It's good to be home. It was good to be on vacation – even better than I expected, since I couldn't get a VPN connection and so couldn't do any of the work I'd intended to take on as a compromise to not going at all – but it's always good to be back home. Everything's still standing, which tells me that the cats didn't get too angry about being abandoned and that the neighborhood kids didn't trash the place as revenge for our not being here to hand out candy.
We went to Destin again this year to spend a week with my in-laws. The weather was a bit chilly, but unlike last year we had all sunny days. Turtle and her mom got out a couple days to lie by the pool absorbing carcinogenic rays and did some shopping. Meanwhile, I hung out with my father-in-law. Like me, he generally prefers to just hang out, chatting and catching up on reading; but on Thursday we took a little guy excursion to the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin Air Force Base.
Like a lot of guys, I've always had a certain fascination with planes and guns. When I was a kid, I was particularly interested in WW I and WW II aircraft. I read the stories about Eddie Rickenbacker and Jimmy Doolittle and became somewhat familiar with the planes they flew and the weapons with which their planes were armed. It's one thing to read and look at pictures, but it's way cool to see the planes and weapons up close. Antique Vickers and Spandau machine guns, General Electric gatlings ranging from the smallish helicopter mounted variety to huge ship-mounted specimens with barrels 20 feet long. And bombs of all shapes and sizes with explanations of what they were for and how they worked. On the one hand, it was disturbing to think about the destruction of which their live counterparts were capable; but from an engineering perspective… fascinating.
Outside, I got to see and stand under the wings of an SR-71 Blackbird, a B-25 bomber like the one Jimmy Doolittle flew on his historic raid, and a B-17 “flying fortress” like the one on which one of our friends from church was a ball turret gunner during WW II. Talk about claustrophobic! The ball is so small even with the guns and seat removed (was there a seat?) that I couldn't imagine how someone could fit in it, much less track and fire on enemy aircraft while hanging exposed under the belly of the plane.
And then there was the MOAB – the emerald-green, schoolbus-sized bomb of the type used in Afghanistan for bunker busting. The thing was so huge, I can't even picture how something like that would be deployed. If you want a look go here and mouse over “MOAB” on the map.
I'm still kicking myself for forgetting my camera.
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4 comments:
My response to seeing the Blackbird at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in DC, was very girl-like. I cried. So much power. I'm not sure what else it could be. I also cry at airshow fly-bys...and bicycle races. 8-}
Glad you had a fun getaway.
@gwynne: you would have loved impromptu air shows, then. Most evenings, there were four WW II single-engine trainers that flew around over the shore and a short distance over the Gulf, blowing smoke trails while they performed aerobatic maneuvers and flew in close formation. Hearing the roar of those four engines just did something to me. Very cool.
WV: “dupensin” – Prescription medication used to treat election campaign fatigue.
Sounds like a very interesting outing for you Alpha Males.
When this election is over I'm going to write a memoir titled "how I skated through this election year completely oblivious to what was going on and very happy to be so".
I'm sort of kidding, I kind of know whats going on
Gwynee,
I wanted to crash the Male Outing, but was forced to shop and spend money. ACTUALLY, I wanted to do both. Unfortunately, I know the male parental wouldn't allow it, since he prefers Foo over his own daughter. At least, that's what he tells me.
Turtle
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