Yesterday we came back from the carrier U.S.S. Yorktown. It was in Charleston Harbor. At first I was confused because I thought that the Yorktown already had sunk but then the guide told us that this was CV-10 and the one that sunk was CV-5. First, he showed us the sailors sleeping places and told us that we were going to sleep there. The girls had the officer's quarters. The place where we were going to sleep had mattresses stacked on top of each other normally four at a time and only had a foot of space between them. But, surprisingly, the beds were not that uncomfortable at all. We went on a couple of self guided tours. They were very interesting and had rooms that would normally be there and there were little plaques that said this was what and so on. There also fighter jets on the flight deck and hangar bay. One of the fighter jets they let you sit in it and there were different controls and things that the fighter jet pilot would have to push or switch and that matter. One jet on the flight deck had a huge hole through the middle of it and we could see light at the other end. I think this was the air intake part. There was also a ship's theater in the very front where they showed movies about the Yorktown and the Laffey, which was a destroyer. I learned that the Laffey was hit five thimes by kamikazes and three times by bombs. I don't really know because it also said that it was hit six times by kamikazes and four times by bombs. Kamikazes were suicide plane that had 500 pounds of explosives in it. They were supposed to go very high in the air and just fall right onto their target so if they were shot, they would still hit. It's kind of sad that the Japanese government made these teenagers fly planes right into ships. I wonder if they were doing it because they had to or because they were just loyal to their country. I wonder what type of thoughts they had just before they were going to crash. I wonder what type of thoughts the American sailors had when they saw that going to crash. We did not get to see the Laffey because it left Charleston on the Wednesday before we came to get repaired in a dry dock in Denton. I liked it very much and would like to go again. The picture is of the U.S.S. Yorktown. She is also called the "Fighting Lady" and was damaged by only one bomb.

Today we sent our friend's son's luggage to Duke University. It was the Orientation day so the police blocked up the whole street for like half an hour and so everybody got out of their cars and waited to save gas. Once the line started moving, we drove to his dorm. His dorm was bigger than a camp tent and had room for two people and their stuff. I thought that college dorms would just be as small and uncomfortable as a camp tent. But, I was wrong. I think I would like the dorms and the bathrooms are quite clean, despite the fact that 6 people have to share it. He came from San Diego. I think that it would be very uncomfortable inside an airplane from California to here. I would prefer going to a college close to home so that I could visit some time and it wouldn't be that uncomfortable.

Capitol Hill was good. We took a tour in it. First, we saw a movie about the history of the Capitol. It first had a small dome but then, the built the old House of Representatives, the dome didn't seem big enough so they built a 9-million pound cast iron rotunda instead. The Congress people made all the states give them two statues of people that had to be dead. All the Presidents are in the rotunda and some other are in the Emancipation Hall. My favorite statue was the Hawaii King one because, all the other looked the same and he really stood out, and two, He had color and looked cool. Did you know that the Capitol separates the city into four sections so that if you are on like 2 street NW, you are actually NW of the Capitol! The picture is of George Washinton going to Heaven and is on the ceiling of the rotunda. George Washington is wearing a pink skirt. He is above the woman with a sheild. A woman named Triumph and Victory is seated on his left but your right. She is holding a trumpet.

The art of power was Spanish armor during the Spain's Golden Age. It was very heavy and was nearly all decoration armor. There was even a kid sized suit of armor. These were all from the Royal Armoury in Madrid. Outside the exhibit, there was a table where they had replicas of gloves and helmets that a knight would where and they let you try on the gloves but not the helmets. They also had books about knights and castles. I didn't really learn much from the exhibit inside, I just liked to look at the armor. I went to look at the Leonardo picture where it was double-sided but a security guard said "Hey stop running, where are your parents, yeah you need to get with your parents." So I went with my mom to the Leonardo exhibit.

I liked the Money Museum. It was actually a place where they printed money and they showed us how they did it. First,they had a special sheet with security marks on it. Then,they printed an eagle on it and checked the security mark again. After that, they printed everything and then applied ten tons of force on it. Then, they packaged it and monetized it. The picture is of them putting money on the vibrating table to make it bendy.

