Visit to the National Naval Aviation Museum

We slept in this morning and woke up to overcast skies and the feeling it was going to rain any moment. We called our friends Ann and Lance and arranged to visit with them Tuesday. 

Big Lagoon State Park is near the Pensacola Naval Air Station which is the home-base for the Blue Angels.This afternoon after lunch we drove onto the base and stopped at the post gas station to get gas ($2.779 a gallon). Then we drove over to the National Naval Aviation Museum. 

The museum is open every day except for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's days and it is free. The first thing you see when you walk up to the museum is this F-14A Tomcat.

We had to go through a security check, showing our ID and I had to open my purse for the security person to see what I had in it. Then we received a brochure that showed the floor-plan of the museum and what exhibits were in each area.

We started in the South Wing which had the WWI planes

and early aircraft  and early Cold War aircraft on display.

Elliott Museum & Sikorsky X2 Helicopter

Earlier this month we had seen an article in our local newspaper about the Sikorsky X2, the world's fastest helicopter, being on display this week at the Elliott Museum in Stuart.

From Elliott Museum

The museum also has Leonardo daVinci's Machines in Motion on display and it has 40 operational actual-size working machines made from daVinci's drawings.

We left the house this morning at 9:30 and drove south on US-1 to Ft. Pierce to A1A and then south to the Elliott Museum on Hutchinson Island - a trip of 48 miles. We arrived at the Elliott Museum a little after 10:40 and paid $20 (senior rate for 2) admission.

Just inside the museum entrance was a display of bicycles and machines invented by Sterling Elliott (the museum is named for him and his son Harmon). Among many of Sterling Elliott's inventions was a bicycle designed for women and the egg carton just to name a few.

From Elliott Museum

Our next stop was at the Machines in Motion exhibit which is a traveling exhibit and has been at the Elliott Museum since March. It was great to see

Dish 500 works and visiting Luray Caverns

This morning after breakfast we connected the Dish 500 antenna again with the switch box and still no satellite reception. There was a Dish 500 a couple of campsites over from where ours was set up and Mike walked over to look at the connections. There were 2 cables connected to the antenna, but only 1 was connected to the RV.

So Mike disconnected the switch box and tried connecting to just one of the cables and it worked! According to the directions we had we should have connected to the satellite 119 cable (that hadn't worked), so Mike connected to the satellite 110 cable and success. We now can get both 110 and 119 satellites and we're finally able to watch all of the channels that come with our Dish package.

We had an early lunch and then drove south on US-340 for 30 miles to visit Luray Caverns. I had a coupon that I had picked up last month when we in eastern Virginia that gives us a $5 discount on an adult ticket to the caverns.

From Luray Caverns

We arrived at Luray Caverns at 1:30, parked the car and walked up to the entrance. We paid $19 for each of our tickets. The regular adult price is $24 and the senior ticket price is $21, so we got a good deal using our $5 discount coupon. After purchasing our tickets, we got in line for the cavern tours.

A few minutes before 2:00 we walked down some stairs and met Hannah who was our guide through the caverns. She told us that the caverns were discovered on August 13, 1878 when Andrew Campbell, his nephew and 3 other men were

Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum

We both slept well last night and the traffic noise from I-84 didn’t bother us. This morning after breakfast we walked around the campground and took photos. It’s still windy and pleasantly cool.

After lunch we drove west to Hood River to visit the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum – WAAAM.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

We were greeted by museum volunteers Perry and Don.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

We paid the $10 each (senior tickets) and were given a diagram of the museum. We walked through a door into the first display area called Hangar M1 which covers pre-WW II and is 37,500 square feet.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

There were antique tractors, automobiles and airplanes. This is a photo of just ONE row of antique autos.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

The best way to describe Hangar M1 is WOW! I’ll just let the photos Mike took speak for themselves.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

We saw these 2 airplanes that had appeared in the movie "The Tarnished Angles" with Rock Hudson, Robert Taylor and Dorothy Malone.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 2

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 2

There was a small section devoted to women aviators.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 2

We next went into Hangar M2 which contains vehicles from WW II and later and is 45,000 square feet. Again another WOW!

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

There were classic autos, more motorcycles, military vehicles and airplanes and a play area for children with a motorcycle and helicopter for them to get on.

From Western Antique Aeroplane & Automobile Museum 1

He took so many photos that I’ve divided them into 2 web albums – one album for autos, motorcycles and other vehicles, and one album for airplanes.

I am so glad that I picked up a brochure for the museum at the campground last night. We wouldn’t have known about it and we would have missed a great museum.

We even had a good view of Mt. Hood from the museum. We learned that there is a huge forest fire near Mt. Hood and that is smoke not haze that we see.

We drove through the downtown are of Hood River and it is very attractive and a LOT of coffee shops.

1916 Palm Beach County Courthouse & Ragtops

This morning we drove up I-95 to West Palm Beach and exited at Okeechobee Road. It wasn't too long before we came upon City Place - a beautiful upscale shopping and dining development. We didn't have time to stop there today - we'll have to do that on another trip to the area.

From May 2011

We found a parking place across the street from the Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum which is housed in the 1916 Palm Beach County Courthouse.

