Keine Fotographie auf das Boot!

Friday morning and like always I’m the first up even after being the last to bed. Pete had arrived the previous night right before Rob was going to bed and ended up in the basement again. Rob laid down the rules: do not make the pregnant lady mad. No loud noises, etc. Rob went to bed; I talked a few minutes with Pete then went upstairs to do whatever on the Internet before going to bed.

The plan: go see the German U-boat sub at the Museum of Science and walk around the city. Pete and Rob got their backpacks while I applied sunscreen and grabbed my Zune and camera bag. We were on the road…

Coffee first. I got an iced mocha and blueberry muffin from the am/pm BP down the street from Rob’s place.

For about two hours we inched through traffic to go downtown. I got out my Zune player and was DJ’ing while Rob drove and Pete sat in the back. Pete began getting snide about things and I wasn’t really in the mood for it. I started off with some more melancholy music because I just wasn’t in the mood for a lot of upbeat in the morning, or just not in the mood period. We finally settled on Johnny Cash.

Rob drove around to find cheap parking by the museum while Pete and him bantered the finer points of paying and if so, how much. We took a spot by a meter that was charging a dollar an hour. I grabbed my camera bag and let them figure out how much to pay while I walked down a hillside to the lake sat in front of the Museum of Science. I took a few shots of the front and returned to where they were standing.
We walked across an old bridge that used to be part of a road that connected to a main vein. That road has since been removed and grass grown over it while the bridge’s access by vehicles is blocked. Taking a right we crossed another bridge, over a lake that has Japanese carp, and walked into the garden.

It was a nice garden; very picturesque. I took a few shots while walking over to the Zen temple where a redheaded woman, average build, tattoos, and earbuds in her ears, sat down on the floor and did stretching exercises. Rob said something to me about Zen-ing out and I sat for a few moments. I was too wound up. I rejoined him and Pete and went back the direction we came to the museum.

It was somewhere around ten but admission was free. Pete made comments about trying to avoid kids and Rob nodded about it. Rob and I decided to check out the German U-boat sub while Pete opted for the architectural green-designed house. I shelled out $8, grabbed my ticket, and took a look around the main area. NASA/space race was the going theme with a lunar module that had an internal camera which you could operate via control joystick with a built-in monitor. It even had “zoom.”

Other points of interest in the main room were an Atari arcade game machine in which you tried to –successfully- land a lunar module on the moon. Not as easy as advertised. Rob walked away 10 points higher than my score. Another activity station had you build up pressure in a tube before you launched a small rocket up in the air. There were reenactments of NASA missions that you could watch video for, a machine that made a plastic mold of a shuttle, another which made Apollo mission minted coins, etc.

Walking down the hallway leading out of the space exhibit stuff we went into World War II territory: the U-505. The U-505 is an actual German sub caught by the Allies in 1944 before the Germans had a chance to scuttle it. The hallways were lined with giant panoramas of information about how many German subs were made, how many destroyers sunk, etc. As we three walked down the hallway each room continued the story of the capture of the U-505. One room had a scrim placed in front of actual objects from that time while an overhead projector showed digital imagery of characters “reenacting” the events while behind the objects physically in the room. Cool stuff.

The steps leading down to the sub’s main room displayed the propaganda posters of the era, urging Americans to help out with the war effort not just by enlisting but staying quiet (or else!) At the bottom we walked to a platform and there she was: the U-505. Note to self: even subs are massive. I took several pics while walking around. Rob and Pete hung back a little.

10:45 and Rob and I waited in line for the tour; Pete’s house tour was five minutes before ours started. A total of twenty of us crammed together to get inside a sub that in its heyday had 59 burly German guys packed into it. The guy giving the tour, early thirties with glasses, beard, and mustache, told us all about the conditions, “hot bunking” (one guy gets up to work in the same bed another waits to sleep in), changing from diesel to electric, how the sub got captured, etc. This was all really interesting and cool to know but it sucks that when you shell out $8 for a tour photography is not allowed. Oh well.

We join up with Pete at the main lobby and traverse through the rest of the museum. I had absolutely no clue how LARGE the place was except from the outside. I walked through a circus room (funhouse mirrors, clowns), an old west room (Conestoga wagon, lonesome prairie), kids science room, and finally to the Main Hall. To my right is a gigantic area that contained a tornado while on the left varying modes of transportation. We went over to the train and jet, both full-sized and sitting on the floor. Beyond them was a mock-up of Chicago with model trains running from it to a mock-up Seattle and back. Against the walls were more trains from 1800’s while hanging above us are bi-planes, jet, and a full commercial airliner.

Diabetes made itself known and my blood sugar began rapidly dropping. Pete took us one direction to show us something and I started feeling it: concentration was going, I was becoming more irritable, I was getting dizzy, etc. If I didn’t find something to eat right-away, I would have to be picked up/escorted out of the place. I asked them both if they knew where any candy could be found and neither really knew. I quickly flew away from them and ran over to the first “shop” selling anything.

Astronaut ice cream. No go.

I then went to the staircase and spotted a vending area. I rushed down the steps and to one of the “pellet machines” (as I call them) and got a 3 Musketeers bar. Mission accomplished. Having left Rob and Pete a mile behind they caught up to me while I was in the middle of the candy bar. We began the walk outside cutting through the rooms and finally where Rob had re-parked the vehicle. The outside air was thick and humid and we were driving into the city to walk around and get something to eat…