2019 Arkansas motorcycle trip

Day 7

May 29

The forecast for today is rain and the weather radar agrees. We have an unknown amount of time before the storms arrive. When we took the crappy bypass road on the way in John saw a sign for a Cadet Aviation Museum. We're gonna visit that today. It's not far away. After that we'll see what time allows.


Donna and Jerri decided to stay on the bikes and get some sun while it lasted. Debby stayed home to study for her master's degree.

We had arrived a little before 10am and were met by one of the groundskeepers. He said the tours were pre-scheduled with the owner of the museum. We weren't aware of that requirement. He called the owner and the owner said the groundskeeper could give the tour. Sounds good! The groundskeeper (white pants) is taking us to the first building.


They have a little railroad set up. It used to service a mine out west. It has been converted to a gas motor.


The tour starts in the building on the right. It contains a history of the academy and artifacts and training simulators from early aviation. They also had pins!

When we moved to building 2 (on the left) the skies had darkened considerably. Storms were on the way. Building 2 contained more simulators and artifacts from NASA and the space shuttle.


An F105 simulator. Even the gooseneck trailer it was mounted on was impressive.


The whole hanger was full of cool and unique stuff. Most of the simulators were one of a kind. The consoles are from NASA.


By the time we visited the static displays the weather was blustery. There was also a bunch of gnats that were annoying. Future plans call for a building where these planes will be restored and displayed. Our guide told us the history of each plane and how they came to aquire them. The Aviation Cadet Museum ended up being a very interesting place.


When we got back to the bikes Donna had her rain jacket on and had mine laid out for me. So precious! The wind felt damp when we left so we made another trek down the crappy bypass since it was a shorter route. It didn't seem that bad without the trailers.


The bikes safely back in the garage. We got rained on a little bit.


Just in time. The skies opened up and our riding day was done.


It was lunch time so Donna made us some sandwiches. Thanks Sweetheart!


Today is the day Mike cooks his ribs. Here he is preparing to boil them as part of his multi-step process.


The rest of the day was spent lounging, watching TV, doing stuff on the computer, etc. Here Mike and John enjoy a smoke break. Since their trikes were already wet they wiped them down. Donna wiped mine off.


Patrick snoozing in the living room.


Mike braved the rain to cook his ribs.


This picture makes my mouth water. Ribs, baked beans, deviled eggs. We used a bunch of napkins for this meal! It's a shame those rib bones went into the trash. Buford would have loved them.


While standing outside with Donna we saw a double ended rainbow.

That evening John & Debby rode to the convenience store for more coffee. Later we modified our trip plans. The tornado that went through Jefferson City closed the state penitentiary and capitol building to tourism. Those were the two places we were going to visit. We decided to head back roughly the way we came with Sikeston being about halfway. Lamberts! We made reservations at the Pear Tree Inn where Donna & I had stayed a couple years ago. We will take US60 most of the way and visit a nice antique store in Sturgis, KY on Saturday. I made new routes for the GPS.



22 miles.

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Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10
Epilogue





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