Today I asked my son John what he  wanted to do.  He said he wanted to visit the USS Intrepid, Land, Sea and Air Museum.

So after breakfast at the hotel, we went back to our room and I finished putting on the rest of my winter clothes for travel in New York.  That consists of thermal underwear for the legs, heavy pants, undershirt, shirt, turtle neck sweater, heavy coat, knit cap. I’ve never seen a city where everyone looks like they’re freezing and they all have red noses.  I think Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer was raised here.

So we go down to the lobby on the way to the subway and the carrier and the clerk at the desk said a blizzard was here and we would not be able to fly out tomorrow. I said my smart phone has the weather forecast and it says clear in the morning.  He said I haven’t read the paper or watched TV.  By the time, the blizzard was here and the snowflakes coming down were smaller than a pea.

At the museum, we learned that the USS Intrepid was one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the US Navy.  She is the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name. Commissioned in August 1943, Intrepid participated in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, most notably the Battle of Leyte Gulf

Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950s as an attack carrier, and then eventually became an antisubmarine carrier. In her second career, she served mainly in the Atlantic, but also participated in the Vietnam War. Her notable achievements include being the recovery ship for a Mercury and a Gemini space mission. Because of her prominent role in battle, she was nicknamed “the Fighting I”, while her often ill-luck and the time spent in dry dock for repairs earned her the nickname “the Dry I”.

Decommissioned in 1974, in 1982 Intrepid became the foundation of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City.

We took the 90 minute tour, focusing on stories of the men who served aboard the Intrepid, their daily lives aboard this city at sea and how similar their on-board community was in comparison with communities today. The tour also includes heroic stories about other men and women who served in the United States Armed Forces.

At one point we were allowed on the actual flight deck with several vintage airplanes, and toured through the commander’s and captain’s working rooms and cabins.

Meanwhile it had started to snow, and despite the fact that the snow was less than an inch high outside and mostly melting into water, we were warned the museum was closing early due to the “blizzard’ outside!!

Indeed by the time we made it back to the hotel all of New York was in a huge panic about the blizzard… warning us that we might not get out tomorrow as the airport might be closed. We almost couldn’t stop laughing at people, and I kept saying, “but I get 4 feet of snow at my house! and they don’t close the roads”

By the way, my smart phone, was right, it was clear the next day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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