Alabama, Mobile - Wednesday, December 3, 2013 - USS Alabama Memorial Park

On Sunday we headed to back Gulfport, MS to spend the night at the RV repair shop so we would be there first thing Monday morning when our refrigerator part was supposed to arrive.

Going through Mobile we had to go through this tunnel.  Can you see why I hate taking the RV through here?  It definitely looks like it won’t fit.

 

Monday morning we were there, but the part wasn’t.  The truck that was supposed to be delivering it to a warehouse in Mobile hadn’t shown up yet.  It was scheduled to be there last Wednesday.  So, we stayed the night hoping Tuesday would be better.

Tuesday morning the truck showed up, but the part wasn’t on it.  That meant we would have to order it again and wait another 6-10 days to see if it showed up.  Nope, that wasn’t going to happen.  Since we were scheduled to be in Jacksonville, FL for a couple of weeks starting December 10 we decided to find an RV repair service in Jacksonville and start the process over from there.

After leaving Gulfport heading east we decided to stop at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park.  The USS Alabama was in service during WWII.  It was commissioned August, 1942 and decommissioned January, 1947.  Sister ships of the USS Alabama were Massachusetts, Indiana and South Dakota.

 

A lot of work has been done by volunteers to preserve this battleship and to give an accurate portrayal of the life of the sailors who lived and worked here.

Our tour started here, down some really steep steps.

 

 

This is the view the Captain had from the navigating bridge.  Hopefully, the Captain was taller than me so he didn’t have to hold his camera over the edge of the wall to see what was below.

The Captain’s Quarters and the Captain’s Table were near the navigating bridge so the Captain could keep track of what was going on, day and night.

 

 

 

Lots of areas took care of the daily needs of the sailors.  The mess hall was important.

 

The tailor

 

The brig

Each of the enlisted men was assigned a swinging bunk.

and a small locker.  They had to store their clothes and any small personal items here.

The officers’ quarters were a bit nicer.

These guns are huge. 

I thought this was interesting.  The “talker” (the guy with the megaphone) receives information on sight deflection and angle from someone.  The “talker” then transmits this information to the sight setters for the guns.  It’s a wonder they ever hit anything.

 

 

In addition to the USS Alabama they have a submarine USS Drum on display along with several aircraft we didn’t have time to explore.  We did walk through the Aircraft Pavilion.  This POW/MIA memorial stood just outside the Aircraft Pavilion. 

Inside a POW camp was recreated based on stories from former POWs from the Vietnam conflict.  There was a story on the wall that told that on December 24, 1972 the North Vietnam guards gave socks to the prisoners.  This was a first.  The POWs fashioned a crude Christmas tree from the socks.  Since the guards didn’t seem to mind the Christmas tree, the POWs went one step further and made ornaments out of toilet paper.  They made handmade Christmas cards to give each other and exchanged gifts written on paper.  They made good on these gifts, presenting them to each other on Christmas of 1973.  In 1972 they didn’t’ know that it would be their last Christmas in captivity.

Last night we stayed at a small campground in Milton, FL and headed out early this morning for about six hours of driving to get to Jacksonville.

This afternoon we got checked in at Rivers RV Repair in Jacksonville.  We are spending the night at their facility so the service tech can look at our fridge tomorrow.  Once we find out what they diagnose, we’ll call the campground we are scheduled into on the 10^th to see if we can get in early to sit and wait on parts.