this, it is called Patriots Point, after all! It was a beautiful day, with a slight breeze, which was a welcome relief from how hot it has been lately. 

Hochi took on the roll of tour guide, reading and and explaining various things about the ships. 

They have a Tf-9J Cougar on display, and you can sit in the cockpit. It reminded me of how cramped the vipers cockpit is, but was set up a little differently. Hochi stood on the ladder to point different things out to me, and refresh my memory so I could compare the two.  

 If there is a Phantom (this one is an F-4J Phantom II) in the area, I'll find it. If you look closely you will see me in shadow there, touching the butt. For the uninitiated, I always hunt out specific air craft when we go somewhere that has a display. (See: our PIMA trip). If there is a BUFF, you can bet I'll make a bee line for it before anything else. The F-4 is one of the air craft my grandfather flew, and is usually around on display somewhere.

In standard household fashion, we spent more time getting excited about the air planes, than the boats. 

One of the most interesting points of the tour was coming down from the deck, they had a special escalator just for the pilots going under the deck for their debriefs. That was the butt of many jokes and endless teasing of Hochi for the remainder of the tour. 

The other interesting thing was seeing the difference between the enlisted living areas, and officer living areas.  

The Laffey had some newer exhibits that were very well done, meant to put you in the mindset of what was going on, complete with sound, visual, and feeling.

Going into the submarine was a little nerve wracking, its a tight fit, so if you have claustrophobia it is definitely not for you. It's mind blowing to me how many people lived (and still live) on these things and how tight of a fit they are! 

Have you been on a sub or ship? What did you think?

Fly Safe, 

Barb