Hey! What have we here? It’s Paris hangin’ with Mark! What a rare sight!
Yep, we literally just returned from a long weekend in Annapolis with our favorite midshipman. Paris misses him already. Oh, and for those with a sharp eye, Midshipman Mark is wearing a uniform never before seen on this site — his “working blues”. This picture was taken on Friday (a work day) when we first managed to catch up with our elusive mid. (Paris was thrilled…)
It’s finals time at the Naval Academy. At most schools, finals mean high stress, panic, very little sleep, and overall misery. For plebes, high stress, panic, very little sleep and overall misery are regular daily affairs. Finals bring sleep! No morning formations, no classes, no “plebe-ness” (chopping, chow calls, abuse). No stress (or very little), no panic, lots of sleep, and absolutely very little misery! Mids (and especially plebes) love finals! Mark was in high spirits…
We did the usual: relaxed with Mark, ate well, ate often, and swapped stories. His are getting better. I can’t imagine what the stories will be like down the road. We also met his Sponsor Family (fantastic folks), we roamed the streets of DTA (midspeak for Downtown Annaplois), and basiclly had a wonderful time.
Check this out — Mark, Paris and I were waiting for Karen while she did a little shopping. I turned my back, and I guess Mark decided to teach Paris how to salute. Here we see her poking her eye out…
But here…here she’s getting it down! Almost!
Now…if he’d just remind her to use her right hand…
We managed to bomb around the Yard with Mark for a bit. It wasn’t a beehive of activity as it normally is because of exams, so we managed to see some things that normally would be tough to check out. For instance, here’s Paris in the new, super-sweet Wesley Brown Field House. Wesley Brown was the first black midshipman to graduate from USNA. He’s still with us, and he even signed the shovel that first broke ground on the site. I remember the construction mess that was ongoing when I retrieved Mark from USNA Cross Country camp three years ago. This place is amazing…
That’s Paris standing at the end of a long jump pit (one of two). The track encircling the infield is a standard 200 meter indoor track. But this baby is different…
The curves of this track are on hydraulic lifts. The lifts bank the curves and when fully extended, the hydraulics lift the middle of the curves to just over four feet in height. Incredible!
But wait! There’s more! Way in the back…way, way back on the wall, you can see a green tube looking thing…that’s artificial turf. There are huge winches up on the walls behind where I was standing to take this photo. Those winches can roll out that turf to make a full-sized indoor football field. I’m talking 100 yards, plus end zones, and even goal posts! To put this in perspective, also in the background are three, full sized basketball courts. Each one of those courts take up the space of a normal sized high school gymnasium. So! That’s three, regular gyms tucked away at the end of the photo…and you can barely see ‘em. This place is huge!
On the back wall to the right is a jumbotron screen. There are five cameras mounted in the ceiling of the field house. Guys running a few computers run the cameras and project the images on the jumbotron…so during a track meet (for example), the crowd can watch a 1,500 meter run while getting highlights of the men’s javelin on the big screen. The picture doesn’t project the immensity of this place so well…but it is breathtaking…oh, and those windows overlook the Severn River. Beautiful!
Speaking of the Severn River, Mark has two training blocks this summer. One involves some time in a frigate (doing potential drug interdiction out of Florida), and the other is a sailing cruise (probably up the East Coast towards Rhode Island and back). I’ve heard from other parents that sometimes the sailing cruises take the mids about a 100 miles off the coast. It’s supposed to be amazing! But…in one of these?
That is a USNA “44″, as in 44 feet long. As many as 11 mids man this thing as it heads out to sea. I don’t know about any of you, but I think I’d want to keep the damn shoreline in sight if I had to live on one of those things. I’m sure Mark will have stories.
Now this thing…this I could take 100 miles off the coast –
That is the Pride of Baltimore. It’s docked at the Annapolis City Dock, and Paris and I stumbled upon it while we were waiting for Mark to finish up an ‘LMO’ (Last Military Obligation). If the weather was better, we could have taken a ride!
The weekend went by too quickly, and before we knew it, we found ourselves at BWI waiting to catch our flight home. But even there Paris managed to find something fascinating –
That is a 500 lb. stained glass crab that Paris found tucked away in an upstairs alcove at the airport. She thought it was really, really cool (and so did I…)
Our weekend was a success! Mark hits his frigate this Friday for a two week run. With any luck, his Officer-in-Charge will allow him to forego the Navy’s flight back to Annapolis, and we’ll be able to meet in Jacksonville. If we pull that off, Mark spends a week here with us, and then he and I drive up to New York together. We’ll meet Karen and Paris at the airport, and then (then!) our one month stay in New York begins!