Custer County II

Finally! I made it back to Custer County today to finish up my tour there. I went back to Weatherford, a town of about 10,000 people to see just a couple more things. I've been dragging my feet about it a bit, because to be honest, I wasn't too excited about their main attraction there. There's nothing wrong with the attraction, it's just me.

The Stafford Air and Space Museum is an amazing, state-of-the-art, Smithsonian-quality museum dedicated to a real hero, an astronaut from Weatherford, and the history of flight, as well. And, a lot of stuff about the moon. The problem is that kind of science and history makes my eyes glaze over a bit. I don't get it. It goes right over my head.

Oh, sure, I've been to a my share of Star Trek conventions, but trust me, I was just hoping to get a glimpse of Leonard Nimoy. I still don't know what Warp drive means. And, please don't try to explain it to me. It will just be painful for both of us.

But I went. The museum is the biggest thing in Weatherford and you can't really say you've been there if you don't do it. But, let's face it I knew I was in over my head when one of the first exhibits I read said, "What ever happened to Solar Max? Many people want to know what happened..." And, then I don't know what it said next because my brain was off in another direction. Mainly it was asking, "Wait..who's Solar Max? Or, is it "what" is solar max? And, who are these 'many people' who want to know what happened? How many are we talking about? How come I've never met any of them?"

I would have read more but my feet were busy moving along to the next thing. I will most likely never know what happened to Solar Max. However I didn't have long to wonder about that because my eyes were drawn like a magnet to a sign that said, "Please do not touch the cyrogenic freezer." That's all the sign said, there was nothing else to read. It would have been nice if there had been something else, like, "By the way, THIS is the cyrogenic freezer" with an arrow pointing to whatever it was I wasn't supposed to touch. Was it the rumpled looking cannister? It looked safe enough. Or was it the hunk of metal twisted up to the side? Or was that what happened if you touched it? Why would you leave something dangerous outside of a glass case? Suddenly, I wanted to touch it. (I'm just that way.) But since I wasn't sure which one it was, and my survival instincts kicked in, I moved on.

The next sign that caught my eye because it was screaming at me in huge mega-font, which is actually the best way to get my attention, said, "WOULD YOU EXPLODE IN THE VACUUM OF SPACE?" The answer may surprise you. I know it did me. Here's the official answer, "Contrary to popular belief, human skin does not need to be protected from vacuum and is gas-tight by itself."

Okay, first of all, "Contrary to popular belief..."? Seriously? People exploding in a vacuum is a popular belief? With who? Maybe it's the same group of people who were wondering what happened to Solar Max. Somebody needs to warn me when that group of people are in the area.

And what exactly does "gas-tight" mean? We know gas can escape, so does that mean it just can't get in? Well, that's a lovely image.

I decided maybe I should just take some pictures. The first one is a representation of Tom Stafford in one of his space suits. I have to be serious now. The guy really had an amazing life and deserves respect. His bio is way too long to list everything he did, but I wanted to mention a few highlights. He was one of only 24 people to fly to the moon; he piloted Gemini VI during the first rendezvous in space; Stafford and his crew mates are in the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest speed ever attained by man—during Apollo 10's return from the moon, the spacecraft reached 24,791 statute miles per hour. That's pretty impressive.

And, this is what he looked like in zero gravity and turned upside down. I didn't just reverse the picture, this is the actual exhibit.

All right, I'll be honest, I'm not sure what this next one is but I thought it made a cool picture. I want to say it's one of those thruster things that have fire coming out the back when the rocket ships are taking off into space, but it looks kind of small for that.

This next picture is a Curtiss Pusher. It came after the Wright Brothers plane but was still one of the earlier planes. It's important because it was the first to use steering ailerons. I know that because the brochure told me. Why would the brochure assume I knew what steering ailerons are? Why am I beginning to suspect I missed a few classes in high school?

I did get to touch a sidewinder missile, which was first used by the Chinese. That was actually pretty cool. There was a whole exhibit showing different kinds of bombs. Yep, it's okay to touch the bombs but not the cyrogenic freezer. Well, now that I think about it, I probably wasn't supposed to touch the bombs...

Anyway, if you're into rockets, space flight, the history of flight, and anything to do with going to the moon, you will love this museum. It had a lot of interactive exhibits, space suits on loan from the Smithsonian, moon rocks, a million-dollar replica of the Wright Brothers airplane, old footage and newsreels from WWII, replicas of all kinds of planes, a flight simulator, and so much more.

After visiting the museum, I decided to stop at Lucille's Diner for lunch. The original Lucille's Diner was a Route 66 landmark and called, "The mother of the mother road," which is quite a compliment. The original diner is closed now but the new one carries on the tradition and ambience of the old one.

Lucille's is divided into three areas, a lounge, a steakhouse and a 1950s-style grill. It also has a small gift shop area where you can buy Route 66 memorbilia. I decided to go for the 1950s-style grill. I'm kind of partial towards retro, cheesy and neon lights and this place had all of that.

The chairs and booths were a kind of turquoise-blue and white. Or you could sit at the "S"-shaped counter made of chrome. Under the counter were lights that changed from pink-to-red-to-blue-to-green-to-a mixture of lights. Above the entry way to the grill was more chrome and neon rope that went from white-to-orange-to-pink-to-purple. I'm not sure if it was really that cool or if I'm just easily entertained, but I couldn't stop staring at the lights.

I managed to quit staring at the lights long enough to check out the menu. It had all the traditional diner-comfort foods as well as a few healthy choices. I decided to try their classic patty melt with fries and ice tea and I was not disappointed. The fries were hand cut and hot. And the patty melt only had fried onions and cheese on it, but it didn't need anything else. The staff was friendly, too. I did notice the people all around me were either getting the wrong order or the wrong ticket, but they got mine right, so I can't complain.

All in all, it was a very good way to spend a day off!