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Cadillac Owners.com First National Meet
Des Moines, Iowa — May 18-20, 2007
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Cadillac Owners.com First National Meet
Des Moines, Iowa — May 18-20, 2007
I love pretty much anything with wheels or wings, and thanks to my AAA tour book, I found out about the Hill Aerospace Museum at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden.So Dad and I spent a couple of hours checking out all the airplanes before we hit the road. There's an extensive collection of military planes from World War II to the present day. The planes that sit outside exposed to the elements could definitely use some sprucing up, especially the B-47. According to the museum's Web site, it will be restored.
I-84 cuts through Weber Canyon through the Wasatch Range, then meets up with I-80 about 25 miles west of the Wyoming border. We stopped at a rest area in Lyman and could see storms building in the Unita Mountains to the south. But the weather remained good as we crossed the state.
We ran into a snafu in Cheyenne, our planned stop for the night. The motel had assigned us to a room with one bed instead of the two-bed room I had reserved. And they had no other rooms or rollaway beds available. After checking at three or four other motels and finding them all full, I finally found out why: hundreds of constructions workers were in town to do maintenance and repairs on the local refinery. I decided it was Dick Cheney's fault. After all, he's from Wyoming and was in the oil business. It may not have been accurate, but it made me feel a little better.
At any rate, I was able to book a motel room in Sidney, Nebraska, which we thought was only an hour away. Only problem was, when Dad was looking at the mileage, it was 60 miles to Sidney from the Wyoming/Nebraska border. We had to drive 40 miles from Cheyenne before we even reached Nebraska. But it all worked out in the end, and even though we got into Sidney late, it just meant a shorter drive the next day.
Before leaving Cheyenne, however, we kept a planned dinner date. One of my friends at work raises puppies for Guide Dogs for the Blind, and I've known three of the 13 dogs she's raised. I've attended two graduations where the puppy raisers formally present the dogs to the blind persons they will guide (the dogs and their people have had several weeks of training prior to the graduation). At Boomer's graduation in 2004, I met Barbara, the lady he would guide. My friend Debbie keeps in touch with several of her graduates, and since Barbara and Boomer lived in Cheyenne, I asked Debbie to see if we could take them out to dinner when we were in town.
The original plan was to leave Hoover and our bags at the motel, then pick up Barbara and Boomer. But since we had no motel room in Cheyenne, we had to improvise. We ended up leaving the plug-in cooler, one of Dad's suitcases and a few other things from the back seat at Barbara's house so there would be room for her and Boomer. Hoover enjoyed meetingthem both and even put his head in Barbara's lap on the drive back from the restaurant. Boomer's still a bit of a goofball, but he's a beautiful dog and Barbara says he's an excellent guide.
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| Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress | North American P-51D Mustang | ||
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| North American P-51D Mustang | Curtis P-40 Warhawk | Consolidated B-24D Liberator |
North American F-86F Sabre |
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| North American F-86L Sabre | Convair F-102A Delta Dagger | North American F-100A Super Sabre | Martin RB-57 Canberra |
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| Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird--originally, the engines used a start cart powered by two Buick Wildcat V-8s. | Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II | ||
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| Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II | McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II | McDonnell Douglas F/A-18A Hornet | General Dynamics F-16A Fighting Falcon |
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| McDonnell Douglas F-15A Eagle |
Douglas C-124C Globemaster II | Lockheed C-130 Hercules | |
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| Douglas C-54G Skymaster | Boeing B-1B Lancer | Boeing WB-47E Stratojet | |
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| Boeing WB-47E Stratojet | Boeing B-52G Stratofortress | I-84 eastbound through Weber Canyon east of Ogden | |
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| I-84 eastbound through Weber Canyon east of Ogden | |||
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| I-84 eastbound through Weber Canyon east of Ogden | |||
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| The end of the line for I-84, merging on to I-80 eastbound | Welcome to Wyoming | ||
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| I-80 eastbound in Western Wyoming | U.S and Wyoming flags | ||
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| Storm clouds to the south of Lyman, Wyoming | Hoover enjoys some off-leash time at the dog run at the Lyman rest area | ||
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| Has he pooped yet? Yes. | Hoover is an excellent traveler | ||
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| Hoover is an excellent traveler | I-80 eastbound through Wyoming | ||
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| Table Rock near the Continental Divide along I-80 eastbound in Southern Wyoming | |||
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| Near the Continental Divide along I-80 eastbound in Southern Wyoming | |||
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| I-80 eastbound across Wyoming; lots of lonlely country here | |||
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Still crossing Wyoming |
Wind turbines somewhere west of Laramie |
Wind turbines somewhere west of Laramie |
Snow fences |
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| Guide dog Boomer and Barbara | Gary, Barbara and Boomer | ||
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Send me an e-mail: gary@gdwriter.com
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