Spring Trip 2013 - Day 4

We did not try for the two Hawaii flights today because there were no connecting flights from Hawaii to Japan anywhere on the horizon, and we knew that there was a direct flight to Tokyo on Saturday with 73 seats, which we were told are rarely filled.

So we slept in a bit, Clint and I went on a short run around the duck pond fitness trail, then we took the boys to IHOP for breakfast. Cole had double dipped French toast--He is a breakfast man through and through. Jack, whose code name among his friends is "Baconater", had a double bacon burger, Trace had chicken strips and waffles, I had a veggie egg white omelette with added avocado, and Clint had a crepe with whipped cream cheese and pancakes.

Then we drove to Alameda and took the ferry across the San Francisco Bay to Pier 41.

There we saw Sea Lions,

And busquers, like Wilson, the one-man-band.

Very entertaining. We thought he definitely deserved a Lincoln.

Then we ate at Boudin's Bakery which has been making famous sourdough bread on the Bay since 1898. We all had the bread bowls with crab and corn bisque, except Clint, who had clam chowder.

Then we went through the museum and bakery tour where Clint searched for tips on how to better his sourdough bread making and found out that, even though he ordered sourdough starter from San Franciso, local bacillus have now taken over and it is now Utah bacillus!

Then, our favorite part of the day was a tour of the submarine USS Pampanito. It had a wonderful audio tour with many voices of Pampanito veterans. They described how it was so hot that their uniforms were permanently stowed in their mattress covers and instead they wore shorts, flip-flops and tank tops the entire cruise. The diesel fuel stench was so pervasive that submariners could be recognized by their smell. There might have been another smell as well, as water was so precious that showers were a bi-monthly treat. The diesel engines were so deafening that only sign language was used to communicate except when they submerged and switched to battery power. Here's Tal in the enlisted bunkroom which had 36 beds, four-deep.

Here are Trace and Jack at two of the four tables in the mess hall.

Man! I thought my 1940s kitchen (on Yalecrest Ave in Sugarhouse) was small! Imagine cooking for 75 in this!

And speaking of small, this is office has about 18 inches by 24 inches of working space.

They played the "awoogah" alarm and explained that the men up in the crows nest had 30 seconds to get down the hatch and sealed in. Then the sub would be 60 feet down in the following 30 seconds. 

Most of the veterans agreed that the best memory of theirv time on the sub was when they rescued 73 Australian and British POWs off their lifeboats (after the Yanks sank the ship that the Japanese were transporting them on!). 

Most people don't know that the subs were responsible for sinking over half of all the Japanese ships in the war, far more than any of our ships or planes, and 25% of the subs never made it home, but were underwater tombs for their men. It's appropriate that the submarine force is nicknamed the Silent Service.

San Francisco is a perdy perdy city. After the sub tour we took a trolley to Ferry Landing, took the ferry back to Alameda and then we drove back to Travis.