Fort Stockton, Texas to Alamogordo, New Mexico, September 26th through the 29th, 2016. Mike here, giving Edie some time off. We were in Alamogordo visiting Stacey, the widow of Edie’s younger brother, Buddy. Buddy’s most untimely death at such a young age was a major factor in the travel adventure that we have undertaken.
Ft. Stockton is a town we were unhappily in before many years ago on a motor home trip with the kids. We were ready to leave after a pleasant enough night.
Edie was shooting for a sit down hot breakfast. It was more of a muffin bagel place with good coffee.
The road was uneventful, which is always good, and we got there and were well greeted by Stacey and her lovely dog, Angel.
At Stacey’s and she did not want her picture taken, we respect family wishes. Her dog, Angel, made no such request.She even posed somewhat.
We tried to do little fix-its for Stacey while we were there and on the middle day of the visit I treated myself to a tour of the Space Museum.
It is a huge complex – museum, a theater and a planetarium.On the road up to the museum.It is a Hall of Fame as well as a museum.Holloman Aero Med, (HAM) is buried here. The first Chimpanzee into outer space.The only picture of him here.Working your way in from the parking lot you go through a rocket garden.White Sands at the base of the distant mountains. The blue roof is the large theater.The museum sits up in the foothills of Alamogordo. White Sands is barely visible in the distance on the upper right.
Too fun.Was wishing pretty woman was with me this day. Reminds me of the Hall of Whispers in Montana Capitol building and the curved wall in the forbidden city so the Emperor could hear what others were saying about him.I think this was a heck of a way to do it, test if it is possible, death be damned.The actual sled. I did not climb on it.Handsome building suggestive of a rocket launch pad.Stealth cockpit simulator.Too cool.The elevator is way cool, graphics and sound effects. I think they recorded a elevator going up a real gantry and they play it really loud, like you are headed for a ride.You start on the fourth floor and work your way down. There is a huge amount of memorabilia.The half moon sat on the wall behind all of Walter Cronkite’s broadcasts covering moon landings.
Entry into the Hall of Fame is open to a broad group. Plaques are displayed throughout the exhibits.Those that promoted space travel and many others.
One of my personal favorites.A shoe in for the Hall of Fame.Good read.I’ve been seeing a lot of these spheres lately.An actual one on display.The rock encased in a pyramid of clear Lucite. I preferred the one at Cape Canaveral that you could actually touch.Lots of old suits.Fun windows on the back side.Makes one grateful for regular facilities.The toilet.The many layers of protection.Capsule simulator, just real enough to make me sea sick.Future sled ride!A great time line of rockets.Exploration, weaponization.They make rocket science easy.The rocketry father, Dr Goddard.A great timeline using sunlight to illuminate the presentation.Not readable at night.A section does an excellent job of explaining how guidance systems work.They explain the gyroscopic forces and how that is used to determine up down and side to side. They go on with a video explaining how it all got shrunk, turned into an accelorometer and put in our phones.It takes several hours to read and admire all the displays and artifacts.Two flags that went to the moon and returned.A letter and ceremonial pen renaming White Sands, adding “Harbor” to the title.Ceremonial penA whole section to the movies and books that have glorified and told the story of space travel and other worlds.Greatly honored here.Much honored.H.G. Wells is greatly honored here.Some wonderful H.G. Wells quotes. My favorite among these, “We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each and every moment of life is a miracle and a mystery.”There is a section dedicated to pioneers like Elon Musk, we admire his work and his companies.I watched a presentation in here. What a mistake, I was the only one in the audience. It was a lecture with slides about the constellations. A really nice guy with a laser pointer showing where sagittarius is, and the crab, and so on about stuff I could care less about. It turned into a 35 minute fight to stay awake. I am sure I snored several times.
These are the highlights from Alamogordo, hope you had some great days.
