It’s been a couple of whirlwind days. Yesterday, we went to visit the Queen Mary Exhibits in Long Beach. The Queen Mary was launched in 1936 and was in transatlantic passenger service till WWII started. It was then impounded in New York on the Hudson River for many months, until it was drafted into wartime service as a troop carrying ship. In the beginning it carried 9,500 troops per crossing. (its original compliment was aprox. 3,500 including crew and passengers) To do this they stripped out everything and put in bunks, as many as six high. Then they painted the whole thing battleship grey and blacked out all the windows. The Queen (nicknamed The Grey Ghost) ran across the Atlantic unescorted zigzagging at high speed. It was un-catachable by enemy submarines due to its high speed of 31 plus knots. At one point in time the ship carried a record number of 16,350 troops on one voyage. They described the conditions on the troop crossings, and it was unbelievable. After the war the ship was restored to it’s pre-war grandeur, and returned to passenger service. But soon the advent of jet air travel across the Atlantic spelled the end of opulent steamer service. In the late 60’s, the Queen made her last crossings. Cunnard put her up for sale and the Port of Long Beach successfully bid for her at 3.5 million. The last voyage of the Queen was around the tip of South America up the coast to Long Beach. This is where she sits today as a tourist attraction and hotel. Yesterday we headed down there thinking we would take the water taxi from this side of The Port. Unfortunately California has an off season just like the East coast, and the water taxis only run Sat and Sun until sometime in May. As soon as we figured this out, we got back in the car and drove around to the exhibit area. This turned out to be a good thing, cause it gave us the chance to see the Port of Long Beach (what a busy place) and the remnants of the Long Beach Grand Prix from last weekend. At the ship, we opted for the 1st class tour, which included two guided tours, the total ship walking tour, and the Ghosts and Legends tour. We very much enjoyed out two guided tours, the guides were very knowledgeable and entertaining. The ship was unbelievably opulent for it’s time, and was like a current day cruise ship, but much more structured. It had 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class passengers. Each class had their respective areas on the ship, and woe be unto the passenger that traveled outside his/her "class". Also interesting was the original teak planking that composed most of the decks. After the two tours, we hiked down to the engine rooms and propeller shaft area (Wes’s must see). It was interesting that this ship had reciprocating steam engines and used the reciprocating exhaust to run low-pressure steam turbines. This was an unusual setup for WWII era (normal is high-pressure turbines only), but was good for the highest speed crossing the North Atlantic of the period. In addition even though Adolph Hitler issued a $250,000 prize to the captain that could find and sink the Queen Mary, she never suffered so much as a scratch from the enemy throughout her whole war career. The last tour we took was called the ghosts and legends tour. It took you deep into the bowels of the ship below the water line. It was akin to a scary theme park ride, but at one point, really brought some things home. We were in the dark in what was the bottom of one of the old boiler rooms, and between sound and special effects, they made it seem like boilers were exploding and steam was flying everywhere. It really made me think about what it must have been like way down below the water line in a WWII ship that had been hit by a torpedo and was sinking. It was really scary. After the Queen, we headed back to Newport Beach and stopped at Joe’s Crab Shack, a restaurant that had been extolled by some folks that Jerry and Brenda had met traveling. F ood was OK but nothing to write home about (no pun intended).
Yesterday (Wednesday) morning, we got up early and as soon as the traffic cleared we headed for Hollywood. We planned to take the Hollywood tour(s) and had booked a VIP tour of Warner Brothers studios. We successfully navigated the bezerko freeway traffic, and arrived in the center of Hollywood. We booked our tour, and then spent some time hanging out in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, examining the foot/hand prints and Walk of Fame. Soon we boarded a small bus for a tour of the Hollywood Hills and the Stars’ homes. We lucked up and due to the windy conditions had a very clear day in LA. According to the guide, it was one of the clearest in quite a while. We greatly enjoyed the tour, and saw all manner of famous/infamous sites. (the Guess Jeans guy had 6 Ferrari’s sitting covered up in his driveway) (Also saw James Woods eating along Restaurant Row) The views from Mulholand Drive, overlooking LA, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Hollywood Sign were incredible. After the Hollywood stuff (as we call it "stupid tourist stuff"), we headed cross-town to Burbank for the Warner Brothers VIP tour. This turned out to be super interesting, as we saw all the behind the scenes stuff of many popular TV shows and Movies. Out tour group was very small, so we got to go and see all kinds of cool stuff. On a personal note, at the end of the tour, was talking to a pretty girl who had been on the tour. Turns out she worked for the company that makes the cool hole buttons for Crocks. She gave me one that looks like a Jimmy Buffet parrot head that’s in my shoe as we speak. We finished up our tour and at the suggestion of one of the Warner Brothers tour folks, headed down the street to Bob’s Big Boy, an old style drive-in that had been built in 1947. We ended up having dinner at the Bob’s Big Boy in Hollywood. It was quite a nostalgic trip, and the food was great. After that we freewayed back to our Villa, and crashed. Thursday is planned as an R & R day before a day of flyi ng on Friday.
Yours,
Hollywood Wes
No comments:
Post a Comment