Norfolk Trip: Day Three

Day three was another busy day for us. We woke up at 5 a.m. and were on the bus an hour later, heading for breakfast at the navy mess hall.

With breakfast over, it was time to board the bus and head to our first activity of the day...a tour of the USS Nassau.

The Nassau is 820 feet long and 106 feet wide. It can transport over 3,000 troops. Its A/C could cool a 32-story building or 500 average homes.

There are four medical operating rooms, three dental rooms and 300 hospital beds on board. We toured the medical centers of the ship and visited the same room that the Somali pirates were taken to when they were captured and needed medical care. The door with the red cross on it, on the back wall, was the door they came through.

We visited the ship's bridge, the deck, the Marine bunks (they could accommodate 1900 Marines, stacked four high. It was like a maze in there. I would need a GPS to find my bunk), the very bottom deck of the ship that could be flooded with sea water so that boats could be brought aboard (the water level would be another 8 to 10 feet above the Captain and Chief's heads) and a other sections of the ship like the anchor room and mess hall (not pictured).

Before we left the ship we took a group shot of the cadets on deck.

Walking up and down all of those stairs to reach all of the decks made us hungry so lunch was in order (to the Navy mess hall again via the bus). After lunch went shopping at the NEX (Naval Exchange); it is the Navy's Wal-Mart. Some of the kids bought Navy gear like T-shirts and hats.

Our next stop after the NEX was Colonial Williamsburg. It was a brief stop of an hour and a half, just enough time to walk up and down Duke of Gloucester Street and one or two of the side streets. The last time I was at Colonial Williamsburg was roughly 25 years ago.

Loving history (as you know), I was thrilled to revisit some of the historical houses and know that I was walking the same streets that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson walked.

This is the Wythe House. Mr. Wythe was a patriot and Virginia's first signer of the Declaration of Independence. George Washington used this house as his headquarters before the siege of Yorktown.

This is the Governor's Palace. Thomas Jefferson was the last Governor of Virginia to reside here before the Capital was relocated to Richmond in 1780 upon Jefferson's request for security reasons during the American Revolution.

I was able snap a few more pictures during our brief visit.

The Marquis de Lafayette.

Some of the locals.

I enjoyed my revisit to Colonial Williamsburg but wished it could have been longer; too soon we had to board the bus again and head back to the barracks.

When we got back to the barracks the cadets began their P.T. They stretched to warm-up and then began the 2 mile run to the beach. Lorrie and I walked to the beach and put our toes into the water.

The Captain and Chief opted for a pizza night at the barracks once everyone was back from the run instead of getting back on the bus and eating at the navy mess hall. Everyone was tired, so that was a great plan.

The cadets got to have their cell phones for an hour each evening to call parents, friends or boy friends.

The pizza and cell phones made for very happy cadets (and chaperons) that evening.

End of day three.