It’s Friday morning and happily we have another wonderful sunny day in store. The plan is to do some errands here in Hampton, including a visit to pick up some marine supplies. We also plan another visit to the Air and Space Museum for an IMAX film on flying. Here’s the trailer, you can watch. But, don’t tell me about it as I don’t want to have it spoiled for me. Hope we can fit that in.
Happily, our SSCA Cruising Station Host, Kate, has offered us the use of her car (how nice is that?) and though things are really close, it will be a lot better with a car. We also hope to fit in a visit to a local historic fort. Should be a fun day.
Yesterday we walked around town and visited to the Virginia Air and Space Museum which, it turns out, is primarily a repository for some of NASA’s best stuff. Here you can see prototypes of many of NASA’s planes and a lot of space related items. One of the best displays was of the Apollo 12 capsule, post re-entry in all of it’s charred glory. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of it. Perhaps today.
Oh yea, our friends Harris and Barbara are coming down to have lunch with us aboard Pandora prior to sweeping us off to their home in Williamsburg for the weekend. We have known them for about 25 years and when we get together we act like we did when we first met. Yes, that would be us in our Not always a pretty picture but loads of fun. Best not to take a lot of photos of us late in the evening. Hmm…That would be us in our 20s.
However, here are some shots of some items/planes that I particularly enjoyed. I am sure that my Dad, a plane nut, would know the names of all of them. Me, only some.
The building itself is quite interesting. I took this shot a few minutes in the early morning light from aboard Pandora. Yes, we are really that close. They say that it evokes flying with it’s two wings. I agree. 
There are many great planes suspended from the ceiling and there is a central staircase that allows you to get to eye level with everything. (Note to management. GET SOMEONE TO DUST THE PLANES!!!)” I tried to give a feel for how much there is in a relatively small space. A lot of stuff crammed inside here. 
It looks like these birds are moving fast even when they are just sitting, our should I say hanging there. 
This is a full size model of the Mars Rover that is up there right now. There is a video of how they landed it. Quite interesting. A number of videos of the mission here. 
This is a favorite of my Dad, the Pitt Special acrobatic plane. It seems that every one of these that I have seen is always some version of red. Good color. My son Rob should give up on his desire for a Shelby Cobra and just buy one of these. They are a lot less expensive. However, his mother (my wife Brenda) would regard that as way worse than his Harley. Here’s a bit of history. That’s history of the plane, not Rob. They have been making Pitts since the 40s. And, on top of that, they are still the plane that all acrobatic aircraft are judged against.
Of course, the Boeing, Stearman Navy trainer is always fun to see. 
And the Piper Cub, the first really popular personal airplane. Not quite as fast as the Pitt.
More to see than I can describe.
And more, more…
When you get to the top observation level you can go outside under one of the roof “wings” and get a commanding view of the harbor. If you look carefully, you can see Pandora out in the harbor at anchor. Why pay for a slip when you can just anchor all by yourself? My friend Chris Blossom commented the other day that when he visited this museum years ago when he was aboard his boat that he was impressed that he visited on one of the worlds slowest forms of transportation to see some of the worlds fastest. That dramatic blue glass building in the right background is the new $20+M dining hall for Hampton University.
A view out toward Hampton Roads, the main drag.
There’s also this neat little creek that runs into a local residential area. Quite amazing views in nearly every direction. It always surprises me how much different things look even if you aren’t that high up off of the ground. 
Today should be fun but first I have to get moving and stop messing with this stupid blog.
One more thing. I saw that Essex CT is expecting a freeze tonight. Bummer for that. Did I say that we were headed south? Thought so. Into the Dismal Swamp Canal on Sunday afternoon I expect.
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