Your mission Dan, should you choose to accept it……

This trip is one of missions.  Multiple missions, and as with any Mission:Impossible, twists and turns in the plot, and missions within missions reveal themselves.

Mission 1 was to share my travel adventure with my family, and celebrate and welcome a new family member.   I have home issues.  Big ones.  And Manhattan and Long islands are my home.  But Hawaii’ is one of those unusual places in the world that also feels like Home to me.  And I’m sharing that home.

But I also like to do something different every time, so doing New things in Hawaii is a necessary part of the mission.

The flight experience was certainly an old experience that I wanted to share.  Now that I have the technology worked out, here are some ‘addendum’ pictures of my mission to Pearl Harbor.

A unexpected sub-mission was to repair the memory stick, that contained many of the irreplaceable photos from this trip. Obviously, Mission:repair has now been successfully executed.  Enjoy the fruits of that labor, behold!

Ironically, these new experiences involve old people.

sometimes you get really lucky.

This gentleman, Bernie, survived the attack on Pearl Harbor.  He’s 98 years old and comes 4 days a week to speak with the visitors.  His wife is 96 years old, they have been married 65 years.  He advises us his secret to a long and happy marriage is that his wife is always right.  Amity smiles at these words of wisdom.

On board the Mighty Missouri

This gentleman served on the Missouri, and told us his war stories.  This is a unique window in time where these people are still alive and can tell their personal stories.  Consider their generosity of spirit, as they volunteer their time and share their history and stories, lovingly,  in the broiling hot sun.  They are revered by the paid staff.  They are both fragile and delicate while being tough as nails.

The many kitchens and sub-kitchens aboard the ship testify that the military travels on its stomach.

One of the many kitchens

Of course there is a specialty bakery for the doughnuts.

Laura meets the dental clinic

There may be 1800 mouths to feed, but each mouth has 32 teeth.

Amity mans the deck gun on the Bowfin while Izzy looks on

When YOU visit the bowfin, be sure to look at outside of the conning tower on the port side.  Look at the “kill board” and notice that not all of the kills were Japanese.  A French flag is conspicuously displayed there as well.  When you see it, contact me and tell me why she destroyed a French vessel!  (I know the answer, but you should too!)

East coast of O’Ahu

East Coast of O’Ahu

……… To be continued (theme song from Mission Impossible plays).

REFERENCES:

Title: opening lines from “Mission Impossible”