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Mare Island

Here's an interesting article:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150330-where-nuclear-subs-go-to-die

I spent the night once on Mare Island. I was on a training assignment at Concord Naval Weapons Station back when I was in the Naval Reserve. We'd flown in to Alameda Naval Air Station and got rental cars over to Mare Island for the night. The night was very long - I think it was after midnight before we got berthing - and started early again the next morning.

I'd received my initial boot camp training at the San Diego Recruit Training Camp.

All of these bases are now closed, including the Concord Naval Weapons Station. The San Diego boot camp has been converted to houses and shops - my old barracks where I used to sleep is now a fireman's training location, from what I gather. The "grinder" where I practiced my marching skills has turned into a parking lot for the nearby San Diego airport... I wonder if people think about how many hours of blood, sweat, and tears - with not a little cursing - took place on the very asphalt over which they're parking... Probably not. Someday I want to take a trip down there and check it out. Maybe this summer...

It's interesting to me what they do with old bases when they're shut down. San Diego immediately put the land to good use, as did Long Beach - although to very different uses. Concord is a little more interesting - the property value isn't quite as high, and there are environmental concerns that need to be addressed before it can be developed. Mare Island is another interesting thing - it's a little far removed from major transit lanes to make it viable as a transit hub - all it was ever really intended for was a place to build nuclear submarines (that's what started me thinking along these lines, anyway, after reading the article). I know that Mythbusters has filmed there, and at Concord, too.

But if you want a filming location, the NAS Alameda may have them all beat. This is where they filmed the freeway scenes in movies like the Matrix Reloaded and a couple of others. If you look on the Google Earth imagery, you can see where they've mocked up some freeway lanes, while the walls they put up to act as barriers have been removed.

Anyway. Kind of a random post. It's interesting to me to see how things change.

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