We took a long stroll over to the other side of Long Beach to take a look at the permanently docked Queen Mary (Next to it is an old Russian diesel submarine called The Scorpion - bit of an odd stablemate!). It has been moored here since 1967. It is 1019 feet long, 181 foot high and could carry 2139 passengers with 1101 crew. It also weighs 75,000 tons!
The original bell from the ship - 'ding dong'
It appears even at sea in the 50's/60's people would continue their commitments to the Weight Watchers program....
PA system or funnel?
This was the ships compass - it looked a bit like a retired R2-D2 from star wars.
The Bridge - all very shiny indeed.
The royal ballroom - someone left the lights on since 19667 - expensive bill that one!
On sale in the shop was something very odd - 'Leninade' - guess it was the Russian subs influence on the marketing dept.
The below dome is sat right next to the Queen Mary. It was the hanger that Howard Hughes used to build the plane with the largest wingspan ever constructed - the Spruce Goose (named so as it was made of wood). The plan was only test flown for one day and covered just one mile in the air. Nuts. The plane isn't there unfortunately - it was dismantled and sent to Oregon.
To get some perspective of the size of the hanger - below is a shot of it next to the Queen Mary. Its HUGE!
After getting all patriotic around the Queens boat - we toddled over to the Long Beach aquarium for a look at what they had in their tanks. Some delights are below....
When trying to get a snap of the Giant Crab this rather camera seeking fish just wouldn't get out of the way!
One more thing for today which will only interest the men I expect is around the construction of the buildings on the bay. To cope with earthquakes all the new developments are built on rollers and have cushion points between the structures - this is so when a quake occurs the buildings just slide around or rock back and forth and do not collapse. Matt has said there has been 3 earthquakes since he has been here and nothing has collapsed so fingers crossed!
We are finally leaving the comfort of Long Beach tomorrow and heading upwards towards San Francisco. We hope to be there by Monday morning. We have already booked our tour of Alcatraz for Weds so are very much looking forward to that. Just need to dust off the Buick after its 3 day rest and fire the ol bird up again!
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