Fleet Week

Before last week I have never heard of Fleet Week. Now I feel like I've been missing out for all 25 years I've been alive. All of a sudden this past Monday and Tuesday everyone in my office was talking about going to Fleet Week. Joe and I looked up the schedule and decided to check it out.

On Saturday we watched the parade of ships from the bleachers in front of Ghirardelli Square.

The ships came into the bay under the Golden Gate Bridge. The fog was still hanging around so we could barely see the bridge.

There were helicopters all around escorting the ships while the announcers described each one.

There were some pretty impressive ships in the lineup. We got to see one closer up later on.

Sunday we had breakfast at the Ferry Building and walked South along the Embarcadero past the Bay Bridge. The fog was heavy that morning, but I got a cool shot of the whole bridge.

We were headed to the pier closest to our apartment where a large aircraft carrier was docked and free tours were offered. The ship was the USS Bonhomme Richard. It's homeport is San Diego, it holds 1,200 crewmembers, costs $1.1 billion and is 844 feet long.

The cool thing about Fleet Week was all of the service men (and women) in uniform there to share their everyday duties with anyone that was interested. Here the guy was showing us a grenade launcher.

He even trusted Joe enough to hold it. Watch out!

I looked through this scope that magnified some cars in the parking lot pretty well. I bet this thing could take a couple of them out.

This might be my favorite. Joe with the bullet proof vest (which he put on backwards at first, but I would have done the same thing) and helmet. Plus the city in the background and the very end of the Bay Bridge.

There were multiple helicopters on the ship deck.

And tanks below deck.

Don't forget about the jets. We didn't get to see the airshows this weekend, but we saw (and heard) the jets practicing on Thursday and Friday. It was pretty cool at work to hear them zip by and then see them in the distance over the bay.

Remember this picture from yesterday? I asked these Marines to take a picture with me. They were all so nice about it. I like how only one of them is smiling, the rest look pretty tough. Even though I posted this picture yesterday I had to post it again!

The security to get onto the ship was somewhat tight. It was like going through airport security. We showed our ID and emptied our pockets before going through the metal detector. There were also armed soldiers around so we asked one to take a picture with Joe. He was also pretty nice about it.

Fleet Week was a lot of fun, I'm glad we got the chance to check it out.