2021 travelogue posted

[Mike Lewis]

I've written a travelogue of my trip to the Midwest last summer and a shorter trip to Georgia in the fall. It is a PDF file, 165 pages, 70 MB, downloadable from here:


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1btW...cB1JGiTcJ/view


or you can find a link in my photo website below. I hope you like airplanes.

[Small but Sweet]

Thank you for sharing, this is very nice. I like the planes too. Went to the Farnborough Intl Air Show twice when I lived in England, and I'd love to go to Oshkosh one day. Quilts - love how they reflect the current events. RV Museum - I definitely want to see that! Nice write ups.

Your travels are the kind of thing we look forward to with our Escape in future retirement.

Have you been to the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson?

[Mike Lewis]

Originally Posted by Small but Sweet

Have you been to the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson?

I visited the Pima museum many years ago. I'll try to remember to stop there again the next time I go to Arizona, which may be in 2023.

[Mike Lewis]

More detail:


- The Quilting Museum: A close inspection of the several quilts that had the coronavirus theme showed that some of the quilters developed psychological problems from being cooped up for weeks on end at the start of the pandemic.

- Oshkosh: This event is just overwhelming. I thought my 2018 visit would be enough, but the scale was too much and I had some mobility issues then, so I needed to go back one more time. That's it for me, though.

- Art museums: I like art as much as I like airplanes, but I'm reluctant to photograph art museums due to copyright issues. I'm probably being too cautious though. I always ask permission and no one seems to mind. Nowadays they know the photos will end up on the Internet.

- Closures: I was disappointed by the closure of tourist attractions due to COVID. The Delta peak was tapering off so I thought more things would be open. Four art museums in the Quad City area were closed while I was there. Dayton's amateur radio Hamvention scheduled for May was cancelled again. Otherwise Dayton would have been my first major stop instead of my last. Crossing into Canada was tricky so I cancelled my reservation at the Niagara Wine Escape, etc. Maybe things will get better in 2022.

[HABBERDABBER]

Great travelogue and images. Oshkosh EAA has an impressive aircraft museum on the grounds also. You've put Wright-Patterson and the Elkhart RV museums on my bucket list. Many of the museums and locales you wrote about are familiar to me.

Outside of Tucson is a decommissioned underground Titan missile launch museum. A surprise favorite of mine....Dr. Strangelove deja vu.

And you have your next-door, nearby Naval Aviation museum in Pensacola. Impressive aviation displays there.

This Fall, I finally visited the Rocket Museum in Huntsville, AL. I'd passed that roadside Saturn rocket numerous times, and tried once to get to the museum, but was chased away by tornadoes and deluges in the area. Another memorable bucket list visit accomplished.

Thanks again for your effort and travelogue.

[Small but Sweet]

I second the Titan II Missile museum south of Tucson. It’s now associated with Pima. It affected us deeply and we thought about it for a long time. Still do, sometimes.

[Ron in BC]

Hi Mike,

Did you ever visit Fantasy of Flight when it was open to the public?

Met Kermit Weeks, what a character. Talented pilot but watch any of his videos test flying some of his vintage stuff and you see why checklists were invented.

Ron

[Mike Lewis]

Originally Posted by Ron in BC

Hi Mike,

Did you ever visit Fantasy of Flight when it was open to the public?

Met Kermit Weeks, what a character. Talented pilot but watch any of his videos test flying some of his vintage stuff and you see why checklists were invented.

Ron

I have not visited Fantasy of Flight. I've seen the sign for it from I-4 when driving from Orlando to Tampa but I've never stopped. The next time I'm in the area I'll stop to see if they have anything available for viewing.

There is another air museum in nearby Kissimmee that restores vintage planes. I visited it years ago.

[Mike Lewis]

Originally Posted by Small but Sweet

I second the Titan II Missile museum south of Tucson. It’s now associated with Pima. It affected us deeply and we thought about it for a long time. Still do, sometimes.

There is also a Minuteman missile silo open for tours near Badlands National Park. It is similar to the Titan site.

[Ron in BC]

Unfortunately Fantasy of Flight is no longer available to the public. Too bad because they gave a good tour and you got to see all the back room stuff. But it wasn't a great business model and Kermit stopped doing it and concentrated on the restorations of his vast fleet and making innumerable youtube videos. One thing that is different is that Kermit doesn't have any static displays, everything is meant to be airworthy. Although I doubt his Chris Connie will ever leave the ground again.

Ron

[rog mich]

Thank you for sharing. Beautiful photos.

[oldwave]

Originally Posted by Mike Lewis

There is also a Minuteman missile silo open for tours near Badlands National Park. It is similar to the Titan site.

I worked on that site the last two years of my National Park Service career. The tour into the bunker where the operators sat next to the code machines and books, the huge audio gear for clear communications, and the size of the blast doors sealing off the chamber while their shifts were happening, was impressive. The communication between the rocket sites and the control room was wired with about 4 inch diameter copper shielded cable that would withstand the emi emissions from a nuclear blast. I was able to get a tour from a retiree who has the shift supervisor of the crew who manned the controls. And of course it’s right outside of Badlands National Park. A worthwhile spot to visit for those fans of Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, or tech geeks. I’d still love to have the custom made acoustic equalizer in the rack in that room, it was impressive .

[azjack]

I should go visit the site next time we are in the area. I worked on the Minuteman from near day one until I left the Air Force. Started with a group in Vandenburg AFB working with contractors and then shipped to Minot for the rest of my tour. A interesting time was during the Cuban missile crisis we only had 3 of 6 sites nearly ready to go but the sites were set up to be reusable and required a lot of cutting to redirect the launches from South Pacific to a North direction. My job was aligning the missile and feeding info.
Maybe fun times?

[gbaglo]

Joy to the world.

[dfandrews]

Missle sites: When visiting a very good friend in MT, he showed me around his property. We drove past a bare patch of ground just partly visible adjacent to his back 40, then didn't stop until we were a ways away.
Only then did he tell me that, on a walk one day, he curiously walked over to its vicinity. Not 5 minutes later, he was visited by some stern, not-smiling men, in what could have been a gov. vehicle, but with no markings.
Ya never know what's lurking in your back yard!

[Rossue]

Evergreen Air & Space Museum in McMinnville is pretty cool. Went there first 15 years ago when it was just the Air Museum. In 2008 they opened the Space Museum in a twin facility at the same location. It's highlight is the Titan II ICBM that one can see up close. Was there this last June and loved it. You can camp there for free too.

[Ops]

Originally Posted by Mike Lewis

I've written a travelogue of my trip to the Midwest last summer and a shorter trip to Georgia in the fall...
...I hope you like airplanes.

Thank you for posting your travelogue. Wonderful photos and concise accounting of your travel is much appreciated. And yes...my wife and I love airplanes.

The city of Comox here on Vancouver Island, has a small city run air force museum just outside CFBase Comox. If you ever have the opportunity, it's worth a walk through. Not large, but very well done and includes many displays covering this regions air history during WW2. We'd most certainly love to get to the air museums you've explored in your travelogue...

Hopefully the border will open and stay open sometime in the next 5 years.

[Mike G]

Thanks for showing us these gems of the country, in plane sight.

[Donna D.]

Thanks so much for sharing your travels with all of us Mike and also for taking the time to lay it out with great pictures!

[Vermilye]

Very nice! Thanks for posting.