WWII Ship, Among Other Things

Today, the 5th, we went to tour the WWII ship, LST-325.  We learned a TON about the ship, which was one of the boats to land at Normandy on D-Day.  It's a flat bottomed boat, they need 9 feet of water to maneuver it.  They can sail up to shore and on to beaches and to do that, they drop anchor way out and then when it's time to go, they reel themselves back to the anchor.  It has 8 guns that could shoot 120 rounds a minute.  There were 1051 of them built, nearly totally by women in the Midwest.  They made them so fast, they did not name them, just numbered.
This ship is the last LST warship that is still operational.

They scrapped many of them after the war and gave several to other countries.  The LST-325 served 38 years in the Greek Navy, longer than if served in the US.  So all through the ship are Greek signs and symbols, including a small painting of Achilles.  

These hooks and chains clipped into the pop-up X's in the floor to hold cargo still.  They could hold 20 tanks in the middle section, where we entered.  There was an elevator to the top level to move cargo up there.  It took 12 minutes each way, so in later models was replaced by a ramp, like the one on the Lego ship above.

The top right photo shows the ship on the beach at Normandy.

It's huge, 323 feet long.

We went in groups of 30, which I was pretty anal about getting set up just so. Then we got lumped in all together anyway, I wrote a check for $300 for the group, the guys at the desk had no idea what I was supposed to be paying.  It was a fiasco as far as getting ANY information ahead of time!  They had no clue how to deal with homeschoolers, how to charge us or anything, it took a couple of weeks of calls before they came to any decisions.  I've never had such a hassle setting up an event, but it all worked out.

The guy above was talking about the area he was sitting in, they had men all over the whole ship plus our own guide, all telling us information about the war, the ship, the men, the living conditions and so on.

It does not seem like this kitchen is big enough to feed all the men on board!  They still use it, too.

My father came along on the tour and I totally did not get a shot of him.  GAR

There were 24 bunks per room, they were about 5'2" long.  ACK

It was BLAZING hot and the ship is metal and I though we were going to cook our brains in there.

Afterward, we had lunch at Bob Gibson's with Amanda!  

I think this is as close to my name as I am going to get with the Coke promo this summer.

Ben took this one.

I am trying to finish The Goldfinch before it's due back, I got it from the library and they totes delete the file after exactly 2 weeks.  I have 54% of it read and 3 days left, ack!
I could not read on the way home, I need an anti-glare screen!!

There you go, my hair is fading back to brown instead of Goth Mom

We were supposed to go Wednesday and hang out with Park, but that got moved due to a flat on the van.
I went Thursday before dance and got new tires, OMG that was $$$.
We stopped in and checked on the house and animals, all was well.  I shot these morning glory as we were driving off, these are all out my van window.
Heard back from Gerri and she will be coming to check on things while we are on our trip coming up and Sammy says he can get the camper fixed in time, though it was all 4 corners and not just the one.   Let me retype that.  All four corner$.  $igh.  I hope we can eat every day while on our trip! LOL

Labor Day

Yesterday was such an awesome day!!

We got going EARLY and took Neeners to the house with us to get the camper delivered to Sammy, who can fix it.  We never could get the new wiring hooked up correctly, so we actually ended up hauling it with no signal lights the whole way there.  We passed maybe 7 cars the whole drive, never saw a cop, never even came close to having to turn with anyone behind us.  Thank goodness for country roads!  Got that dropped off and hung out for a couple hours.  Matt read to the littles and Bird did his 'serious face' which is SO cute and funny that Matt could not stop laughing about it after we were in bed last night and I fell asleep hearing him giggling off and on.

I picked up my boots for an adventure coming up tomorrow involving a new project with Park because we can't have less than 3 things started and zero completed at any moment.  He has to go pick up Katie in Wyoming next week and attend police academy for the 6-8 weeks after that, so we decided to start a long term project on one of the 3 mutual days we both will be free before November.  hahaha.

Also, while at the house, there was a package in the mailbox.  I have not ordered anything and had no idea what it might me, but it was addressed to me!  I opened it and SQUEALED.  It's our Magic Bands for Disney!

I forgot they send them out before you arrive, my last e-mail from the youth services said they would be at the will call window!  We went online and picked our colors and name spelling a while back-they have our names inside the band as well.  They don't have purple yet...

I am SO geeked!  Okay, so the Magic Bands work as your ticket, resort key, parking pass, debit card and you can track other members of your party and see where they are in the parks.  Also, we went online and set up Fast Passes to everything we wanted to be sure to ride ALREADY.  And they are saved on our bands.  I only did stuff the first week, the second week I left wide open.  But in the park, if you want a fast pass to something, you just bump the kiosk and save it on your band.  SO cool.  The only drawback is stuff like last time, we ran into some guys who were leaving early and they had a STACK of fast passes to Rockin' Rollercoaster and gave them to us, so we rode like...4 times in a row back to back using their passes!  You can't hand over unused passes from one band to another.  :(

I am still pretty geeked, I really like that the kids can buy things without having to deal with carrying money, we won't even need a wallet in the park.  If the bands get lost or stolen, Disney can track them down and give you a new one (that will be grey) and cancel charges that you did not make and so on.  I tried mine on, it's not super comfy, but I am certain they sell wraps that are.  hahahaha  They are waterproof and the battery is good for 3 years-so you can use the same band on additional trips.  Okay, I guess I am done being geeked...for now.

The weather was SO nice yesterday!!

Driving on 565, singing!

Quick detour on Triana for Little Caesars pizza!

Peeker puppy!

Bacon wrapped deep dish and the limited time pretzel pizza.
I nearly popped on 2 slices, it's 20 hours later and I still have not eaten again.  I don't even want food.  Who knew that much cheese could incite a diet?

I got up early today to run to get groceries, we are expecting company for lunch!  I have had several friends say they will come visit while we are up here but none have yet!  The kids are so excited, they are due in an hour.

Pixel napping this morning

Mars and Nia doing the Mars and Nia wrestling show

Pixel wants none of that!

Lovely!

Yesterday held good  news for a good friend as well, I am hoping she will hear VERY soon that there's nothing left to worry about, that would be the best thing ever! Worry is so draining and so useless and so nearly impossible to not indulge.  What value does it have?  It wears you out and nothing comes of it.  I KNOW this, yet I fret sometimes daily.  Getting irritated hardly helps, that's just MORE energy going toward something you can't affect. It's exhausting being under stress, and worse when someone else puts it on you.  It seems like a punishment for having met them!

Okay, I am off to putter around a bit.  Maybe I will get a wild hair and get the dog nose smooches off the windows.  hahaha!