Battleship Texas

Last Saturday we decided to take a little day trip to see the Battleship Texas, anchored in the Buffalo Bayou by the Houston ship channel. Brian and I had been once years ago when McKay was just a baby (and we had some family visiting). We decided to take the opportunity before we left the area to take the kids down and see it, along with the San Jacinto Monument.

We got to ride on the Lynchberg Ferry across the Houston Ship Channel. The ferry is free and can fit about 12 cars. It goes a short distance across the ship channel. The kids thought this was great! (And since it was Saturday, there wasn't a long wait!)

Just a bit of history for you from the Park & Wildlife website (it is located in a State Park): The TEXAS is the last of the battleships, patterned after HMS Dreadnought, that participated in World War (WW) I and II. When the USS TEXAS was commissioned on March 12,1914, she was the most powerful weapon in the world.... In 1948, the Battleship Texas became the first battleship memorial museum in the U.S.

The main deck of the ship has a bunch of big "guns" (or cannons or something...) with little seats and wheels to raise/lower and turn the guns. The kids had great fun with these -- I think it was their favorite part!

(The only picture I'm in!)

Then we ventured below deck. Some of the steps/ladders were quite steep and Hayley was a little unsure of climbing down them.

Lots of places to climb and explore!

Can you imagine having sleeping quarters like this in the middle of the hallway?

(Maybe this is what we need for our new house since all 4 kids will be in the same bedroom for a while!) They even have a sign that says you can bring a group to spend the night on the ship!

McKay was especially excited for this trip because he loves to read about war ships, war planes and World War II in general. (That was another incentive for us to make the time for this -- because we knew how much he would enjoy it.)

You can see the San Jacinto Monument from the battleship.

Here are McKay & Hannah by a cannon on the grounds over by the battleship (with the monument behind them).

We drove over to the monument area. I tried to get a picture of the whole thing from that close -- the two tiny people in the picture are McKay & Hannah on the steps!

And here is Courtney at the top of the steps:

They have a small museum at the base of the monument (Courtney wanted her picture by this cannon):

They also have an elevator that you can ride up to the top (if you buy everyone a ticket). We had noticed driving there that it was a really smoggy/cloudy day and knew that we wouldn't be able to see much of anything from the top of the monument. The kids, of course, wanted to go up to the top (for the elevator ride probably more than anything) but we said "no" and they (especially McKay and Hannah) were not happy about it. (And it didn't help that everyone was already grumpy and whiny from being hot and tired of walking around on the battleship.) So we called it a day and despite the sour ending note, I think everyone had a fun time!