So today, there I was.....

Half Fast

Half Fast

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Half Fast
.... driving across Kansas with SWMBO on a month-long road trip to see a bit of the West, when she spoke up and suggested going through Liberal. She lived there for a while after college, working for Dekalb, and wanted to see the place again. Liberal?! I was a bit, uh, let's say reluctant, so she enticed me by mentioning that there was an air museum there. Well, that's different. Okay, let's go!

What I didn't realize until we got there was that the Mid-America Air Museum is housed in the old Beech factory where the Musketeers were built. Pretty cool to see my plane's birthplace! They have a large collection with some very interesting planes. Of course, the best plane in the collection is the Musketeer Sport, but it was also neat to see their Corsair, their Beech Starship, their Mitchell B25, their Avenger, their Mooney Mite, etc.

If you find yourself in the neighborhood, check it out. (There ain't a lot else to see in Liberal, anyway.....)

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You were driving?...........
Turn in your man card.
OK, that looks interesting.
Keep your card.
 
Where else is this trip taking you?
 
Cool!

Wave as you go by the Wichita area…I’ll probably be halfway to Arkansas, but… ;)
 
I don't know where you're coming from or going to, but if you can find an excuse to go through Hutchinson, KS, you should visit the Cosmosphere.

There is no reason such an amazing collection of space-related artifacts should exist in such a small town in the middle of nowhere, but it does, and anyone who's interested in space stuff should make a pilgrimage there at least once in their life.
 
Racerx said:
Where else is this trip taking you?
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We’re booked for a week at a ranch resort near Jackson, WY, and on the way out and back we’ll try to see Mesa Verde NP, Monument Valley, Rocky Mtn NP, and a few other places. Hopefully spend a few days at Yellowstone. Maybe visit the Little Bighorn battlefield. Month-long road trip.
 
Half Fast said:
We’re booked for a week at a ranch resort near Jackson, WY, and on the way out and back we’ll try to see Mesa Verde NP, Monument Valley, Rocky Mtn NP, and a few other places. Hopefully spend a few days at Yellowstone. Maybe visit the Little Bighorn battlefield. Month-long road trip.
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When ya gonna be there? Google Jackson Hole Rodeo. Stumbled across that years ago on what was just a trip to do the Yellowstone thing. Anyway, sometimes ya just need a Road Trip.

 
Jim_R said:
I don't know where you're coming from or going to, but if you can find an excuse to go through Hutchinson, KS, you should visit the Cosmosphere.

There is no reason such an amazing collection of space-related artifacts should exist in such a small town in the middle of nowhere, but it does, and anyone who's interested in space stuff should make a pilgrimage there at least once in their life.
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Been there. Absolutely AMAZING.
 
Half Fast said:
We’re booked for a week at a ranch resort near Jackson, WY, and on the way out and back we’ll try to see Mesa Verde NP, Monument Valley, Rocky Mtn NP, and a few other places. Hopefully spend a few days at Yellowstone. Maybe visit the Little Bighorn battlefield. Month-long road trip.
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That sounds awesome and painful all at the same time. :)
 
Speaking of Kansas, my favorite airport in that state is in Pratt. Look in your handy-dandy A/FD and read the remarks, and you'll see why. Those remarks are what made me decide to refuel there once (it was on the way). I learned the story behind that one. You can probably imagine.

Why that configuration, you might ask? It was one of many WWII airfields that were scattered across the country. Sometime after the war, two of the runways were repurposed, with interesting results.
 
That's a quaint looking Mousekateer.
 
Jim_R said:
I don't know where you're coming from or going to, but if you can find an excuse to go through Hutchinson, KS, you should visit the Cosmosphere.

There is no reason such an amazing collection of space-related artifacts should exist in such a small town in the middle of nowhere, but it does, and anyone who's interested in space stuff should make a pilgrimage there at least once in their life.
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Cosmosphere is a must see, and it looks like I am flying to PTT next time I'm in the area just to see it for myself :D
 
Half Fast said:
We’re booked for a week at a ranch resort near Jackson, WY, and on the way out and back we’ll try to see Mesa Verde NP, Monument Valley, Rocky Mtn NP, and a few other places. Hopefully spend a few days at Yellowstone. Maybe visit the Little Bighorn battlefield. Month-long road trip.
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Done it all except Monument Valley. Pro tip: stay at the lodge in Mesa Verde. We loved RMNP and a few days just aren’t enough. There’s a small moose population that can sometimes be spotted near the Grandby entrance.
 
