U.S.S. Kidd; The Destroyers meet The Destroyer

While in Baton Rouge, I decided to take the boys to visit a historic site
that I visited as a child.

In other words, I took my destroyers to see The WWII Destroyer,
The U.S.S. Kidd.

The USS Kidd is a WWII destroyer ship that was launched in 1943
and saw plenty of action in WWII and the Korean War.

It also saw plenty of action while we were on it.
Trust me.
You'll see.

It was never modernized, and is the only destroyer to maintain her WWII appearance.
She has been restored though and in 1997 her torpedo tubes were re-loaded.

I need my tubes unloaded.
Wait, that doesn't sound right.
Tied?

The Kidd's special mooring in the Mississippi River
is designed to cope with the annual change
in river depth, which can be up to forty feet;
so for half the year she floats in the river,
the other half of the year she is dry-docked out of the water.

"Dry-docked" sounds so unpleasant.

Of everything we saw on board this ship, my boys enjoyed all the guns the most.

Of course.

Because boys love guns.
My boys love guns.
It can't be helped.
Even when moms try.

Listen, if the ship was broken after we left...it wasn't our fault.

We didn't do it.

The boys thought it was fun to go deep down into the bowels of the ship,
several levels down...with steep staircases...

and tiny corridors.
They dared me to follow.
So of course I did everything they did.
I have to stand up for women-kind everywhere.
You'll be relieved to know I did my part.

We all agreed we'd want the top bunk...in case they all collapsed.
We're optimistic folks, aren't we?

And we agreed we want to be officers,
because they had quarters up on the higher levels...with less neighbors.

Again, more guns.
They're like magnets for boys.

And apparently, the bigger the better.

I could totally be captain.
I have a great sense of direction...most of the time.
They have GPS on these things, right?
Right?

As long as these hooligans are my crew, what could possibly go wrong?!

Hey, I have a control panel just like this in my home!!

I knew I had a target on my back.
Hey, Target.
I need to go to Tar-Jay this week.

Here was the biggest gun of all.
The boys got to go inside of it.
It took 17 men to operate this one.

And here's where I we got loopy.
I think because when you're on a ship you get seasick from all the motion,
and we hadn't had enough fruit while at sea so we got scurvy.

And that's when Remy turned on Donny...and shot him!!

We left feeling very patriotic.

Have you ever been to Baton Rouge?
Have you ever been on a U. S. naval ship?
Or any kind of BIG ship?
A cruise?
A catamaran?
A canoe?
A raft?