Westward Bound and Determined

Leaving a lot of open nothing behind us, we pointed the Camry west. The next stop would be the granddaddy aircraft museum of all of the southwest; the “Pima Air and Space Museum” in Tucson.

Now, Tucson is only about an axel greasin’ from Santa Teresa so we were there fairly soon. However, after touring Juarez and the “War Eagles” museum, we were a bit behind times; as in….we pulled up to the “Pima Air and Space Museum” just exactly at 5:00 PM. What do you do when you miss one of the premier aircraft museums on the planet (aside from wiping a tear from your one good eye?). You drive around in circles taking pictures through the fence, that’s what! OK…so we looked like chickens running around in a room full of June bugs. So what? We still got a ton of great pictures of planes that I had never seen in person. They even had a late 1940’s Northrop F-89 Scorpion and an old Douglas F3D Skynight for crying out loud! Good stuff.

I had always wanted to get a gander at an F-89 Scorpion. It was one of America’s first all-weather interceptors along with the Lockheed F-94 Starfire. It’s big, it’s, ugly, and it’s beautiful (but only to its mother and to an avid wing nut). I built at least one model of it when I was just a fledgling wannabe airman. With the seat covers only mildly soggy, we were off for the next adventure in Arid-zona (sic).

That would be the next Super Wal-Mart, of course. I lost count of the Supers we hit but, let me tell you, there were still a few that didn’t get knocked over by the Clarence Cleaners. For the uneducated, a “Clarence Cleaner” is someone who hits the clearance racks and cleans them out. I think we’re still unpacking some of the stuff. Hey; how can you pass up a clean new shirt that fits and has all the buttons for about 1.87?! The windows in the Camry were under a bit of a strain but remained integral despite our efforts to shove them out onto the road with the clothes we stuffed in the back.

And, of course, when you pass through Tucson, you can’t help but pass by the Davis-Monthan AFB. That just happens to be where the USAF stores a LOT of airplanes until further notice. I was certain that they were not only closed, but that they wouldn’t allow a wing nut with a rubber neck to wander around loose on the premises. We tooled on down the highway.

Before long, we were in Eloy. Eloy is the place out in the middle of nowhere in between Tucson and Phoenix. There’s big truck stop, a couple of motels, and a couple of burger places all grouped together. We fueled up and were on our way with me telling Connie about the time cousin Ross Sanders and I were there in his truck. That was the time I was playing “Homer” and trying to learn to keep a big truck between the beer cans a couple of years ago.

We stopped for the night not long after. The next day would be Thanksgiving and we were ready to track down a dead turkey. Stay tuned.