Aylmer Express "MoHo" Extravaganza 2006

Today we were on a mission. The plan was to drive back into Alabama, Mobile to be exact, to take a tour of the battleship USS Alabama as well as the submarine USS Drum. We set off that morning and within about 5 miles (8 kms) we found ourselves crossing the border out of Florida already. I didn’t realize that Pensacola was that close to Alabama. But now we both know that so let’s get on with today’s story. We then passed through one of the most touristy areas we have been through on the entire trip. They seemed to have just about every goofy activity available that any tourist would ever want to do … more on this later. We finally made it to Mobile (that’s pronounced Mo-Beel by the way) and quickly found the ship and sub. We started with the tour of the USS Drum. All the visits were self-guided tours so it wasn’t as informative or dynamic as our tour of the USS Midway in San Diego where they had great commentary available via little MP3 players for rent. This was an older sub and the quarters were tight to say the least. It didn’t take long to make our way through and then it was time for a picnic lunch before checking out the battleship. Once we boarded the USS Alabama it was the same deal with the self-guided tours. They at least split things up into 3 separate tours which you could follow along via colour-coded arrows. It is amazing how many different departments they have on a ship … a machine shop, a post office, a barber shop, a cobbler, a payroll services department, a jail, even a photography blackroom. I suppose it makes sense since it pretty much has to be a self-sufficient floating city of sorts. Of course the most impressive part of the ship are the guns. This ship’s biggest guns fire 16 inch (40 cm) shells that can go 21 miles (32 kms)!!! That means they can fire at things that they can’t even see due to the curvature of the earth! They had three of these huge guns in each turret and it required 140 crew per turret to run it! It had two turrets on the forward deck and another at the back for a total of nine of these massive cannons. Then it also had many of what I call, medium-sized (5inch/ 13cm) and small-sized anti-aircraft guns. Perhaps the most amazing statistic, given that this ship partook in three years worth of conflicts all through the south Pacific, from 1942 to 1945, was that it received no damage whatsoever from the enemy. Incredible. And I must mention that during the entire time we toured the ship I was not able to locate a scuttlebutt (I have been dying to use that word!). After our afternoon touring these navel vessels we were off for home. However, on our way through the tourist gauntlet we spotted what appeared to be a very extensive go-karting track. We have been searching for a good go-karting facility for almost the entire trip. Another way of putting that is that the kids have relentlessly hounded me to go to a go-kart track almost the entire trip. Don’t get me wrong, I am not against this activity at all, I just wanted to make sure we managed to find a good facility before I dropped some cash. So we were compelled to stop in and try it out. Unfortunately, the carts were far too slow for me. However, on the positive side, the kids had a great time. We then we took the short drive back into Florida where the sun had decided to return, finally. So, all in all, it was another good day.

Today’s word:

scuttlebutt \SKUHT-l-buht\, noun:
1. A drinking fountain on a ship.
2. A cask on a ship that contains the day's supply of drinking water.
3. Gossip; rumor.