Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Magical Mystery Tour...part 1
OK, so now I was moving on the plan. Yessir, I was determined to do everything we could on this trip....as long as it was low budget. I know, right now you're saying "But Mark, how could that be any fun?" But let me tell ya something, can any of you say you've been to the worlds biggest ball of twine? Neither can we, we decided not to go...but thats not the point, we could have! Cawker City, Kansas was definitely within reach this trip.
No, instead we started closer to home, with something we had put off doing since we arrived in Rapid...the South Dakota Air and Space Museum! I know! How cool is that? And the best part? IT'S FREE!! It was only about 10 miles north of town and on the way out, so how could we not stop?
OK, OK settle down...take your seats. As we pulled into theparking Staging Area (that's Air Force talk), I laid eyes on a dozen or so of the biggest and fastest birds this country has ever flown in wartime...and about a 1/2 dozen other assorted turkeys. Don't get me wrong, I love a good Air Force Museum...Dayton, Ohio has one of the best. But this wasn't one of them. The planes I saw from the "Staging Area" were, in fact, 95% of what they had.
None-the-less, we walked the lot, kicked a few tires and then went inside totalk to a salesman check out the displays. We did get to see a realistic mock up of an ICBM (& if you do, clean it up! ewww!) silo. Also, I was able to get into the cockpit of a jet trainer.
If you click the image, you can witness my utter confusion of being at the controls. Now I understand why chimps look so confused during test flights. Come to think of it, I look like a confused chimp during a test flight.
Finishing our tour of the museum, it was time we head towards our first camp spot, boondocking in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland. For those of you unfamiliar, boondocking is the art of camping without hookups, or sometimes without the property owners permission, or sometimes illegally on public or private land. But, I digress. We actually were allowed by law to boondock in the grasslands, but we actually were not able to find a suitable spot, as all the access ways were extremely uneven and rutted. LeAnna has some aversion to dishes flying from cupboard to floor, so we came to a consensus that perhaps the wiser move was to go back to Wall, (the town, not the Pink Floyd thing), home of the famous Wall Drug, and park in a truck stop.
Having secured permission, (I said it was sometimes without the property owners permission), We proceeded to fix some much needed chow and catch a little tube before calling it a night.
What could possibly top this day? I'll tell ya...how 'bout walking skeletons & fun with cars!
Keep It Here!
Chao.
No, instead we started closer to home, with something we had put off doing since we arrived in Rapid...the South Dakota Air and Space Museum! I know! How cool is that? And the best part? IT'S FREE!! It was only about 10 miles north of town and on the way out, so how could we not stop?
OK, OK settle down...take your seats. As we pulled into the
None-the-less, we walked the lot, kicked a few tires and then went inside to
If you click the image, you can witness my utter confusion of being at the controls. Now I understand why chimps look so confused during test flights. Come to think of it, I look like a confused chimp during a test flight.
Finishing our tour of the museum, it was time we head towards our first camp spot, boondocking in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland. For those of you unfamiliar, boondocking is the art of camping without hookups, or sometimes without the property owners permission, or sometimes illegally on public or private land. But, I digress. We actually were allowed by law to boondock in the grasslands, but we actually were not able to find a suitable spot, as all the access ways were extremely uneven and rutted. LeAnna has some aversion to dishes flying from cupboard to floor, so we came to a consensus that perhaps the wiser move was to go back to Wall, (the town, not the Pink Floyd thing), home of the famous Wall Drug, and park in a truck stop.
Having secured permission, (I said it was sometimes without the property owners permission), We proceeded to fix some much needed chow and catch a little tube before calling it a night.
What could possibly top this day? I'll tell ya...how 'bout walking skeletons & fun with cars!
Keep It Here!
Chao.
