This is the first of a LONG series of photos I took at the USS Iowa museum at San Pedro, California.

It was a fun road trip, which my sister, a friend, and kelbalrai1990 all participated in.

Approaching this monster was a major "There it is!" moment for me, because I expected to see it's towering superstructure slowly rise over the cityscape as we approached --- instead, we happened to look to the left side of the road while we were just across the parking lot from her, and the Iowa was HUGE.

How huge?

So big that even after visiting the USS Massachusetts in 2001, I was startled by how large it was --- and I was EXPECTING it to be much larger!

I took this photo in the visitor's parking lot, to give you some idea of the scale of this colossal machine. I probably couldn't get it all into this photo at this distance even if were were looking at it *end-on*!


If you're interested in visiting the Iowa, or even just learning a bit about the "Big Stick", information can be found here at the Pacific Battleship Center website;
http://www.pacificbattleship.com/