The following account will be written by I, Harrison Gibbs, son of Amy and Rob.
Started the day off with a lazy morning. I looked over to see mum and dad shovelling through heaps of car rental companies to get a vehicle to drive to Lake Placid with. After a few minutes of lying there enjoying my lack of movement, we decide to put on the final episode of Clarkson’s Farm season 2. After 52 minutes and a cheery ending, we begin to prepare ourselves for the concrete jungle where dreams are made of.
With a few roaring stomachs, our first destination is the diner.
After an 8-ish minute walk to the restaurant, we got there and was seated upstairs on a different table to the one we sat at last time. After some light chatter, we ordered our food and drink; I went for the same as yesterday and had some pancakes with bacon. Once we had our food, we had set sail to the USS Intrepid.
After a short journey on the subway – which I still prefer to call “the tube” – we disembarked and walked down to the River Hudson until we made it to a neighbouring pier running parallel to the aircraft carrier. As my dad and I stood in awe admiring all the beautiful aircraft, my brother and my mum were taking in the scale of the ship. After our conscience came back, I made my way over to the edge of the pier and had a few photos taken with the Intrepid in the background.
As we entered the museum we, once again, went through airport style security to ensure no one was bringing in any unwanted firearms. As always, the metal detector union has it out for me and beeps me twice as I left my wallet and my bag on.
Once the tickets were checked, we started with the aircraft carrier. We went up a spiral staircase on the pier which led straight in to the hangars beneath the flight deck. Once we entered the, rather modern, glass, double doors, we were presented with a 1:40 scale model of the ship made of a quarter of a million Lego bricks. After I wondered where I could get the instructions for this work of art, we started heading down the hangers looking at old planes and reading information about the carrier. After a space shuttle landing challenge, my brother and I went on an immersive flight simulator which was this capsule attached to this huge rig designed to throw you around and simulate the effects of flight. My brother enjoyed it but I personally though it could’ve been better.
After that, we went on to the flight deck which is where all the planes would be launched off in to the sky – also the part where my nerd-i-ness came out. I took in all the planes as my jaw dropped and a smile swept from left ear to right ear. We started walking down the rows of fighters as I named each one; each time I looked over at one, I said “MiG-21, F-8, F-4 Phantom, F-16 Fighting Falcon” and the beloved “F-14 Tomcat” or in that case it was the F-14D ‘Super Tomcat’.
Once we looked at all the planes, my family and I made our way to the space shuttle which was placed in a hangar built on the flight deck. After having our photos taken in front of a green screen, we went in and immediately saw the first space shuttle ever sent in to space. It was quite a cool experience but it was more my brother that enjoyed looking at it. After passing through the rather expensive gift shop, buying a patch, we moved on to the bridge.
The bridge was where the captain was. It had the helm, the radar, the guns, etc. It was fairly interesting. It had multiple levels to it: the navigation level, the captain’s level and the admirals level. We peered in to all the rooms where some of the crew slept – mainly the officers.
After that we went to the gift shop where I bought a hat, shirt and got a drawing of an F-15 Strike Eagle.
After Intrepid, we went to the Staten Island Ferry. After sitting for ten minutes, a ferry arrived and my brother untimely announced he needed to urinate. Finally, we got aboard taking a seat on the upper deck. Once we started moving, my dad and I went to the back of the ship, watching Manhattan slowly shrink behind us and got a really good view of Lady Liberty. When we made it to Staten Island, we instantly turned round and got on the ferry back, this time enjoying the view.
After the Staten Island ferry, we went back to the hotel. After a while, we were asked if we wanted food, in which I responded “I will later.”. After hearing this, my dad and I decided to go to 7-Eleven where we picked up two hot dogs, nachos, and a bag of gummy worms. After that, I decided to go to sleep.
I now write this on the next morning about to get dressed and start packing for Lake Placid.
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