The Queen Mary

We decided to have some fun this weekend after spending the last two weekends working on the house. So we jumped in the car and drove down to Long Beach to see the Queen Mary. We spent half a day in the sun wandering around the art deco masterpiece. There were a considerable number of Brits aboard along with lots of red telephone boxes (no white ones!). Note to all Americans: Kingston-upon-Hull is the only place blessed with the privilege of having white telephone boxes, the rest of the UK has common red ones.

RMS Queen Mary is a retired ocean liner that sailed the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 for the Cunard Line (then Cunard White Star Line). Built by John Brown and Company, Clydebank, Scotland, she was designed to be the first of Cunard's planned two-ship weekly express service from Southampton to Cherbourg to New York, in answer to the mainland European superliners of the late 1920s and early 1930s. After their release from World War II troop transport duties, Queen Mary and her running mate RMS Queen Elizabeth commenced this two-ship service and continued it for two decades until Queen Mary's retirement in 1967. The ship is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is permanently berthed in Long Beach, California serving as a museum ship and hotel. The Queen Mary celebrated the 70th anniversary of her launch in both Clydebank and in Long Beach during 2004, and the 70th anniversary of her maiden voyage in 2006 (www.wikipedia.org).

I could not fit the whole ship in one picture !

This is the view of downtown Long Beach from aboard the RMS Queen Mary (Note to Brits: downtown just means the city centre) Note to Americans: Centre is spelt centRE not centER.

The RMS Queen Mary has very big smoke stacks!

A picture of my beautiful wife :-)

This is me squinting in the sun, not an inch of snow in sight! I hope you are having fun in the snow, 4 inches in one night is nothing! Its 73F or 23C here so I doubt it will be snowing this week, Jamie.