Museum of Flight

Charlie's dad, a pilot, is a great tour guide

While Charlie's parents were here we went to the Museum of Flight at the old Boeing field. Years ago, it consisted of an enormous hanger full of old planes. Packed with planes, really. Crammed from the floor to the rafters. Interesting, but you can only go walk around and look at just a plane sitting there so many times.

A couple of years ago they installed another entire wing (hehe) with a WWI/WWII theme. The difference between the two sections is amazing. The war wing is two floors, the top WWI and the bottom WWII. It is jam-packed with fun things to look at. For each real plane sitting there (and there are a *lot* of them) there's a display with a radio playing snippets of music or commercials from the time. Or perhaps a game where you try to match the tail symbol to the country of origin for the plane. There are old journals from fighter pilots, uniforms, medals, and a flatscreen display that lets you search for all of the ace pilots from that era. On the WWI floor there is a reconstructed bit of a trench line with all sorts of frankly horrifying tales of stinky feet and pictures of guys slogging through waist high mud. They do a great job of fascinating you with the history so that you end up actually retaining some of the information.

wait for the whites of their eyes!

And the planes, well, they are wonderful. You can get so much closer than at any airshow. I was actually quite surprised at how small they were. It's not like you could fit them in your garage, but after the passenger jets I usually fly in these fighter planes look impossibly delicate. The only trouble is that the light in there is great for a museum, but a little dark for good photos without the glaring flash. I'm sure that someone with a better camera and skillz could take some great pictures.

at christmastime with Gabe, Nick, Calliope, and dad

charlie only shows me the white from one eye, so I do not shoot.