The Shaw Family: San Diego

Kevin's birthday was on the 13th and we decided we would spend the day in San Diego. Every once in a while it is fun just to be a tourist and I have found when people live near tourist attractions they very rarely go check them out for themselves. We didn't want to fall into that catagory so here is what we did:

We started the day off in Old Town San Diego at the Whaley House. Apparently, San Diego is full of haunted places, but according to Travel Channel's America's Most Haunted it is the number one most haunted house in the United States. Some believe it is because the owner of the house chose to build it on the site where several hangings took place. The woman who greeted us as we entered the house stated that she has worked there for four years and has seen and heard her fair share of str

ange things. One of the rooms upstairs was made into a theater for plays for the Whaley family to bring in some more income. Our greeter said that someone came in and took pictures of that room and when he looked at the shots he took they looked different then the stage in front of him. The woman did a little research and found that the stage in his pictures was the stage as it used to be....before they rebuilt it. Pretty crazy! It was fun to walk around that read all the creepy things that had taken place, but Kevin and I agreed that we didn't feel anything evil in the house. (Which was a relief :)

Next we went down by the water and went to the Maritime Museum. It is a collection of different ships and a soviet submarine that you can tour. We started with the Star of India which apparently, is the world's oldest active ship. It was kinda neat to see these boats up close and personal because the only boats of this magnitude I have seen have been in Movies and speaking of movies one of the ships we went of was where they filmed Master and Commander. I haven't actually seen that movie, but if I ever do I can say I have been there! The Soviet Submarine was pretty cool..and claustrophobic! I could never live on one of those things. Not just because you are under water most of the time and can't escape, but it see

ms like every 10 feet you have to crawl through a hole. I can just see a lot of people banging their heads if there was ever any kind of crisis.

Our last museum was the USS Midway. It is a HUGE aircraft carrier that was just recently turned into a museum about 5 years ago. In 1945 the Midway was commissioned as the largest ship in the world for a decade and it was the first too large for the Panama Canal. It was also the first carrier to operate extensively in the sub-Arctic. There was way too much to see and learn about this ship which is why I was glad they had an audio tour. You could just walk up to different areas and they have numbers posted. You type in the number to your headset and they will tell you what it is exactly you are looking at and they also had actual people that lived and worked on the Midway talk about personal experiences. We walked around for a little over two hours and we probably could have spent more time, but we knew our parking meter was way over due. Plus, I felt like my feet were gonna fall off because of the constant walking all day.

Before we left San Diego we stopped at the Gas Lamp district for a bite to eat. I really wished I wasn't pooped out when we got there.....there were SO MANY shopping opportunities. Overall our day trip was a nice experience. I love feeling like you are able to get away even if you are only a little over a hour away from home. It wasn't a typical b'day for Kevin. We didn't have a family gathering, but I hope he had a good one anyways.

Steering the Star of India