Summer in the Florida Keys and Road Trip 2022, USS Kidd

We are back on the road again and finishing up our 15th year of living full time in a motorhome.  

We spent the summer at our home base in Marathon, Florida and even did some part time work at the RV park.  We both still enjoy staying busy although it does seem like we are slowing down.

We repaired several security cameras and WiFi hotspots, and also did some tree trimming.

Suzie stayed busy sprucing up some of the paint. This is the mailbox pedestal.

The marina maid also got a touch-up.

The Tiki Hut got some paint and lights too.

Lights at the marina were repaired and new blue night lights were installed.

We refurbished one of the park's golf carts with new seat covers and paint.

We reupholstered the managers truck seat.

We also got to make a protective sun shade for our good friend, Dr. D. The boat is big and the piece of fabric I was working on filled up the whole living room in our motorhome.

We had fun working together on the project, which was at his home in Key West.

We were both happy with the way it turned out.

We also found time to take the RV park managers patio boat out for a ride every now and then.

One time, when we came back, we saw some manatees in our marina.

After an enjoyable summer in the Keys, we are now on the road again, headed westbound toward Hemet, California, where we will spend the winter visiting with Tom's mom, Bernice.  We spent 2 nights in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and spent 1/2 a day visiting the USS Kidd, a restored World War II destroyer.

It is located on the Mississippi River and has a unique mooring.  Because the river level varies up to 40 feet during the year, they found that they couldn't moor it to a pier at the shore line because when the water level would draw down in the summer, it would leave the ship in the mud and in danger of tipping over.  The solution was to place it on a cradle and then when the water level dropped, the ship would still be stable.

The self guided tour took us all over the upper decks and the restoration work that they have done was amazing.  This is the medical  office.  It is not very big when you consider there were 333 men on this ship, and at one point, near Okinawa,  the ship was struck by a Kamikaze, which killed 38 crewmen and wounded 55. 

When the ship was finally retired and towed to Baton Rouge in 1982, all of her compartments were filled with scaling paint and all of the equipment that had been left aboard when she was retired.  It was piled everywhere and had to be sorted, cleaned and placed on display.  We know the restoration took a lot of work because they had one compartment that they did not do any restoration on, just to give us a before and after comparison.

We really enjoyed walking through many compartments that are open to the public and appreciated the hardship the sailors must have experienced living in such cramped quarters in the very hot and humid South Pacific during the war.

Kitchen

Officers dining room

Crews food service line

Crews dining room which also served as a berthing area for the kitchen crew.  The bunks would be folded up during meal times exposing the tables and bench seats.  The bench seats next to the wall doubled as foot lockers for the men's personal belongings.

Space was very limited so there were no grand staircases.  There were ladders and they were very steep and it was very easy to bang your head as you made your way up or down.

This is an ammunition handling area directly below one of the big guns.  

Officers stateroom.  Very little room for 3 men, but much better than the enlisted mens berthing area.

This is the combat information center.  This tiny room held a radar operator, sonar operator, gun coordinator, and other men necessary to keep track of any threats around the ship.

This is a different view of the same small CIC room.

This was the radio room.

There were 2 small lifeboats.  All of the rest of the emergency floatation was small rafts.

There were lots of guns, depth charges, and torpedos.

Depth charges next to launcher

I know it says "Down", but they told us to always face the ladders when going up or down.  The ladders were VERY steep.

They also had a museum on shore at the ticket office.  They even had a picture of the actual Kamikaze that struck the Kidd.

They also had actual pieces of the Kamikaze plane.

There was a tribute to the losses from the Viet Nam war.

From a distance, you couldn't really see what the wall was displaying.  As you moved closer, the quantity of names really hit home.

This was a great museum and we hope to find more things to tell you about as we continue westbound.

Please let us know if you have any suggestions of things to see. 

Tom & Suzie