4 Hours & 41 Minutes

We watched the sun come up while waiting to board our 8:20 AM flight and when we arrived at our destination 4 hours and 41 minutes later it was not even 10:00AM. That’s how long you have to sit in an airline seat to get from Atlanta to San Diego. We checked in, unpacked our suitcase and walked across the street to get our second lunch of the day. From there we walked a couple blocks south to visit the U.S.S. Midway.

It has been 40 years since I was last aboard and when I walked into the entrance area that led to the hanger deck I noticed it still smelled the same. We didn’t bother with the self guided tour and just wandered around on the tour route.

The only place that was really familiar was the mess deck, but that was mostly because the places that were open to the public were the surface Navy areas where I didn’t spend a lot of time in. Our berthing area was never always in the same spot each time aboard because our little detachment was only part of the Air Wing some of the time. I would have liked to think I could have found our little Maintenance Shack because it was in the same spot all the time, but I’m not so sure. But it didn’t matter as most of the aviation areas were not open to the public anyway.

We did take the guided tour of the island to to get to see the Bridge, the Chart House and PriFly (the airport tower.) Very interesting. The only time I was ever in the island while on board was to pass through on the way up to Vulture’s Row or the Crow’s Nest to take pictures of flight ops. Last stop was the Gift Shop on the fantail where I bought a hat and some postcards.