Touring a small aerospace museum

Examining an early protoype for a rocket.

Two years ago today we toured the Colonel Vernon P. Saxon Jr. Aerospace Museum in Boron, Calif. We were on our way to the Calico Ghost Town outside of Barstow and stopped for a little car break.

The museum was named for a local Air Force guy who worked on a lot of intersteing experimental projects at Edwards Air Force Base, which Boron is on the north side of. One of the projects was the same kind of aircraft that Steve Austin would later be shown flying (and crashing) in the opening sequence of "The Six Million Dollar Man" television show.

You had quite the imagination and wanted to play with all of the exhibits, pretending we were in the Air Force or on rocketships and that our stuff was broken and needed to be fixed or we'd crash!

Here's a whole bunch of pictures from our adventure!

Your two big trips to Palm Springs

Donning the trainer's helmet
at Palm Springs air museum.

Last night while watching a "Six Million Dolalr Man" DVD, I noticed the episode was filmed in a place we'd gone before: the desert road north of Palm Springs where the tram goes to the top of the mountain.

You may not remember visiting Palm Springs, as you were very young, but we went there twice. The first time, we visited volcanic features on the Salton Sea and then enjoyed dinner downtown. I purchased a captain's sailor cap for you in the hat store.

The second time we went was to visit the airplane museum. The weekend was very rainy and cold, an oddity for Southern California, and the only place I could find that was moderately dry (though it was a little cloudy) was Palm Springs. We ate lunch at Ruby's Diner downtown.

I actually lived in Palm Springs for a couple of years and worked at the newspaper there as its editorial page editor.

Another favorite TV show of mine

You've probably gathered by now that "Star Trek" and "The Six Million Dollar Man" were my favorite show when I was a young boy like you. But there were a lot of other shows I liked, too!

One of them was "Welcome Back, Kotter." It was a comedy show about a teacher and his classroom full of difficult students (called the "sweat hogs"). Each student had some funny thing they'd do in every episode, which was hilarious at first but I suppose grew a bit tiring week after week, so the show didn't stay on the air for very long, maybe two or three years.

The show also had a great theme song that is one of my favorites, "Welcome Back" by John Sebastian. John Sebastian was a big rock star many years before in the 1960s, and his theme song got me interested in his earlier music, which is among my favorites today.

What are your favorite TV shows?