Life is sometimes punctuated with little disappointments. For instance ... Yesterday, with my friends Jim (from Iowa) and Bob (from Maine), headed for Tampa to a gun show at the State Fair grounds. A big deal we thought and what a better day to get out for a drive. We entered the rear entrance to the parking lot and whizzed right through the gate and found a great parking spot right near the front door. This is our lucky day, I thought. We got out of the car and notice a line of people trying to get into the show. As we walked closer to the line, the line got longer and longer and longer. Further investigation revealed the line stretched some quarter of mile. What on earth was this all about? Was Elvis performing. How about the Beatles? No nothing like that ... apparently the growing interest in gun ownership has sparked this bizarre situation. Estimates from some of those now leaving the show was to expect a wait in line upwards to three hours. Poor showmanship I'd say. One entrance with one or two ticket sellers trying to get thousands of people into the building. Stupidity in the highest order. We ran across the same situation last month while attending the Mecum Classic Car Auction. Hey show promoters! How about hiring some ticket takers!
We made a collective decision to try a little later and headed for a local gun shop only to find it too was packed with people who couldn't get into the big gun show. Undaunted to went to lunch and returned to the fair grounds only to find the traffic now backed up on the street just trying to park their cars ... little did they know they would have another wait once they got parked. We give up.
Reluctantly we headed home but while traveling along I4, we saw a sign promoting a local air museum. We still wanted something to do this Saturday so we headed there to see what that was all about. Almost there we notice the traffic was starting to come to a halt and in the distance we saw this mass of sign carrying humanity inching along the apron of the road. Easily over a thousand people had taken the day to protest a local grocery chain labor practices. No shouting or bad behavior, these folks were enjoying their freedoms of speech and assembly. I took this image as they passed by.
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| March in March |
Arriving at the museum we found a rather small building that housed an interesting array of mostly small homebuilt aircraft dating back maybe 70 years or so. They also had a rather extensive display dedicated to Howard Hughes' 'Spruce Goose'. That one of kind, flew only once, wooden wonder of aeronautical design. The plane is still intact but now located near Seattle Washington after a long tenure in Long Beach California. They also had an Ercoupe single engine two-seater, twin rudder little all-aluminum private plane that was absolutely pristine. The plane built in the late 40's, was one I had a little more than casual interest in. My friend Dave (from Arizona) from my AC Spark Plug days cut his teeth behind the prop of one of these little beauties. I snapped a picture of it with my smart phone and emailed a copy to him. He later wrote back filling me in on his history with the plane.
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| This wasn't the plane at the museum but looked like it |
So if you're ever in the Lakeland area ... and like airplanes ... make it a stop. BTW, at the end of March this airport hosts the countries second largest (Oshkosh is the biggest) private aircraft gathering.
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| Lakeland Florida Air Museum |
So another day ... a little good and a little not so good
But without a doubt ... still livin' the dream.
Phil
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