Air and Space....

This past weekend we took our nephews to the Udvar-Hazy center which is part of the Air and Space Museum at the Dulles airport.

Now, every little boy loves planes, trains and automobiles and my little nephew is no exception. He's not so much into trains and automobiles but give him planes and he's in heaven! The almost 3 year old couldn't hold still and was pulling Aunt Inzy from plane to plane. "Let ee dat un" as he points his cute little fingers to the next exhibit. He'd exclaim that that one had wheels and the other one didn't (observant little critter I tell ya). I tried to explain to him how helicopters don't alway need wheels while airplanes almost always do. I have no idea if he understood me but who cares - the smile on his face was priceless.


As we made our way over to the space exhibit I tried my hand at explaining the concept of outer space and why we need shuttles and satellites. I know, I'm crazy for trying to explain that to a 3 year old but I think we really got the concept that space was where the moon lives. He knows what the moon is, or at least can point it out in the sky so I thought I'd go with that. Heck, I can tell him that it's made of green cheese and I'm sure he'd believe me!


There was a section of a space laboratory towards the back of the hanger and he asked; "what dat?". I explained that that's where the astronauts lived when the went to visit the moon. Okay, so that's not entirely true but what does he care? Well, my response prompted the ever cycling question: "Why?". He loves playing the "why?" game with us. I know he understands what he's doing because he laughs hysterically after about the 4th "why?"


Now, this wasn't our first time to the museum (and I'm sure it's not our last). A few week prior we came with Mark's parents because Mark's dad was a bit of a plane buff. I didn't realize how much so until I saw him when we walked through the doors. Apparently you don't have to be a little boy to love this place! I think we lost my father in law more than once and as we peeled him away from the SR-71 he was vowing to come back as soon as he retired (which is in about 25 days actually - I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of him)


All in all we had two very productive trips and a great time was had by all. I've alway been a commercial airliner buff but now find myself quite attracted to anything that flys. The old war planes I think are my favorite. The last image we have here is of the Enola Gay. Yes, it's the real thing - it made it's final flight into Dulles Airport and rests here for everyone to see. It's a pretty amazing aircraft with 4 huge prop engines and a super shiny exterior. It's hard to imagine that the aircraft that had such an impact on our world history finds it's final resting place is just a few miles from my house!