Pima Air & Space Museum tucson az
In February we went to Tucson to see what the fuss about the gem show(s!) was all about. That's a whole 'nother story (let's just go with something understated like "OMFG!!1!" for now) and I knew I'd love that part of the trip. What I didn't know was how incredibly awesome the Pima Air and Space Museum was going to be....
We took the bus tour of The Boneyard (I didn't have a window seat so didn't even try to take any pictures) and that was fascinating, but not nearly as cool as the museum yard. Because in the museum yard, you're not on a bus. You can walk right up to the planes. They're right there. You can touch them. (Well, I couldn't, because even though it's outdoors, it's still a museum, and, well, I just couldn't. But technically a (not-me) person could.) They're big and beautiful and slightly haunting and sometimes amusing and, most of all, impressive.
Turns out I have a thing for helicopters. Yep, it surprised me, too.
So technology! Much engineer! How machine!
They paint all the windows to keep the interior temperatures down. I don't know if the paint being the same color as the sky is on purpose or not, but it makes for some striking scenes.
The whole yard is an endless buffet of texture, color and graphic gloriosity.
The weather was apparently typical Tucson, warm, bright and dry, which is why it's such a great place for The Boneyard and an outdoor museum like this. Try this setup down here in Houston and you'd have little rusty piles of scrap in no time.
I knew the MO would be taking proper portraits, as he had the gear to get decent shots of the planes in their entirety, so I decided to concentrate on the little details that grabbed me. I spent a lot of time zooming with my feet, framing words, and lining up rows of rivets....
DANGER was probably the second-most-used word, if you count all the incomprehensible acronyms and abbreviations together.
Piet Mondrian, please call your office. Some Soviet engineer has stolen one of your paintings.
Always good to know which way to go for help.
We spent hours wandering amongst the planes. I had my own private tour guide, as the MO could name pretty much everything we saw and explain things like extra propellers and wheels that didn't touch the ground and why the one that carried something called X15 was important.
See? Too many propellers.
Not actually the one that carried an X15.
Get yer red hot reference datum here!
As if all the outdoor eye candy wasn't enough, there are also several huge hangars with more standard museum fare inside. It was nice to take a break and walk around in the A/C for a while now and then. The docents are clearly aviation fanatics, and there are so many exhibits we could not possibly see them all.
Selfie!
Not sure which one of us was driving, so obviously a good thing we stayed on the ground.
Underneath a plane that is also a boat.
These pix and more are in my set at Flickr. I'm getting the hang of Lightroom Mobile, and I really like editing from the sofa. The cat approves of the process as well.
