I underestimated the amount of time that we would want to spend touring the USS Midway. The ship is massive and there is so much to see and learn during the tour that it would take a full day to cover everything. We completely ran out of time so missed the presentations about the control tower, the launching of the planes and the landing of the planes.

The number of volunteers that are on the ship assisting with the tours and basically making the whole USS Midway accessible to the public is amazing. They are also responsible for much of the work that went into cleaning the ship like removing the rust from the anchor chains (each chain weighs 156 lbs) and twenty-ton anchors on display. There were veterans at various audio tour spots who would who would answer questions or provide their own short presentation relevant to the particular section of the ship. We were fortunate to hear a veteran’s experience as an intelligence officer during WWII. The whole experience just added to the respect I feel for all of our military personnel who serve our country. This is definitely not a pleasure cruise.

They’re living in quarters that I doubt the average person would consider living in for any length of time and working jobs that would be demanding under normal conditions on land but they might be out at sea under the stress of war. It’s beyond my imagination to truly appreciate what they do. Imagine coming back to these bunks after a long day!

The displays were impressively designed to give the tourist a sense of what life was life on the ship with life size figures dressed in uniform performing their duties as if frozen in time.

After our tour we had dinner at Ra Sushi in the Gaslight District. The food was quite good but what I was really looking forward to was dessert! Darryl found this amazing dessert place which was the second highlight of our day! Karen Krasne’s Extraordinary Desserts has a mind boggling number of desserts to choose from and they all look delicious which makes it even harder to choose just one. During our stay in San Diego, we tried both of their locations because it was that good! They have a smaller restaurant in Balboa Park neighborhood which features desserts, cakes and teas and a larger restaurant in the Little Italy neighborhood near downtown San Diego. Karen studied at France’s Cordon Bleu culinary school and although she is recognized as a celebrated pastry chef, she frequently returns to France to train with other masters and finds inspiration through her travels.