Monday Labor Day
Knowing William would love to sit in the fire trucks and touch the army trucks / cannon; we left the house early with hoping to avoid the crowd.
Waking William up was easy because he loves to go out. We first stopped at Mc Donald to get him some hash brown which he ate while we were on the way. It took about 45 minutes to get to the Sand Pedro port.
I guess we were early that the parking lot was full yet; we did not have to walk that far. We did not know the entrance to view the ships is on the left right after the security gate; we kept going straight and stopped by a few booths for William to spin the wheels; we ended up spent too much time at the military displays where they showed case army equipment. William especially love the tank that he kept coming back to it. He also tried to hold a few heavy guns and look at those huge binoculars.
I thought the ship that we were going to visit is right next to the view area so I hurried William to keep going; but it’s the IOWA ship, which we have to pay for admission. Then I asked the security guard, he pointed me to the big dome which is the entrance to the free viewing of the 4 ships.
Once we got in the dome, the lines to the ships were too long so we let Tim stood in line while I took William to explore the area: it has a few booths that give out free stuffs too. He especially loved this “rocket” booth where they taught the children to make very simple rockets and they have some simple device to launch the rockets that the children built. William launched his rocket several times and refused to leave. He also loved the truck that show case the Seals (not real): he got in / out of the truck so many times.
Then we watched the robots contest where the robots throw balls into baskets.
Tim called, finally it was almost our turn to get in the ship, I carried William ran to the line and asked the people to let me get to Tim. Some man really pissed off thinking I was cutting the line but I did not: we were here way before him, that’s why he was still standing at the end of the line.
I still had to wait for about 30 minutes before we could actually got to the ship. We waited for about another 10 minutes for people to get off the boat before we could get in. While waiting, our tour guide, who is the chef of the boat, gave us some general info about the ship. This ship is invisible to the radar so it’s very interesting to view but inside is totally empty. The guide introduced us to several key components inside the ship. We had to follow the tour guide; we can’t just walk freely to explore at our own space. It took about 15 minutes and we had some free time at the end to buy souvenir. William picked the big black coin which costs $20.00.
William was happy to have the coin but he refused to go home; he went back to the fire trucks, climbed up that and refused to get down. I asked Tim to watch him so that I could go buy some food for lunch. It was 12:30 PM, William must be hungry.
The line to get the burgers was long, this place was now packed with people. While I was waiting for the order, I saw William came running with tears on his eyes.
“What’s wrong? “I asked.
“There’s children waiting to get on the fire truck but William refused to get out; then he slammed the door. The fireman asked him to leave because he did not want any one to get hurt. ” Tim said.
I picked him up and comforted him. I let Tim stayed to wait for our burgers order while I carried him to the car. William stopped crying a few minutes later but he seemed very tired and hungry.
We sat in the car and waited for our meal. I gave him a bottle of milk and he drank it . Finally Tim came back with our burgers; William finished the whole cheese burger with a few fries.
Then on the way home, he slept.
I bet he had a fun day but to me it’s still very frustrated because he doesn’t listen well. He’d just run off to see or touch things that he likes without asking. Or for the things that he doesn’t like, he’d just kick /cry and run away if we try to make him do it.
Address: 100 Swinford St. San Pedro, CA 90731