TCABM said:
Pro tip: stay at the lodge in Mesa Verde.
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Thanks for the suggestion, but it looks to be booked up for this weekend. We're in Durango tonight, headed for Mesa Verde NP tomorrow, then onward to Monument Valley.

So far we're really enjoying the trip. On the way out we drove US-61 (aka "the blues highway") through MS, visited the BB King museum (he's buried there), and stopped at The Crossroads in Clarksdale. All very cool if you're a guitar player. :)
 
judypilot said:
Speaking of Kansas, my favorite airport in that state is in Pratt. Look in your handy-dandy A/FD and read the remarks, and you'll see why. Those remarks are what made me decide to refuel there once (it was on the way). I learned the story behind that one. You can probably imagine.

Why that configuration, you might ask? It was one of many WWII airfields that were scattered across the country. Sometime after the war, two of the runways were repurposed, with interesting results.
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Well, heck. We spent the night in Pratt on Wed, but I didn't know about the airport.
 
Visited Bandelier for the first time last year. Amazing.
 
Kitch said:
Cosmosphere is a must see, and it looks like I am flying to PTT next time I'm in the area just to see it for myself :D
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Why on God’s green Earth, in the middle of small town Kansas, would they have the recovered Liberty Bell 7, the Apollo 13 command module Odyssey, or Michael Collins’ first space suit??

Maybe museums rotate memorabilia, but that’s what I saw when I was there…. Plus a ton of other great stuff.
 
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TCABM said:
Sunset, sunrise, and park opening/closing times.
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Sunrise/sunset, I get that. That you need to get tour tickets to do most of the interesting things inside the park kinda makes the opening/closing times somewhat moot.
 
Half Fast said:
Thanks for the suggestion, but it looks to be booked up for this weekend. We're in Durango tonight, headed for Mesa Verde NP tomorrow, then onward to Monument Valley.

So far we're really enjoying the trip. On the way out we drove US-61 (aka "the blues highway") through MS, visited the BB King museum (he's buried there), and stopped at The Crossroads in Clarksdale. All very cool if you're a guitar player. :)
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We did the Highway 61 thing about 20 years ago Southbound. Picked it up near Helena Arkansas and spent 4 nights getting to New Orleans. Did you see the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale?
 
luvflyin said:
We did the Highway 61 thing about 20 years ago Southbound. Picked it up near Helena Arkansas and spent 4 nights getting to New Orleans. Did you see the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale?
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No, we’d already done the BB King museum that morning and SWMBO was losing patience with me already. Getting her to take my pic at the crossroads was about the limit.
 
Jim_R said:
I don't know where you're coming from or going to, but if you can find an excuse to go through Hutchinson, KS, you should visit the Cosmosphere.

There is no reason such an amazing collection of space-related artifacts should exist in such a small town in the middle of nowhere, but it does, and anyone who's interested in space stuff should make a pilgrimage there at least once in their life.
Click to expand...
:yeahthat:
I completely agree. It's worth at least an afternoon of your time. Tammy and I went through it years ago, shortly before an employee was caught and charged with stealing the exhibits and selling them. That was when I was working for Cessna in Wichita.
 
Kitch said:
Cosmosphere is a must see...
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Yes.

It's been quite a few years since I've been there, and it never disappoints.

The last time I was there they had either just added or put on display some captured V1 and V2 rockets. They had removed a panel and found where concentration camp slave laborers had written their names inside.

A long time ago one of our local FBOs organized a fly-in to HUT and the Cosmosphere. We ended up with about 10 airplanes, maybe more. The idea was to stagger our departures in groups of 3-4 so we wouldn't all get to HUT at the same time. That never works. All 10+ of us ended up in a line strung out for a lot of miles. Then, completely unrelated to our fly-in, there was another group of 5-6 planes coming in from the opposite direction at the same time. There was a Baron working on practice approaches when both our groups called in. That tower controller probably spilled his coffed and dropped his breakfast biscuit on the floor. He ended up doing a really good job, and we were all very careful knowing the guy had just gotten hammered. Eventually, he did tell the Baron it was safe to leave the hold.

Good times.
 
