Photos From the USS Midway & Sunset Cliffs

Ok, so the Midway and Sunset Cliffs have nothing to do with each other except for the fact that they are both on the water. But, we visited them both on the same day so I thought I would just post them together.

Sam really wanted to visit the Midway and saved much of his spending money for the giftshop there. He said he really would love to be a pilot. I say, go for it Sam! His daddy always had a dream of being an astronaut. Even though he didn't become one, he is probably one of the biggest NASA fans out there! And Sam & Erin have caught the bug. (Ok, so I got off the subject here--but hey, it's my blog, right?)

Speaking of astronauts (guess I didn't get off subject afterall), this is the helicopter that picked up some of the Apollo astronauts when they would land in the water. I always thought that was so amazing how they did that.

This is Sam and Karen sitting in one of the helicopters--not the astronaut one, though.

This is a view from the "island" or the place where the ship is commanded from. Four steep sets of stairs to get up there. An aircraft carrier is amazing. It has so many levels I know I would get sooo lost on one. Plus I don't think my claustrophobia would allow me to stay even one night in those bunks they have to sleep in.

Karen will hate me for posting this! They had a display of where the guys took showers and of course they had this mannequin in the shower. And of course, Karen had to give him a thumbs up. Sorry Michael!

Here is Sam next to the Midway Life Preserver. If you will notice just to the right of him on the ground is a giant statue of the Life Magazine cover of the sailor kissing the nurse in Times Square at the end of WWII.

This doesn't have much to do with the Midway but I took it from the deck. I have always been so amazed that the San Diego airport is right down town. The planes come in right over Balboa Park and you can see how low they are before they actually land. I kind of get the wow factor everytime I see one. Sam got the wow factor from all of the fighter planes training practically everyday. And man, are they loud at night. I guess if you live there, you get used to it.

And of course, being from Ohio and all, I had to take a picture of this--the Buckeye Trainer.

From there, we headed north to Sunset Cliffs. This is looking north.

This is looking south. I would give my eyeteeth--or even a bit more--to have a house overlooking this view. There were some houses for sale but I don't think I could afford to even take a peek at one of these houses. The downside is that you don't really have a beach. Well, I guess there was one small beach, but you had to scale the cliffs to get there.

Sam and Karen on the cliffs. We opted NOT to bring the kids to this place. No barriers and waaayyy too many places where they could fall off.

We had a ball watching the waves come in and trying to guess which ones would crash against the cliffs the hardest.

We moved on up the beach a bit and found these crazy guys diving off of the cliffs. I think they performed more than usual when they realized we were taking pictures.

And with this, I will just say that we had a great day--and bottoms up!