Pearl Harbor

As you probably know, December 7th, 1941 was the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. So I thought it would be fitting to post a couple of pics of the USS Arizona memorial. In the first pic, the memorial is the white building that is actually directly above the Arizona. You take a boat out to it after you watch a 15 minute video (which is really good and helps you to understand what happened back in 1941) and after about 15 minutes, you take the boat back. I won't get into too much of the history here since you'll be able to get it in person in Hawaii. Also in the first pic, you can see Ford Field in the background (the tower sticking up above the trees), and also on the left side is the USS Missouri. As we've said before, we recommend taking the tour of the Missouri. It does cost a little money and it is alot of walking and there are quite a few stairs involved but it is worth it. How often do you get a chance to walk around a battleship? I would guess not too many, especially one with this much history. And one that has 16" guns?
The USS Bowfin submarine is also available to tour. Again, definitely worth checking out. But this is a sub, so it is kind of tight through some of the doors (see the pic below). The Bowfin isn't a nuclear sub either, so you get to see the big diesel engines. And all the old gauges, valves, and other mechanical things are all out for you to see. Oh and did I mention the torpedo tubes? Seriously, how often do you get to look down a torpedo tube?
The nice thing about the Missouri and Bowfin tours are that they are self-guided tours. So you could spend all day going through these if you want. And when we were going through them, they weren't crowded. Yeah, there are spots where there were other people standing around but for the most part, you never feel like you're being pushed through like cattle. They even drive you over in a bus to the Missouri, which is about the only time you're in a big group. Even if you just walk around the top of the Bowfin or the deck of the Missouri, there is plenty to take in. What I guess I'm getting at is that you should do these two tours after seeing the Arizona Memorial.

Ryan