Aircarft Carrier

My brother is in training with the Naval Shipyard to become some kind of Nuclear Engineer (it has a special name which I of course forgot as soon as he told me) and over the last year he's been sent to work on a couple of aircraft carriers. Basically the shipyard needs guys trained in working on the nuclear system on aircraft carriers, but until right now there hadn't been any there, so he had to go first to San Diego and then to Everett. Now the ship he worked on in Everett is at the shipyard, so I think he will continue to work/learn on it.
Last Thursday the USS Abraham Lincoln had a family day cruise, so I got to see what they're really like! It's definitely huge, but I think I had an image of something unfathomably large, so it actually didn't seem quite as big as I'd expected. Nonetheless, the flight deck is 4.5 acres!
Some specs about the Lincoln:
Commissioned: November 11th, 1989
Length: 1,092 feet
Height (keel to mast): 206 feet, 6 inches
Breadth at flight deck: 257 feet, 5 inches
Propulsion: 2 nuclear power plants (this is the part my brother works on)
Anchors: 2 at 30 tons each
Anchor chains: 1,082 feet, each link weights 385 pounds
Complement including air wing: almost 5,500
Loaves of bread baked daily: 600-800
Haircuts given daily: 250
We got to watch an airshow from the flight deck. It was no Blue Angels air show with colored smoke and fancy flying formations - this was strictly a navy air show. They did Top Gun style fly-bys and touch downs no more than 30 feet from where we were standing! It was incredibly loud, so I didn't take a ton of pictures...
I'm pretty sure it goes without saying that I did not knit last Thursday :)
In line to get on the ship before 0500

Flight Deck approximately 0600 - looks like it goes on forever!

Mikaela, Yvonne, Mom, Me on the flight deck

Mom looking through the giant binoculars

The Olympic at about 0730. Coast Guard boats paced us for the entire trip.

Really high above the flight deck

Framed Olympics and Coast Guard boat

Me holding a giant gun. This was supposed to be my war face, but I kept giggling. Looks like the gunman thought it was funny, too. Don't expect this ever again.

A few 385lb chain links

Lots of people observing the mountains through the giant elevator door (the cover outside is one of the plane elevators)

Watching one of the planes fly by for the first time

Port Angeles

Fort Casey

Leaning into the wind on the flight deck when we were cooking along (maybe 20 knots? I don't know). Mom missed the memo about leaning into the wind and looks like she's going to blow over. Clark is a much better reference. It felt like we we hiking up hill just to walk to the end of the flight deck (which remained flat) in the wind.

one of the 3 tug boats that guided the massive carrier back into port