Yesterday I spent the day being a tourist; besides, I don’t really live here anyway! I visited Blackbird Museum to start the day and then headed down to Santa Monica by way of the Pacfic Coast Highway. It was a good day…
Blackbird Museum: The Blackbird Museum in Palmdale, CA is located on Avenue P at the main entrance to Air Force Plant 42. It is just a little trailer in a parking lot that has some historical aircraft sitting in front of it. There is a U-2D Dragonfly, a noted CIA spy plane built by 
Lockheed Martin back in the day. It used to fly high altitude recon missions 11 miles or so above the earth. In 1960, a U-2 was shot down by the Soviets and 2 years later the pilot was traded back to the US in exchange for a Soviet spy… interesting story — look it up! There is also an A-12, which is the prototype and CIA version of the SR-71 Blackbird. 
The SR-71 is a fantastic looking airplane. It flys above Mach 3 – yeah, that 3 times the speed of sound… at an altitude of like 80,000 ft or something rediculous like that. It was neat to get up close to these planes, shown in this photo. The SR-71 is said to be the first aircraft designed with an kind of thought towards making a platform stealthy. There is not a lot of steathly characteristics, but there are some there, and its was neat to see those ginormous (its my word, which makes it a word!) engines in person. 
The other plane sitting in the gravel, was a F-117A Nighthawk; actually it was the first flight article for the program! There were many features of this aircraft that were modifed from its original configuration… most notably, there was absolutly no exhaust system! Anyway, its a also neat to get up close to this technological miracle. Its is absolutly amazing that it can even fly! There are lots of pictures in the gallery… The other picture here is of some trees I saw in Palmdale — I wonder if the wind ever blows here! Keep in mind that the wind was not blowing when I took the pictures!
Pacific Coast Highway: The PCH, as the locals call it, is a highway that runs along the west coast. On one side of the road is the Pacific Ocean, and the other is mountains. At times you basically driving along the side of a cliff or bluff with the ocean below you. It it a beautiful drive to say the least. I know my pictures don’t do it justice, but I am trying! I drove out to Point Mugu Naval Station (also on the coast) to get on the PCH out west of LA, and drove down through Malibu to Santa Monica. Malibu is a nice little beach city, although not at all as glamorous as I thought it would be. There is beach all along the coast of Malibu, with public parking and the steets were lined with cars of people that were living “the life” at the beach. It was 100 degrees when I left Palmdale – when I started my drive on the PCH, just a little over an hour away, the temperature was only 70 degrees! Wow, I could get used this! …Santa Monica was only a few miles away from the edge of Malibu, and I parked there at the Santa Monica Pier and walked along the beach down to Venice Beach, and back to the Pier. It was a nice afternoon. My feet hurt today from all the walking, either barefoot in the sand, or in my sandels on the streets of Venice Beach. Venice Beach was a neat area, lots a shops and things. It reminded me of the downtown Cozumel area from our Honeymoon. Santa Monica Pier was neat. There is a rollercoaster and carousel and such with a little fishing area out at the end. There were people performing (read peddling) for money and some pretty strange characters out there too! I hope to go back sometime with Desirae, it would be a lot of fun with someone I love…
All in all a good day of tourism for me. Its not ideal to spend Father’s Day weekend alone… but, it was a good weekend nonetheless. I miss my kids, and my wife… I am counting the days until I am back in Oklahoma. Its not that this is a bad place, in fact, I really like it and under the right circumstances could easily live here… its just not where my family is.
