The USS Iowa: Up-Close and Personal... Yesterday, I finally drove down to San Pedro to visit the USS Iowa at Berth 87. All I can say is: This thing is BIG! (That's what she said. Sorry, couldn't resist.) The decommissioned battleship, which is 887 feet in length, is obviously huge enough for me to take around 200 pictures with my camera...and this is despite the fact much of the vessel has not been opened to the public yet. Sometime in the future, visitors to the Iowa will get to take a tour below the deck—and see such awesome rooms as the loading area where giant shells were fed up to the three turrets that house the Iowa's famous 16-inch guns. Tourists will also get to eventually view the crew quarters, but I prefer checking out how 2,000-pound projectiles were loaded into the 16-inch cannons before wreaking havoc on an unsuspecting enemy beachhead 24 miles away. This is a warship I'm at, not a cruise liner a la the Queen Mary. Let's see some bad-ass weaponry, darn it.
LINK: Click here to view additional photos I took of the USS Iowa in San Pedro
The only gripe I had when I was at the USS Iowa is the fact that there is not enough dock space towards the front of the ship to photograph the vessel in her entirety (as shown with the pic at the top of this entry). The bow of the Iowa is pretty long, and unfortunately, it's right next to a fence that separates Berth 87 from an adjoining dock. Oh well. Click on the red link above to check out additional images that I took of the "Battleship of Presidents". Will I ever go back to pay another visit to this dreadnought, you ask? The general admission price is only $18 [compared to $87 for a ticket to Disneyland Park in Anaheim (and this excludes a pass to get into Disney California Adventure next door)], so what do you think? Carry on.
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