San Diego 2

So, today I rented a pushy and went for a ride down by the San Diego waterfront. It was quite a nice ride - until I got a flat ! I was a fair way from the shop so it took me a while to walk back.  Probably could have taken another bike out but I took it as a sign I was not to ride today.  Even so, I got a few photos of some of the artwork that is along the waterfront.

 
One photo I did miss was that of a jet crossing across the major freeway here in San Diego. When I say 'jet crossing' I mean a pedestrian crossing for jets. The Coastguard here is on the water side of the freeway and the airport is on the opposite side.  This was not a problem until the Coastguard added jets to the helicopters they already had.  So the only way for these planes to takeoff, is to taxi across the freeway to the airport. It would have been cool to actually see this occur.

I also visited the USS Midway - a aircraft carrier that is now a museum.  You may remember that I also visited the USS Intrepid in New York. The Intrepid was commissioned in 1943 and is an Essex class carrier. The Midway, commissioned in 1945, is the lead-ship in the Midway class (ie the first of it's class). The Midway was decommissioned before the Intrepid, even though it was commissioned later.

The Midway has some good hands-on exhibits. They have a few of the capsule trainers so you can try to be a pilot - a lot like rides at the Ekka, except quite a bit more high-tech.  It also has a few aircraft on it's flight deck. Not quite the same diversity as the Intrepid, but cool nonetheless.

This picture is of an F-14 Tomcat - made famous in Top Gun.  This movie was partly shot here in San Diego.  I missed getting a photo of the hill that Tom and Kelly rode/drove up to her supposed beach house (there are no beach houses at the top of the hill), and the bar scene was shot at Kansas  City Barbeque.

May 13 was Top Gun's 25th year anniversary (man I feel old !).  It has been re-released on blu-ray and a 3D conversion is in the works !

Tomorrow will be footy day then on Monday I head to San Francisco for my final city of my trip. If I had thought about it I probably should have included a Hawaiian stopover/visit but hey, I forgot a lot of things on this trip so one more won't really make a difference !