Pearl Harbor

On Sunday, the Nicolls took Grant to church with them and Mike, Betty and I headed to Pearl Harbor.

She's the best little tourist!

I wanted Mike to write  this post because he's more of a historian than I am but he didn't think he'd have time so...this is Pearl Harbor from my perspective!

The whole thing was on an audio tour so you just bought headphones when you got there and then each exhibit had a number you punch in and it would guide you through the whole thing. 

This diagram shows how the torpedoes were launched. 

And what they looked like.

After we went through a few exhibits, we took a ferry to the USS Arizona Memorial.  Bets wasn't too excited about it.  Haha!

 

Inside the memorial is this list of all the people who died on the Arizona.  Most of their bodies are still inside the ship so they stressed a lot on the tour to treat it with reverence since it's their final resting place.

This is what's left of one of the bases from where the big guns were mounted on the ship.  The memorial sits perpendicularly over the top of what's left of the ship.

This diagram kind of puts it into perspective...basically, it's huge!

Rems and me with the U.S.S. Missouri in the background.

Full size, but still from a distance.  I can't believe how big these ships are! I can't wrap my head around what a catastrophe it must've been that morning.

This  was a sub they had on display that you could tour but it seemed to be separate from Pearl Harbor and wasn't mentioned in the tour, plus, it was a pretty ridiculous fee so we just opted to take a picture :)

 Pearl Harbor has really made me want to go to other historical sites.  It's so interesting to learn about our Nation's history and the great people who "more than self their country loved"....it seems like you just don't see as much of it anymore.  It's MUCH more impressive and impressionable than some Michael Bay movie. Whom Michael Loathes by the way.

(P.S. Just FYI, it was never mentioned, nor have I found anywhere anything about President Roosevelt rising from his wheelchair exclaiming, "Don't tell me it can't be done"...or whatever the quote is....actually I'm thinking the majority of that movie is not factual!)

Poor Nate ended up driving us there, coming home and taking his family to church, then driving back to pick us up in the pouring rain, in terrible traffic, all on his day off.  Once Remi got to spend some time with him that night, she was finally happy enough to show her gratitude!