The Queen Mary

The anchor of the Queen Mary.

Anti-aircraft artillery from World War 2.

Today Ken and I had the rare opportunity to go on a date without the kids. Our friends, the Denhams, are going to do some babysitting swapping with us and we got to go out first. For the month of January, California residents got to tour the Queen Mary for free. So, today was our last chance to take advantage of that offer. We went on a self guided tour for a few hours and then ate at one of the restaurants on board. It was all very interesting. The Queen Mary was built in the 1930's and was a luxury ship for a while (much like the Titanic) until World War 2 when it became a carrier for soldiers. It was only supposed to carry around 8,000 people at a time but during the war it carried up to 16,000 at a time with the soldiers sharing beds and sleeping in shifts. After the war, it returned to a luxury ship until it came to rest in the Long Beach Harbor in the 1960s. Now it is a hotel with fancy restaurants and a wedding chapel and also a museum of sorts with lots of little specialty shops. There is also a special tour with supposed ghost sightings on the Queen Mary. It was a fun day and we learned a lot about history. The Queen Mary is really quite a ship!