Battleship Texas

 We love going to museums and all sorts of site seeing.  A while ago we went to the San Jacinto Monument.  It was pretty cool.  It's the worlds tallest memorial column, standing 15 ft taller than the Washington Monument.  My husband especially loved it because of its history, him being a very proud Texan!! :) The top of the monument has the Lone Star of Texas with an observation deck inside.  The kids thought that was really neat to see out over the bayou.  And...they got to go on a long elevator ride up. 
I love this picture of Andy and Halle.    Along side of the monument is a 1300 acre swamp, grassland where the battlefield took place.  There is a boardwalk for a good part of it, and despite the mosquitos, it was actually a nice walk and pretty view.    

 

We then headed over to the Battleship Texas.  This was awesome!  It's the 1st Memorial battle ship in the U.S.  It's now also a flag ship of the Texas Navy.  It is the only surviving USN vessel that fought in WWI and WWII and has 17 different gun configurations.  The ship is just across from the San Jacinto Monument in the Houston Ship Channel. 

 

We of course found ALL 17 'big guns' and more.  These are the kids "mean" faces.  It's a BIG ship.  Many of the guns still can be maneuvered, sans the bullets of course.  The ship is currently being renovated back to it's original state.  

We had a very interesting talk about why there were so many guns and why they were used to kill people.  Basically, it came down to this:  "sometimes there a lot of bad people in the world and sometimes we have to kill them to keep everyone safe."  This later lead to a lot of funny conversations that I'll post soon. :)  

It did make me think about war and how scary it must actually be to be shooting at people and hiding behind the steel frames and duck holes for protection from these tiny bullets:  yeah, bigger than Payton.  (And yes, I know they aren't actually called bullets!) 

 

I actually found this very interesting.  If some one ever complains about not enough closet space or doing laundry, show them these pictures above.  :)  

They had many "bed/holding rooms" and then these cots also lined every 'hallway' of space along the lower decks.  There was a large kitchen, soda/snack shop, tailor, dentist, doctor, etc.  Also a tv room, (not exactly sure how that worked since it currently has a flat screen), game room, gym and yep, a "hanky panky" room, right next to the infectious disease room. 

 

It's definitely a good workout just looking at the ship.  There are stairs, no more like thick ladders, everywhere.  You also would have to get over a fear of heights very quickly as our kids found out.  They were 'brave' as they said and climbed all the way to the top lookout.  It's amazing how they build these things and I'm curious how different the new ships are with updated technology. 

My kids still think we're gonna move next year and can't really tell ya if they are from Utah, New York or what.  But for now, we are starting to love Texas and it's history.  

Don't Mess With Texas!!