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.

Visiting Mojave Space and Air Port

Remember our many trips to the Mojave Space and Air Port? Every month they held a fly-in in which we could get a close-up look at planes and sometimes other vehicles. We usually went to seven or eight of them a year; photo albums of them are posted on my Facebook site (Here's the last one we went to.).

The space and air port was a unique facility where a lot of research into going into space occurred. It's best known as the airport that launched SpaceShip One, the first non-government craft to carry a civilian astronaut into space. And it was just 20 miles from where we lived in Lancaster/Palmdale!

We started going to the fly-ins in 2009, so here's a list of some of my favorite memories of the fly-ins over the years:
10) Watching the robot battles during a special competition there
9) Touring the hangars and research facilities on the flightline
8) Getting to ride a garden train a local club set up one weekend
7) Seeing SpaceShip Two up close
6) Eating at the diner (and later Denny's or McDonalds) after visiting all of the planes
5) Playing in an APC on display there one year
4) Getting our names and pictures into the newspaper (This occurred many times  - and I have all of the copies!)
3) You getting to sit in the cockpits when owners were near their planes
2) Taking tram rides around the airport
1) Meeting Michael Dorn, who played Worf on "Star Trek" (He autographed a Worf action figure for you!)

One day we'll get to go to air shows together again - I can't wait!