Barfly is always excited by a good nautical adventure. We find that a few days at sea help with the never ending question of existence: how to overcome our hangover. Recently, we decided to hop on board the USS Intrepid. How exciting to explore the Air Sea Space Museum, a gigantic aircraft carrier with one of the most active warfare records in history. A survivor of multiple injuries during its 1943-1974 life span, we were ready to take inspiration from the Navy legend on how to continue to survive multiple hangovers. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday…yikes! How would we continue to live through such great battles?
The USS Intrepid lived through five kamikaze attacks (amongst other damages) and continuously went back into the breach. How similar we were to this ship. Five days of a hangover and we continuously revisited the alcohol war zone. Perhaps the stellar ship achieved such success with a bit of luck from its sponsor, who christened the 27,000+ ton carrier by smashing a bottle of champagne over the deck. That sounds like a hangover cure to Barfly! Off we went, bottle of Veuve stashed in our pants ready to celebrate all of the Intrepid’s notable victories in history.
With very heavy security to pass upon entrance to the Intrepid we thought the burly security men would understand why it was so important for Barfly to celebrate cultural cavorts with a bottle of bubbly this weekend. With a cheers and a wink we began to make our way into the opening exhibit to admire the photo of the boat being christened. Unfortunately we did so with our bottle of bubbly left safely behind the security desk. Truly a moment to be admired, we stared into the photo and imagined the ceremony could only be a significant contributor to the ship’s many lives that we were about to experience.
We tromped up steep, frightful stairs leading us up to deck after deck on the mammoth ship. No wonder they insisted we leave the bubbly behind. These stairs were a drunk trap if we ever saw one! Spanning World War II and Vietnam we read old letters from various members of the crew and peeked into bunkers and control rooms. Up some more and we read logs of the boat entering and departing international ports and viewed photos of it hard at work: carrying up to 90 aircrafts, seeing off spacecrafts and monitoring Soviet submarines.
Awed, we couldn’t imagine living through so much drama. We supposed it could compare to the time we disappeared on a 2 week bender only to find ourselves pantless on 43rd and 12th one sunny fall afternoon. Perhaps we landed at that intersection because we were looking to climb aboard the Intrepid for some inspiration at that time as well. All we know is that day we showered and napped in preparation for an all night rave. Back into battle indeed, and we live to speak about it with our pants on.
Finally on the top deck, we investigated the vintage aircrafts that stood before us. It was at this moment we truly realized the scale of the ship. We weaved in and out of the fighter planes of all different decades. Noting all of the ones with names we liked the best i.e. Hellcat and Banshee we thought it pretty bad ass that some chose to mock the enemy by painting distracting images of ticked off shark faces on the body of the plane. We wished we could give ourselves Mohawks and face paint a la the invading paratroopers of World War II while we enjoyed our beloved bubbly that sadly sat lonesome at the security desk.
It seemed time to head down the tricky stairs to recover our bottle and conclude our visit to history. We somehow made it down all of the decks without any scrapes or bruises. Unfortunately we landed on the first floor in the Exploreum kids sector where 8 year olds duked it out to be the first into flight simulators and miscellaneous other touch and learn activities. It was there we obtained black and blued shins but eventually made it back to the front desk. We took back our Veuve, saluted our fallen heroes one more time and headed home to pop the cork, perform our very own christening and induce a kamikaze sized headache to remember our visit to the USS Intrepid by.
Review: The USS Intrepid
Learning the true meaning of ‘christening’. What is with that baby and religion B.S. anyway? - 4 olives - We’ll be glad that we know how to perform a proper christening when we purchase a fancy yacht with our first fortune.
Figuring out how the Navy crew made it safely up the unreasonably steep deck ladders to their bunkers after the ol’ glug glug - 2 olives - We still can’t figure it out. Perhaps those weren’t battle scars after all….
Gaining new innovative ideas for surviving hangover after hangover - 3 olives - Storming down 50th Street in camouflage with water guns seemed to put a new spin on getting through the day until our next drink. By the time happy hour was over we didn’t even care that we looked like the circus reenactment version of Vietnam.
Intrepid has one of the most distinguished service records of any Navy ship, seeing active service in the Pacific Theater including the Marshall Islands, Truk, Leyte Gulf, and Okinawa. At war's end, she was in Enewetak and soon supported occupation forces providing air support and supply services before heading back to California.
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