Patriots Point - USS Clamagore SS-343

The USS Clamagore SS is a submarine. What surprised me most about it was imagining what it must have been like for so many people to be working in there for days straight. It is very tight, very hot (120 degrees with the hatch open and only one engine running), and loud (that was with only one engine running). With all three engines running it must have been even more hot, and three times as loud. I assume it smelled bad in there after a few days. 

This bird loved the cable at the front of the sub. As you can see above the bottom of the sub is starting to corrode away from the salt water.

This is an escape trunk.

This is the forward torpedo room. 16 members of the crew slept and lived in this small space. As you can see they slept wherever their bunk would fit around the missiles. The missiles are maintained and repaired here.

Everything is small and shoved anywhere it would fit. I must also note that it isn't a very pleasant looking place inside a submarine.

Patriots Point - USS Yorktown CV-10

I hope I remember all of the information we learned correctly about this ship. It is an aircraft carrier that served in World War II. If you were to take your time and read all of the self-tour signs it would take most of the day to go through. It is enormous! Coming over the bridge to Patriots Point the ship is the center of the scenery. 

The Flight Deck was huge! Walking on it felt like we are walking in a large parking lot overlooking the water.  There were many planes and a helicopter on the deck to look at. 

We learned about how the planes would take off and land. Taking off they used a catapult that was located in long slits in the front of the ship. When landing they flew in at the back of the ship. I imagined that there could be planes on either side parked on the deck and that the pilot landing had to be very precise landing on that narrow area on the deck while the ship could also be moving a bit. The pictures just above show the cables that were across the ship. There were five or six of them (can't remember) and the pilot aimed for the third one. A perfect landing would be when he/she hooked the third cable to stop the plane. 

Under the flight deck they had many planes stored. There is an elevator and they could move the planes below deck. All of the planes we saw had folding wings so that they could store more planes on the carrier. Some of the planes you could go up to or climb into. Austyn and Zoe got to sit inside and check out the controls.

Of course since it's located in South Carolina they had to mention 

that flight was discovered in their State. Here is the Wright Brothers Plane (I think it's a replica).

This aircraft carrier and others like it were used in the recovery of astronauts and their capsules when they landed in the ocean. This ship picked up the astronauts from Apollo 8 (The first trip around the moon).

Exploring the inside of the ship was fun for the kids. It was a very hands on experience. Most of the areas were open for exploration. It was like a big maze with lots of hallways, stairs and sometimes ladders. There were buttons, and controls to touch and press.

There were many displays on board. There was a room dedicated to women who served in the wars. There were many items used on the ship displayed. Some we could touch and some we couldn't. 

There were many rooms and areas throughout the ship that we got to look at many of the rooms were behind Plexiglas and were dark so the pictures didn't turn out. We saw the mess hall (we could eat lunch there), medical area, sleeping quarters, the quarters of some higher members of the crew (captain), machine shops, clothing repair, mail room, meeting rooms, jails. The list goes on. They basically had everything on this ship and people to run each area. The more sick or the higher ranked you were the more private and better your sleeping quarters were. They took shifts for sleeping for most of the crew. They claimed that when a man would go and lay on his bunk it would still be warm from the man before him. The picture just above was the sign in one of the vending booths. Check out the prices back then!

There were two crew's mess where they were served four meals a day. They got breakfast, lunch, supper, and midrats (midnight rations).

Patriots Point, Charleston, North Carolina

I'm, personally, not all that into military things but my husband and Austyn are interested in it so we drove to South Carolina to get a hands-on experience of what it would be like to live and work as a U.S. Marine. It was very interesting. I recommend it for anyone learning about U.S. history or with kids interested in Military vehicles. It is about a full day to get through everything, especially if you are interested in reading the tour signs. We could touch just about everything. I was amazed at how hands-on it was!There are controls to turn and buttons to push. It was an interesting experience.

I was just going through the pictures trying to decide which ones to share with you guys. I decided that I'd break this up into separate posts so that it's not confusing. There is a large airplane carrier, a submarine, and a Vietnam support base, so I'll do this intro and a post for each section of the museum. From their website and flyer there was suppose to be another ship but we didn't see it there. The air craft carrier that we looked at is called USS Yorktown and takes the longest to tour. It is HUGE! There were over 3500 people serving on it at one time. It has been in World War II and has collected astronauts and the capsules from Apollo space trips including the first trip around the moon. This ship had everything in it! There is a medical section, surgery room, dentist, cafeteria (mess hall), bunkers, area to work on missiles, elevator machine shop area, mail room, printing presses, meeting rooms, a jail, storage rooms, a bakery, a kitchen, a lab, shoe repair, sewing area, and the list goes on.


The submarine, which is called The USS Clamagore was an eye opener. There were about 200 people who served on it. It was very crowded, very hot, and extremely noisy. They only had one engine running when we were in it and we were to imagine it with all three engines in that section running. The sub was so crowded that people were to sleep anywhere they'd fit. They even slept in-between the missiles. If men worked on this ship they'd have to be okay with touching other people all the time because of how crowded it was. Most of the pictures show that the men were very sweaty and had their shirts off because of the extreme conditions.

