Tuesday, July 17, 2007

San Diego!

Hello family! I really wish I had my camera so that I had pictures for you guys because there have definitely been some great photo opportunities. So far I've been having a great time and I've done lots of cool stuff. Last week I spent 24 hours on the Sea Wolf, which is probably the best fast-attack submarine in the Navy. The coolest part was being outside on the bridge while the sub is surfaced, it pretty much feels like riding on the back of a whale. Not that I would know what that is like but I bet it's cool. We toured the Topeka last monday, which is a smaller sub and has virtually no space inside. After that I thought that people who choose to go into submarines must be insane (which is kind of a chicken and egg thing, you can't tell if they're insane because they were on a sub, or if they went on a sub because they were insane), but then being on the Sea Wolf was pretty amazing. I still doubt that I would choose that but I'm considering it a little bit. The crew is much smaller and everyone is very close, and all the military formalities sort of disappear. Also the food on the sub is great. By the way, apparently the Topeka was where the end of Season 5 of 24 was filmed so that's cool.

On Friday I went to the zoo, and on Saturday I went to Sea World. Both trips were free which was pretty cool. Tomorrow I will get to fly in a helicopter and then hopefully go to the Padres/Mets game in the evening. Petco Park is a short free trolley ride from the base where we are living, so as long as we get back from doing our aviation stuff early enough a few of us are gonna go to the game. Later in the week I will get to go up in a T-6, which is a training propeller plane, and if I'm extremely extremely lucky I will get to ride in an F-18 but I really doubt it.

San Diego is beautiful and the weather is great. It's surprisingly colder and cloudier than I expected, but I guess that is only right by the water and during the morning/night. During the afternoon the marine layer goes away and it's basically always sunny and warm. If any of you by some weird chance gets the opportunity to ride on top of a submarine while it is surfaced, I highly recommend it. It was probably one of the coolest places I have ever been. Next week we are going to Camp Pendleton for Marine Week, and the next week is Surface Week. I will try to post more updates as I go.

1 comment:

Dad said...

Awesome, Luke. Your camera has been repaired and is here. I'll call you later today for an address and we'll send it to you.