We also went to Washington D.C. I liked when we went to the top of the Washington Monument the most. We could see 40 miles in every direction. It was cool because there was even a picture below the window that showed what the view looked like in the late 1800's and other times. There was also a mini museum on the 2nd floor.There were only three floors. The first floor was the ground level, the second was at the 490 feet, the third was at 500 feet. I learned that when it was first built, they had a steam elevator that took 10-12 minutes to get to the top and they served tea on it. I also liked when we went to the Museum of American History. It had a lot of cool model ships in it. It also had a money exhibit and did you know that pioneer people used nails as money? The museum of Natural History's soil exhibit and bone one were pretty cool too. We went to Annapolis. There were some policemen that put a guy on the side of the street who was not going to walk and if you didn't stop for him, the policemen would pull you over and fine you $80 for not yielding to pedestrians. Soon they had like 15 cars pulled over and that green guy in pajamas was still walking across the road so they could get more money. And they didn't even have regular stop signs that you can see clearly. They had like a a little white board with words on it and an even smaller stop sign on the board with the words.

We went to Annapolis. There were some policemen that put a guy on the side of the street who was not going to walk and if you didn't stop for him, the policemen would pull you over and fine you $80 for not yielding to pedestrians. Soon they had like 15 cars pulled over and that green guy in pajamas was still walking across the road so they could get more money. And they didn't even have regular stop signs that you can see clearly. They had like a a little white board with words on it and an even smaller stop sign on the board with the words.

We also went to Magic Kingdom. My favorite rides we went on were the Splash Mountain one or Big Thunder Mountain. Splash Mountain is only scary the first tim and then its normal. It is a ride with a story. The story is about Brer Fox and Brer Bear who try to capture Brer Rabbit. They do and when they do, they think about nasty things to do to him. Brer Rabbit asks them not to throw him in the briar patch so they do. They didn't know that Brer Rabbit was born in a briar patch and Brer Rabbit escapes. The first part where you meet and see the characters is calm and then you see when Brer Fox captures Brer Rabbit. The 50-foot drop is when they throw Brer Rabbit into the briar patch. Big Thunder Mountain isn't scary, but it's pretty wild. You go through drops and turns and twists so people on the sides always get squashed. It is a runaway train which goes into caves and around bends. It's pretty fast unlike Splash Mountain, but the track is long. There are props nearby to make it look realistic and even a sinking building with a goat on top of it. Even if you ride it a lot, you never know when there is going to be a turn or a drop or a twist. Those things just seem to pop up like random. That is what makes it even if you ride on it a lot. In Splash mountain, there was a few little drops, one big one and that is it. I also liked It's a Small World. I liked seeing all the little people dancing and singing. We went on a few small rides like the Pooh and Cinderella one because they could be fun and you never know.

We went to Disney Quest. It was an interactive place with arcade games (which you don't have to pay for) and rides. My favorite ride was the Pirates, Battle for Buccaneer Gold one. It was very fun. You had to shoot other ships to get gold. It was in 3-D so it looked very real. I liked being the captain more than the gunner. The gunner pulls a little knob at the end of the cannon and it fires. There were 6 cannons, three on each side. The captain steered the ship and made it move. When I was the gunner, I kept on shooting at the ships by pulling the knob super fast. I also shot the sea monster but it was very quick. I liked being gunner because you got to shoot the ship. I liked being captain because you could make the ship go wherever you want it to go. When I was captain, I went only to the big ships because they had more gold. My favorite arcade game was Primeval Hunt. You had to shoot dinosaurs. I liked playing because it was fun somehow. I liked using my rocket launcher a lot.

The first water park that I have been to is Typhoon Lagoon at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. It was new so it was kind of small. My favorite raft ride there was the Crush n' Gusher which was also kind of like a roller coaster. To go down the drops with the least friction, the ride went down rollers. I was kind of leaning in the first seat because every time it went down, my butt always got kind of squashed. It was fun but we only went on it once because it started raining. My favorite slide was Howunga Kowabunga which was entirely straight down but at an angle. There was also a huge pool that had 6-foot waves. I scraped my knee there. I also liked Shark Reef where we snorkeled and saw real live leopard sharks and beautiful marine life. It was freezing cold there though. I liked Typhoon Lagoon a lot because it was the first water park I have been to and also it had alot of raft rides which I like. The pictur e on top is the Crush n' Gusher.

