Author’s note – This was all pretty much finished on Sunday, but it’s taken a while to get the pics uploaded and properly edited. I’ll try to get the video up soon.

Yeah, it was a busy weekend, but it was worth it all around :thumb: ! This is a bit of a long post, so hit the jump for the whole story and pics I do have video, but that’s going to take a while to get all together so it’ll have to wait for a future post

Friday saw me leave Las Vegas at about 1300 (had to stop for gas, snacks, and caffeine ) and arrive at Adrienne’s place in Fontana at about 1700 which included a stop in Baker, CA and traffic due to bad weather in the Cajon Pass.

Christmas gifts were exchanged (I got a P-61 Black Widow plastic model kit !) and we headed on down to Bass Pro Shops and the Islamadora Fish Company for dinner – and what a dinner it was!!! Hanging out with my friends, checking out the huge aquarium, eating good food (grilled blackened mahi mahi, grouper, and conch fritters YUM!), with excellent steel drum music and some of my favorite obscure Jimmy Buffett tracks on the soundtrack… it just don’t get too much better than that

We closed the night back at Adrienne’s where we opened the bottle of Jeremiah Weed I gave her last year. Adrienne and Jose both expressed some apprehension, but eventually agreed that they liked it and that it was as sweet as I had said, but that it wasn’t the easiest stuff going down. About how I figured they’d take it

Saturday saw Adrienne’s sister Haven show up with her 14-month-old son Locke at about 0800. Funny – we were all still in bed ! After we made ourselves presentable, we headed out for some food and then off to the Planes of Fame museum !

We arrived at the museum at about 1045 and after listening to some of the presentation, I decided to explore the museum with Adrienne, Haven, and Locke as I figured they wouldn’t really be all that interested and I wanted to spend time with them after so long apart – it had been quite a while since I’d seen Adrienne and Haven and I had never seen Locke before.

So is the museum worth a three to four hour drive? You bet it is :thumb: !

Walking into the first hangar from the gift shop, we were greeted by several planes including the P-38 “23 Skidoo” and a very rare Boeing P-26 Peashooter! The adjoining hangar included a P-36 Airacobra, the last remaining “razorback” P-47 Thunderbolt, the Laird-Turner Special, and a few other planes. Outside on the front side of the hangar (facing the street and parking) we found “Piccadilly Lilly” – the museum’s B-17 Flying Fortress which is undergoing a slow restoration to flying status. I pointed out a few things and pictures were taken before returning to the hangar. Going into the next adjoining hangar found us on a balcony over a restoration workshop where we found an F-4F Wildcat, an F-4U Corsair, F-9F Panther, and though I could only see the wingtips (the wings were folded and the rest of the plane was behind other planes), there was even a Ryan Fireball!

We decided to sit back in the folding chairs which had been vacated following the presentation and eat some lunch while waiting for the P-40 to fly. Of course, we also checked out the P-40, pictures were taken, and more was learned.

Finally it was time and the pilot and lucky passenger (chosen by raffle from among the attending museum members) kicked the tires, lit the fires, and took to the wild gray yonder It was a rare treat to hear that Allison V-12 come to life, to see the aircraft shake, to feel the prop wash as she taxied out for takeoff. The flight was several passes over the museum at a somewhat high altitude, but there was no waiver so this couldn’t be helped.

This particular P-40 also has a true war record and an aerial victory in WWII ! Back then, the Japanese launched long range balloons with incendiary bombs which rode the jet stream to North America and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) pilot flying the aircraft managed to shoot down one of those balloons which makes this aircraft even more special. I don’t think Adrienne or Haven had ever seen a P-40 fly in person before, but I think they’d both seen this one on screen before as it flew in the movie Pearl Harbor. Both of them had a good time and even Locke enjoyed the events Many pictures were again taken, video recorded, and much more learned.

We checked out several more hangars where we discovered such treats as a Hawker Hurricane, Spitfire Mk XIV, the sole surviving Japanese Zero which still flies with its original engine, a German Me-163 Komet and V1 “Buzz Bomb,” MiGs, Sabre Jets, T-Birds, a Heinkel He-162A, OV-1 Mohawk, F-7F Tigercat, QF-100 Super Sabre, and several P-51 Mustangs along with too much more to list.

The last hangar we went through housed a Japanese plane (I’m not sure what it was as I’m not as good with Japanese aircraft), the B-25 “Photo Fanny,” the last Northrop flying wing “N9M” and a P-59 Airacomet – the first type of U.S. jet airplane :notworthy: ! All were undergoing work with the P-59 on its way back to flying status where it will be the only flying example in the world!

There was still more to see, but Locke was getting cold, Adrienne and Haven were getting tired, and it was getting late (I still had to drive back to Las Vegas) so we took our leave after I dropped a couple of dollars in the gift shop .

This will most certainly not be my last trip to Planes of Fame and I can guarantee that I will do everything I can to be at their airshow (with plenty of film ) in May and I’ll probably make the trip just for the day in the not too distant future

The trip back was very quick and uneventful It was non-stop, took about a half a tank of gas, and only about three hours. Time passed quickly partly because I had a wonderful chat with Kerry for about an hour or so. She had just returned from three weeks in Scotland and we had lots to talk about

Sunday was spent getting film developed, pictures loaded onto the computer and edited, and some time was spent vegetating and recovering. I would have gone fishing, but the temperature was down and the wind was gusting to 40 miles per hour.

The whole weekend was wonderful and I can’t wait to do it all again before too long

Here’s some more pics from the museum – enjoy :thumb: ! Click here to go to the gallery album for this trip