Rosie the Riveter

It doesn't take much to convince me to get back on the road somewhere... anywhere will do! So a few weeks ago when J saw the promotional email from Best Western (stay 3 nights, get 1 free) and figured out that after our Massachusetts trip we only needed one more stay to get the free night (yep, he's my son!)... let's just say that I wasted no time getting online to check out hotel locations. And when I found one in Vallejo next to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, the rest of the family was totally on board for a quick trip up to the East Bay!   

The added bonus is that there are 4 national park units in that area which we haven't visited yet. Unfortunately, Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial was not open to the public because the military had active operations on the base, and Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site only had limited hours due to the sequester. But we could still visit the other two, so Rosie the Riveter National Historical Park in Richmond, CA was our first stop.

The Rosie the Riveter memorial is a sculpture honoring the "Rosies", the women who worked in the Richmond shipyards during World War II. The park where the memorial is located was the site of Kaiser Shipyard #2. The walkway is the length of a Liberty ship's keel and the structure appears as if it is being assembled, with interpretive panels describing the homefront, and the history of women and minorities in the workforce during that era.

As an aside, California folks are undoubtedly familiar with Kaiser Permanente, a huge managed care health network. But I didn't know that Kaiser originated as the health care provided by the Kaiser Shipyards for its workforce. I'm always learning something new...

From the memorial, we went over to the visitor education center, which is housed in a building that used to be part of the Ford Assembly Plant. During the war, this plant assembled jeeps and other military vehicles and employed many "Rosies" as well.

This unit is still being developed by the National Park Service, so there is not a lot here at present, but I definitely think it will be worth a return trip in the future!

Looking at San Francisco across the bay and the SS Red Oak Victory (right)