My wife & I were in Grand Teton last week. I highly recommend the Jackson Hole Playhouse production of Oklahoma running this season. Dinner is nice with the wait staff (also show cast members) singing and the show was very nicely done.
 
jsstevens said:
My wife & I were in Grand Teton last week. I highly recommend the Jackson Hole Playhouse production of Oklahoma running this season. Dinner is nice with the wait staff (also show cast members) singing and the show was very nicely done.
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Well, as they say, if you want to hear God laugh, just tell him your plans.

Our plan was to visit Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons national parks for the next several days, but......

We're sitting in a Super 8 motel in Dubois, WY at the moment. Apparently we got the last room in town. Tried to get up to the Grand Tetons this afternoon and got turned back. Seems there's a bad wildfire between Dubois and Moran and they've closed US 26 due to the smoke.

We're supposed to check in at the Triangle C ranch ( https://www.trianglec.com/ ) on Sunday for a week, but I don't think we'll be able to get there until the road opens. They're forecasting reopening 26 on Sunday, so we'll see. Considering this is only Thu, that Sunday forecast tells me they don't have it under control and they're guessing.

Another part of our carefully crafted plan was to meet another couple at the ranch, but they flew into Jackson today and are currently stuck in a hotel in Moran, so the fire and the ranch are between us and them.

Not much we can do except sit and wait, so tomorrow I'm going fishing. Stopped by a fly shop and they told me the Windy River is fishing well right now, so my plan (?!) is to wet a streamer in the morning and see what happens.
 
Here's what we're dealing with. This is a pic of the ranch where we'll begin our stay tomorrow, looking toward the NW. I've circled the main plume of smoke coming from the wildfire.

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Here's a map of the Fishcreek fire. The arrow indicates the approximate location of the ranch.

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Tonight we're in Dubois and should be able to get to the ranch tomorrow, but venturing up to the Tetons or Yellowstone is problematic. US 26 is being closed intermittently, depending on smoke and wind conditions, a few miles NW of the ranch. If it's open in the morning and we go, it could close in the afternoon (it's closed at 1pm the past couple of days) and we'd be stuck. The only way back requires a 6 to 7 hour drive, making a big loop on the west side.

So as much as I'd like to see the parks, we're sorta stuck right now. When we leave the ranch in a week, if the road is open we'll go then and plan to start making our way back east from Yellowstone.

C'est la vacation travel.....
 
Zeldman said:
Looks like the best plan might be the escape plan...
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Well, we can bail to the south if necessary, but I'm hoping it won't be.

I've really been looking forward to fishing the rivers in the Tetons and Yellowstone. I've fished a couple of spots on the Wind River here in Dubois but it's not great; caught one 11" brown trout yesterday but nothing this morning. The wind has picked up dramatically, making fly fishing difficult.

Oh well.
 
Did you get to Grand Teton?
 
jsstevens said:
Did you get to Grand Teton?
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Drove up there today but only had time for a drive-thru. Beautiful area; words can't describe it and pictures just don't capture it. We'll likely go through the area again when we leave the ranch where we're staying.

Meanwhile we're having a great time here. Went on a great horseback ride yesterday and did a little flyfishing. Going fishing again tomorrow.
 
It IS gorgeous! No question!
 
Unfortunately we aren't seeing deer, elk, moose, etc., in the numbers we did when we visited the area in 2011. One of the wranglers here at the ranch told me that predators are now being protected through a wider area (wolves and coyotes primarily, also bears), so their population is growing and that of prey animals is shrinking, or the deer, etc., are staying in more protected and remote areas.

Fishing is off. Water level is very low.
 
Well, we're making our way homeward. Stopped off to see the Little Bighorn Battlefield this morning (smaller than I'd imagined), and we're in Cheyenne tonight.

We had a great time at the Triangle C ranch and I highly recommend it if you're looking for that sort of get-away. The food was out of this world; lots of steaks, but also fresh trout and unbelievable pork chops, plus deserts that would make you weep.. The staff was fantastic. Very attentive, wonderful people, helpful beyond the call of duty. https://www.trianglec.com/

I love this part of the country but I've only seen it in the summertime. I doubt my thin Florida blood could take a Wyoming winter.
 
Sounds like a great trip. You’re heading home - and my wife and plan to leave on our second “Westward Expansion” road trip next Sunday. She needs Oregon and California to “complete” the 48 contiguous states. She picked up 11 last September.

We plan to head west on the northern route (passing Little Big Horn), driving south on some of the Coastal Highway and then head back east on a more southerly route.
 
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