Vandenberg Village

You win some & you lose some. Today we definitely lost some. If I had been writing this this morning I wouldn’t have put the symbols in.

Got up at 7.30am & waited for Jackie to get up & make me a sausage sandwich. At 8.30am, I rang Charlie & he delivered the bad news that we couldn’t get on board the Rolls Royce 747 jet today, that was a shame.

At 9.30am we set off for Pima Air & Space Museum & our “Boneyard” AMARG Tour. We arrived at Pima Air & Space Museum at just before 10.00am & went to the ticket desk to announce our arrival. The girl at the desk asked for our passports, then looked our names up on the manifest, but they weren’t there. It would seem that the US Air Force still hadn’t processed our vetting application, so we weren’t going to the “Boneyard”, despite having already paid $20 each for the tour.

To say I was furious is an understatement. I had applied for the tickets 16 days ago & sent our vetting forms as soon as they asked for them. They require just 10 working days to process them, so why they weren’t done in time we don’t know & apparently we will never know. We should get an email when the vetting has been done. I enquired if we could reschedule our tour until after the vetting was done, the answer was just “No”. Thanks for that.

The ticket girl, definitely not a Pamela, was not empathetic enough for our liking. She just kept repeating that it was not her decision, it was the rules of Davis-Montham Air Force Base. The only thing she offered were directions to where we could view the “Boneyard” through the fence.

It could not have been more disastrous news. The “Boneyard” was supposed to be one of Jackie’s Top 3 highlights of our whole trip & we had diverted our whole route to visit the “Boneyard” on this day.

We entered the Pima Air & Space Museum & heard an ex-military volunteer shout out that he was about to start a free 45 minute walking tour. Well, we were definitely going to get our money’s worth & by goodness weren’t we glad we did. Our guide was genuinely called Don McLean & he was utterly brilliant. The tour was a brief introduction into the technological advances in aviation in 70 years from its conception to the present day.

The tour started with an accurate replica of the Wright Brothers plane that took the 1st recognised flight on 17th December 1903 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. He showed us the smallest jet plane, the smallest single winged plane & Bi-plane. The aircraft were improved as a safety or performance related need, but more often than not it was conflicts & war that created the technological improvements. Don showed us about 15 planes & explained the significance of each one, finishing with the Blackbird that had a top speed close to 2,500mph. He had fascinating anecdotes for each one & the people who flew them, including several women!

The planes included aircraft actually used in some famous movies. The world’s smallest jet was featured in Octopussy. The jet fighter from Top Gun. The world’s most dangerous plane, one in eight people that flew it died. Also, a Rutan Long-EZ, the experimental aircraft that John Denver was flying when he crashed in Monterey Bay in 1997. Denver apparently was an alcoholic, he had had his pilots licence revoked & was flying illegally at the time.

At the conclusion of the tour which lasted well over an hour, we & the other visitors gave Don a round of applause. It was so good I had almost forgotten about the “Boneyard”. Don walked off & whispers started circulating that Don was doing another tour in Hangar 3 at 11.30am. There was no way we were missing that.

At 11.30am, pretty much the same crowd were ready & waiting for Don. This tour was all about Aviation during the 2nd World War. Again an absolutely enthralling tour with lots of intriguing anecdotes. We both thoroughly enjoyed it. What “Boneyard” tour?

We continued the tour of the Museum solo, then went out into a dusty outside area with hundreds of different aircraft. We started at helicopters, did bombers, reconnaissance, fighter jets, rescue aircraft, VIP aircraft including Air Force 1 used in the Kennedy era & all sorts of other weird & wonderful planes. It was over five & a half hours later that we finally left the Museum.

Our next stop was that bloody “Boneyard”. We went to the two roads we had been given, E Irvington Road & E Escalate Road, where we were able to stop & take photos through the wire fence. We convinced ourselves that this was better than being driven around the site in a 52 seater coach. We would just like our money back!

The fun didn’t stop there. We went to McDonald’s for a cheeky burger, 2 for $5 plus a frappe. As we left, I spotted an exit. We fought our way through a kids party & opened the exit door only for a siren to start up. We were the centre of attention, one mother said ‘Just go’. We did, with the alarm ringing in our ears, we walked fast up the road without looking back.

We walked to Best Buy with our computer to sort out our charging issues. Very soon it was established that my iPad charger isn’t powerful enough & hadn’t charged the MacBook. If we wanted it to charge during our trip, we would have to buy a new charger. How much, $70 for the charger & $20 for the cable. We bought a charger, but they price checked Amazon $60 & we didn’t need the cable.

We got back home & asked Charlie what he want to do. He fancied going out as he didn’t go out that often. We got ready & got a Lyft down town to the Trident Grill 2. Maddie (Madison) was our waitress, we had several pitchers of beer & a bit of food. All very nice, another locals bar, another experience.

When we got back, we had a music play off with a few strong cocktails. It must have been strong, because Jackie went to bed leaving Charlie & I to it.

Song of the Day - Leaving on a Jet Plane by John Denver.Read more