From 1916 Palm Beach County Courthouse

Inside the museum, which is free, we were given a brief history of the restoration of the courthouse. The first exhibit we saw was called "Feather Wars: Surviving Fashion 1870-1920". This is a temporary exhibit that documents how a world-wide trend in women's hats caused near devastation of birds such as the Snowy Egret. Any one with a gun could hunt the birds for their plumage and the plumage of the Snowy Egret brought the same price-per-ounce as gold.

From 1916 Palm Beach County Courthouse

Our next stop was an exhibit about The People of Palm Beach County from the Pre-Columbian inhabitants, Seminole Indians, the early pioneers and to modern business and community leaders. Here we watched a 7 minute film narrated by George Hamilton about the people who helped make Palm Beach County what it is today.

We saw an exhibit about the Barefoot Mailmen. These men walked the 68 miles from West Palm Beach to Miami because there was no road and about 28 miles had to be taken by using several different boats. The Barefoot Mailmen walked that route from 1885 to 1892 when a rock road was built.

From 1916 Palm Beach County Courthouse

The next exhibit was about The Place which explored the environment and animals and the different communities that make up Palm Beach County.

After leaving the museum, we went across the street to the current Courthouse

From May 2011

and then one block over to the City Hall to do some genealogical research on Mike's family. By then we were starving and stopped at the Subway near the City Hall.

We made a brief stop at Woodlawn Cemetery to take photos of my family's gravestones and located one for the Neale family and took a photo of the gravestone.

Our next stop was at Ragtops on S. Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach. Ragtops is located in the old Twin City Chevrolet building where my father, brother and sister-in-law worked in the 1950's. We went into Ragtops and found out that they were preparing for a special dinner event and that a lot of the cars in the museum weren't on display. We were still able to look around at the cars they did have on display.

From Ragtops

Before heading back to the RV we drove south on Dixie Highway to Lake Worth. We drove by the houses that Mike & I grew up in and then we went downtown and stopped at the Lake Worth Post Office to take a photo of the mural in there.

From John Prince Park & Lake Worth

When we returned to John Prince Park, we stopped by to see Paul & Diane who came in today to attend the 50th class reunion. Then this evening after dinner Paul & Diane came over for a visit. There was a nice breeze coming across Lake Osborne and we sat outside and caught up on each other's lives.

Sightseeing around Gaylord

Today we went sightseeing around Gaylord. We stopped back by the Gaylord Visitor Center to take photos of the 1911 Gaylord 30 car.

From Gaylord, MI

After leaving the Visitor Center, Mike and Al decided they needed to find a bathroom and we remembered seeing a public restroom near there. We took photos of Mike and Al by the restroom and this was the beginning of Mike and Al’s “Outhouse Tour”.

From Mike and Al's Outhouse Tour

There is a “Walking Tour of Gaylord” and we had gotten a brochure at the Visitor Center. We took photos of Adm. Farragut’s cannon on the lawn of the City/County Building, the Buck House and the Kramer House.

From Gaylord, MI

The Otsego Wildlife Legacy Society launched a fundraiser called “The Owlpine Bear Trail”. Local businesses purchased and had local artists decorate these 4’ bears which are located around Gaylord. I had downloaded and printed the map of The Owlpine Bear Trail and we drove around taking photos of some of them.

From Gaylord, MI

On our drive around Gaylord locating the Owlpine Bears and local sights, we had driven by the Big Bear Delicatessen and decided to go back and have lunch there. We all had sandwiches and wished we could take the restaurant with us on our trip.

From Gaylord, MI

After lunch we stopped at Lowe’s, Radio Shack and Wal-Mart to do some shopping before returning to the campground.

After dinner we drove out to see the Elk herd the City of Gaylord maintains. I had called the Visitor Center yesterday and got directions to the herd. We could only see a few elk at the first place we went to, but I had gotten directions to the location where the city fed the elk and we drove over there. The elk were eating up next to the fence and we would see more out in the field.

From Gaylord, MI

After visiting the elk herd and before going back to the RVs, we decided to stop at Gobbler’s Restaurant to get some ice cream. Mike and Al each bought a box of oatmeal cookies to take home.

Hershey Chocolate World & Antique Auto Museum

This morning we drove up to Hershey, PA to Hershey's Chocolate World & the Antique Auto Museum.
We went to Hershey's Chocolate World first. There we went on Hershey’s Great American Chocolate Tour which is an interactive ride (similar to those at Disney World) that took us through the process of making chocolate all the way to the packaged product. We followed the cocoa bean as it went from the tropical rainforest and through the processes that transforms it into chocolate. At the end of our ride we were given samples of Hershey's new candy, Bliss. We stopped by the photo shop to purchase a photo of us that had been taken while we were on the ride.

From Hershey's Chocolate World

After our Hershey tour we drove over to the Antique Auto Museum which is about 2 miles away from Hershey's Chocolate World. There we saw vehicles dating from the 1890’s up to the 1970’s.
We saw this 1926 Pierce Arrow touring sedan that chauffeured movie stars from their homes in the Hollywood Hills to Paramount Studios during the 1920’s.

From AACA Museum, Hershey, PA

This 1936 Ford Cabriolet was used by Matt Damon in the movie “The Good Shepherd”.

From AACA Museum, Hershey, PA

You can view all the photos we took at the Antique Auto Museum in our photo album.