Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in silicon valley, CA

Pint-Sized History Lessons: The USS Hornet

by bonggamom

March 23, 2009

Like most little boys (and many little girls), my sons often dream of soaring up in the skies in a jet plane.  They let their imaginations take flight with nothing but a plastic airplane and visions of dogfights, 360-degree loop-the-loops, and landing their planes on a huge aircraft carrier at sea. 

Fortunately for them, and for all other pint-sized fighter pilots in Silicon Valley, we've got a real aircraft carrier moored just a hop, skip and a jump away:  the USS Hornet.   It was once a working vessel and participated in World War II, the Vietnam War, and the first manned space mission, Apollo 11.  A national treasure, it's now peacefully moored at historic Alameda Point on the San Francisco Bay, and is a museum open to the public.

Last weekend we took our three kids there and they had a blast.  From the moment we drove up beside the gigantic vessel and boarded her gangplank, their jaws dropped and stayed that way for the next three hours.   The huge aircraft hangar is filled with various warplanes, helicopters and exhibits related to the Apollo 11 mission.  There's also a flight simulator where, for an extra $6, you can hop into a flight simulator and pretend you're flying an F-15 over land and sea.

Much of the ship is open to visitors; some areas require joining a guided tour.  It's free with admission, but it's a 45-minute tour and it does get techinical, so it may be difficult for preschoolers to follow.   Popular explore-on-your-own areas include the rooms where officers and crew ate, played, worked and slept.  Our kids were delighted at the sight of rows and rows of uncomfortable-looking bunk beds in the crew's quarters; they didn't like the small jail cells in the brig quite so much!  The whole place is run by volunteers who know the history of the vessel inside out.  Many served on similar aircraft carriers -- and all of them are more than happy to regale you with tales of life at sea. 

Unfortunately, we got there too late to experience one of the highlights of the museum: the "fighter jet elevator".  Every 3rd Saturday of the month is Living Ship Day, when visitors get to experience the aircraft carrier "in action":  meet former crew, participate in "mission briefings", and sit in the cockpit of a fighter jet.   Best of all, visitors get to stand on alongside a fighter jet and hitch a ride on their "aircraft elevator", as it is lifted from the lower hangar decks onto the flight deck and placed into launch position.  We arrived just as the elevator was making its last trip, so if you want to avoid looks of disappointment on your little ones' faces, make sure you get there before 2PM .  Then again, the whole experience is extremely noisy, so if your little one is sensitive to noise, you may want to avoid it altogether.  No worries -- whether you catch that elevator or not, there's certainly enough to experience at the USS Hornet to feed your child's sense of history, and fuel his imagination, for many fantasies to come.

One Last Weekend Outlook: January 30th-February 1st

by Shawn Burns

January 28, 2009

This is Resolution month at Savvy Source, and it's become obvious in the past couple of weeks that I need to make one myself, and follow-through on it. I need to step back from the site and spend time working on my "About Me" page. See where it says "is in the middle of his PhD"? Yeah, turns out the middle is a churning mess and I need to dog-paddle a little bit. So this is a  Read more...

Weekend Outlook: January 9th-11th

by Shawn Burns

January 07, 2009

Weekend, weekend, who has the weekend? I feel like I'm coming off a month-long-weekend, but being back at the grind has made me remember that normal, non-holiday weekends, are just as important as those involving Santa. So, here's what's happening at a place near you: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is being produced at the Louis B. Mayer Theater in Santa Clara at  Read more...

List Day: Consumable Gifts

by Shawn Burns

December 16, 2008

Today on Savvy Source we're talking about "consumable" gifts. Not "gifts you can eat" but gifts that you use up, like gift certificates and memberships. My favorite gifts as a kid were always bookstore gift certificates, and I think my post-Christmas Certificate-Shopping-Spree kept the local bookstores in business through March. But not everyone is like the nerdy kid I was (am?), so  Read more...

Weekend Outlook: December 5th-7th

by Shawn Burns

December 03, 2008

Even if you aren't going to be participating in or enjoying any of the activities and events I talked about yesterday you can still have a great time with your kid(s) this weekend around the Peninsula. And for the sake of variety this will be a concert/theater-free Weekend Outlook. I know you must be played out (that's kind of a pun). This Friday from 3-4pm is the first in Hidden  Read more...

Getting to Know My City

by Shawn Burns

June 24, 2008

Our fair valley has a long history. From its Native settlements to its metroplitan birth as a small Peublo to California's capitol to the heart of tech it is ever changing. So for List Day this week I have, for your enriching pleasure, a list of places to bring your pre-schooler to teach them a little bit about the history of the Silicon Valley. I here present them in an order that is pleasing  Read more...

Kelley Park

by Shawn Burns

June 04, 2008

I lived in San Jose in my late teens. I didn't get out much, working swing at a hotel out by the airport. So one of the places that I never knew about until I had a kid was Kelley Park , just south of downtown. The park can be tackled in four different ways; it really just depends on what you are in the mood for doing with your kid that day. As with all big city parks there are  Read more...