Yorktown..."The Fighting Lady"

Yorktown..."The Fighting Lady" is an AWESOME experience!  I had the wonderful priveledge to join my son and his cub scout troop #9 on a camping adventure aboard the Aircraft Carrier USS Yorktown (CV-10), dubbed "The Fighting Lady."  We left on Friday, stayed Friday and Saturday nights on board in the same sleeping quarters as the 3300+ men that slept upon the boat during WWII and the Vietnam War and even recovered the Apollo 8 astronauts.  On Saturday morning we went to the Charleston, SC aquarium in the morning and then, in the afternoon, we had the extreme advantage of being campers on the Yorktown while the Blue Angels performed over the Charleston harbor which gave us the best seat in the house and the added advantage of meeting the pilots and the staff in person that evening on board the Yorktown.  What an exciting day.  We had what was called an "Angel" Ceiling that day (no clouds in the sky) so the Blue Angels performed for about an hour and you could see them as high as the eye could see.  Here are some select pics:

Cole now has a poster with almost all of the pilots autographs:

We even enjoyed ourselves aboard the boat going on one of the many available tours and actually sitting in the jets on board the ship.  Most of all I enjoyed seeing firsthand the excitement and joy that Cole felt experiencing the whole thing. 

Notice Cole's sleeping quarters...the guys slept in a huge bunk room (girls weren't allowed even though I snuck in on Sunday to help pack him).  He was on the bottom bunk of 4...it was amazing how they packed them in there...

And the aquarium was just as fun:

That's a real bald eagle named Freedom behind Cole

Cole in front of the big tank with divers cleaning inside...

Cole and Jack (Cole's new friend) outside the aquarium looking across the harbor at the Yorktown and sharing a bench with a big frog.

All in all it was a wonderfully memorable trip.  Cole says the best thing about the whole trip was seeing the Blue Angels...I say that it was watching Cole experience it all, but the Blue Angels were AWESOME!