050305- Midland, TX
Saturday, March 05, 2005 – Midland, TX
The story is that the town was named because it was midway between Dallas and El Paso. It is also well know for its famous family – the Bushes.
We found a great RV park (one of 2 in the town) called Midland RVP – duh! It was on our ½ price membership plan (Happy Camper)
In the Texas tour book it listed a few interesting places to visit so we stayed a few days and did some sightseeing.
The Museum of the Southwest was more of an art gallery, but some very fine and intriguing paintings. Next door to it was a small but apparently very professional and high tech planetarium – unfortunately it was only opened on weekends but the curator gave us a quick tour and it was very impressive.
I am partial to local air museums and Midland’s is supposed to be worth seeing and it was. It was much larger and better equipped than I expected – and that had nothing to do with the actual aircraft in the adjacent hanger. The Airpower museum is part of the CAF (stands for the Commemorative Air Force), which recently changed their name from the Confederate Air Force. The displays were extremely well done, entertaining, and contained many small video viewing areas where short video tapes enhance the museum experience.
The CAF’s mission is to find remains of old military aircraft and restore and rebuild them to flight status. They actually are one of the largest air forces in the world with for their combined # of operating military planes.
On display they exhibited a Russian made I-16 which is a 20 foot attack aircraft that was in service from the 1930’s to the 50’s. It is only one of six in existence and this one has been fully restored and rebuilt to fly. It looks funny for a military plan but apparently was the fasted warplane in its time and a superior dog fighter.
There is also another gallery where paintings that appeared on the noses of world war 2 planes are recovered and restored. When those planes were sold for scrape, someone decided to cut the artwork out of the planes and save them. There are about 40 on display. The crews felt that NOSE ART made their planes more alive and personal with these paintings on them – usually of pretty women in sexy poses and scantily dressed, but not always.
They are also in the process of restoring a Super Fortress - B-29 - Fifi –, apparently the only one of its kind left.
We spent most of the day here and headed for our favorite Midland Mexican restaurant. A couple of days ago we found Chalas Mexican Restaurant by accident, just cruising the streets coming back from a museum and fell in love with it. The food was great and the prices low. So we returned.
I had a 5 combo plate and Peter order a chicken enchilada. We both enjoyed our meals.
Till next time,
The story is that the town was named because it was midway between Dallas and El Paso. It is also well know for its famous family – the Bushes.
We found a great RV park (one of 2 in the town) called Midland RVP – duh! It was on our ½ price membership plan (Happy Camper)
In the Texas tour book it listed a few interesting places to visit so we stayed a few days and did some sightseeing.
The Museum of the Southwest was more of an art gallery, but some very fine and intriguing paintings. Next door to it was a small but apparently very professional and high tech planetarium – unfortunately it was only opened on weekends but the curator gave us a quick tour and it was very impressive.
I am partial to local air museums and Midland’s is supposed to be worth seeing and it was. It was much larger and better equipped than I expected – and that had nothing to do with the actual aircraft in the adjacent hanger. The Airpower museum is part of the CAF (stands for the Commemorative Air Force), which recently changed their name from the Confederate Air Force. The displays were extremely well done, entertaining, and contained many small video viewing areas where short video tapes enhance the museum experience.
The CAF’s mission is to find remains of old military aircraft and restore and rebuild them to flight status. They actually are one of the largest air forces in the world with for their combined # of operating military planes.
On display they exhibited a Russian made I-16 which is a 20 foot attack aircraft that was in service from the 1930’s to the 50’s. It is only one of six in existence and this one has been fully restored and rebuilt to fly. It looks funny for a military plan but apparently was the fasted warplane in its time and a superior dog fighter.
There is also another gallery where paintings that appeared on the noses of world war 2 planes are recovered and restored. When those planes were sold for scrape, someone decided to cut the artwork out of the planes and save them. There are about 40 on display. The crews felt that NOSE ART made their planes more alive and personal with these paintings on them – usually of pretty women in sexy poses and scantily dressed, but not always.
They are also in the process of restoring a Super Fortress - B-29 - Fifi –, apparently the only one of its kind left.
We spent most of the day here and headed for our favorite Midland Mexican restaurant. A couple of days ago we found Chalas Mexican Restaurant by accident, just cruising the streets coming back from a museum and fell in love with it. The food was great and the prices low. So we returned.
I had a 5 combo plate and Peter order a chicken enchilada. We both enjoyed our meals.
Till next time,
posted by The Highway Guys @ 7:47 PM
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