We went to Clearwater beach. It was very pretty. The water is very clear and the sand is white. It is very flat. There is a lot of tiny fish there and a few small ones. There are even some small rays! You can find lots of cool shells at the bottom and the waves are not very big. We found a sand dollar a pen shell and lots on fighting conchs. The sunset is very beautiful. It is a very popular beach on the Gulf of Mexico. We also went to a Blind Pass beach where there were a lot of shells. There was a drop off and there were shark sightings so we didn't go into the water.

On our first day, we stopped in Hilton Head to go to the Folly beach. I found a live shell and then everyone started looking for them. My brother stepped on one and it cut his foot pretty deep and when he showed us it, it was bleeding a lot. The lifeguard wiped it with antiseptic wipes and then put three band-aids on it. We went to a lot of beaches and the life guard at one said to buy some hydrogen peroxide and we did so. We poured it on the cut and waited for it to bubble and then wiped it off and put a band aid on it. Victor's cut healed and he could get it wet. At one beach, we made a huge sand castle and the waves destroyed part of it. We left that beach and went to another one where there were a lot of shark sightings. We found a whole bunch of fighting conchs and I even saw a ray at the Clearwater beach. I know that it was a fighting conch because we went to the Shell Museum which was pretty cool. We saw real videos of a horse conch, the Florida state shell, eat a lightning whelk. It took the horse conch half an hour so they person videotaping sped up the video. I liked when we went to Disney world. We stayed there for three days. On one day, we went to Typhoon Lagoon and snorkeled at Shark Reef where we saw sharks and other marine animals. I think the coolest ride at Typhoon Lagoon was the Crush n' Gusher. It was a roller coaster combined with a raft ride. Then, we went to magic kingdom. Our third day was at Disney Quest. My favorite game was the Pirate one. I only went up to the big ones and we totally killed them. I also liked Primeval Hunt in which you had to hunt dinosaurs. I really liked our vacation.

dino trail

Today, we went to the Durham Museum of Natural Science. We were members so we got a special sneak preview of the new Dino Trail. It's pretty good. You walk on a trail and you see models of dinosaurs and there are information cards to tell you about them. My favorite dinosaurs are the ankylosauras and the T-rex. I think the ugliest dinosaur had to be a maisauras because it didn't have separate teeth and it also had an weird hump on its head. I liked though because it always took good care of its young and its name in Greek means "good mother". That was because the babie's bones were not strong enough to get food for itself. I liked a lot even though it was not finished. Here are some pictures:

NC Museum of Art - Earth Day Festival

Today we went to the Earth Day Festival at the NC Museum of Art. I made crafts there from clay, leaves, and scrap material. First, I made a leaf print out of leaves. We put a piece of wax paper over a block of wood and put a piece of white fabric over the wax paper. Then, we put some leaves on the fabric. After that, we put another piece of wax paper on the leaves. Next, we used a hammer to smash all the color out of the leaves. Dad put a small yellow flower with the leaves and I smashed that too. Finally, when the color was smashed out of the leaves, I removed the flowers and leaves and took my piece of fabric out and all the leaves' color were on it.

Then I moved on to the clay making center. For about a minute, I just sat there and thought about what I wanted to make out of clay. I decided to make a sailing ship but it was too caved in so I converted it to a galley. I made little masts but those were to flat so I took them off, rolled them between my hands, and stuck them back on. I made 6 oars and attached those to the sides of the galley and Ta! Da! I was done. I washed my hands and then saw Dad's "Foot". It was exactly like a foot and he built it in like 3 seconds! The last center I went to was the Scrap Exchange, where you could build things out of everyday objects that we throw away and don't reconize the true value of. I made a Blue King out of some cloth and a wire. He was very flimsy and his head always fell off. I really liked this festival because I got to make things.

NC Art Museum

We went to the NC Museum of Art. It was partly closed because they were adding a new building to it. My favorite thing about it was the Cloud Chamber for the Trees and Sky. It is like a small hut but with no windows. There are plants growing on the top of it. The reason I like it is because it is so combined with Nature. I also like the sculpture called To see Jennie Smile. It is a huge cylinder made out of 3 tons of newspaper. The sculptor it's kind of like returning the newspaper to the place it was born. It is temporary because the rain and dirt will decompose it and it will rot. Think how many trees were killed just to make two weeks of newspapers. But if you read stuff from newsandobserver.com, then you are using electricity which pollutes the air.