Here is the website for more information:
http://www.patriotspoint.org/

How did we do it?

I've been asked how the kids did in the Van on our trip to South Carolina and Florida. "They did Great!" We had movies for them to watch with their ear phones so that we could take breaks and listen to our music for our own sanity. Our van has some special seats in it that can turn around. I sat in the back seat some of the drive to do activities with them. We read books, played fun, educational games, ate snacks, played with play dough, chatted, played with toys and whatever else we felt like doing to make the time go faster while traveling so far. We took many breaks. We'd stop, get out, take a bathroom break, and run or walk around.

On the way back we didn't come straight home. We drove the scenic route to go and pick up some race car parts. The parts in the United States are about half price compared to the parts we can get here in Canada. Here are some of the pictures of our traveling time in the van.

"And that's the wonderful thing about family travel:  it provides you with experiences that will remain locked forever in the scar tissue of your mind."  ~ Dave Barry

(I chose this quote kind of as a joke. LOL!) 

100 Books-A-Month Challenge, Reading My Library

We are back from our vacation. Because we didn't fly this time I was able to bring some more books with us and could read to them in the van. I've not touched the books in our library yet, since we've been away for about three weeks. We are a bit behind with reading. I'm not sure that we'll be able to catch up, but that's okay. We'll be heading to our library today for more books. Here is our list so far:

Reading List April, 2010

Read to Austyn and Zoe:
1. A Fair Bear Share by Stuart J. Murphy
2. Angela’s Airplane by Robert Munsch
3. Bug Dance by Stuart J. Murphy
4. Coyotes All Around by Stuart J. Murphy
5. Custard the Dragon and the Wicked Knight by Ogden Nash
6. Ducks Don’t Get Wet by Augusta Goldin
7. Elevator Magic by Stuart J. Murphy
8. Every Buddy Counts by Stuart J. Murphy
9. I Have To Go! By Robert Munsch
10. Just Enough Carrots by Stuart J. Murphy
11. Kanga and Baby Roo Come to the Forest by A. A. Milne
12. Piglet is Entirely Surrounded by Water by A. A. Milne
13. Pooh Goes Visiting and Pooh and Piglet Nearly Catch a Woozle by A. A. Milne
14. Makeup Mess by Robert Munsch
15. Mall Mania by Stuart J. Murphy
16. Mortimer by Robert Munsch
17. Mud Puddle by Robert Munsch – 2 times
18. Murmel, Murmel, Murmel by Robert Munsch
19. One… Two… Three… Sassafras! By Stuart J. Murhy
20. Pooh Invests in a New Game by A. A. Milne
21. Rabbit’s Pajama Party by Stuart J. Murphy
22. Racing Around by Stuart J. Murphy
23. Something Good by Robert Munsch
24. The Best Vacation Ever by Stuart J. Murphy
25. The Greatest Gymnat of All by Stuart J. Murphy
26. The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch – 2 times
27. The Sandcastle Contest by Robert Munsch
28. The Tale of Custard the Dragon by Ogden Nash
29. Tigger Comes To The Forest and Has Breakfast by A. A. Milne
30. Tigger is Unbounced by A. A. Milne
31. Up, Up, Down by Robert Munsch
32. Winnie-The-Pooh and Some Bees by A. A. Milne
33. Zoom! By Robert Munsch

Chapter books and Reference Books (both kids):
1. Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling – 3 stories
2. The Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia – 31 pages
3. The Usborne First Encyclopedia of Space – 13 pages
4. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahme – 3 chapters

Book Sharing Monday

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg is "inspiration" in one word! It's a book that could be used to jump start your child's imagination. Either through other pictures, story telling, or writing the child can take the captivating caption, title and picture from each spread of the book and create!

The premise of the book is explained in the introduction. The Author of this book Chris Van Allsburg visited a man named Peter Wenders who is retired and use to work for a  children's book publisher. During his career he reviewed many books and book ideas from many authors. There was a man named Harris Burdick (or that is what he said his name was) who dropped off a bunch of his drawings with a title and a caption to go with each from each book that he had writen. Peter told Mr. Burdick that he wanted to see the stories that went with them as soon as possible but Mr. Burdick disappeared and was never seen, nor heard from again. When Chris Van Allsburg saw the captions and drawings he told Peter that it was hard not to think up stories to go with them and Peter fetched a box with dozens of stories inspired by Mr. Burdick's drawings. This book is comprised of some of his pictures with titles and captions. So, borrow this book from your library, read it to your kids and see what they come up with!

The picture of the house had the following title and caption.

THE HOUSE ON MAPLE STREET

It was a perfect lift off! 

Book Sharing Monday

Silly Billy by Anthony Browne is a book that we borrow again and again from our library. I think that the appeal for Austyn is that he sees that he's not the only one who worries about things and that there is an option for someone who worries. The book is about a little boy named Billy and as you can guess by the statement above, he worries... alot! At the end of the book the grandmother introduces him to worry dolls from Guatemala. We don't have worry dolls but I told Austyn that the Elephant that his cousins brought back from their Guatemalan missions trip likely has the same powers. What a creative way to deal with worries!