Edwards AFB, Lancaster, CA

We are traveling to Edwards AFB in AM where Gene was stationed in 1969/70.

01May12 - We have arrived, 3:30 PM and are parked in FAM Camp spot #20. Andy the park host was very helpful, friendly and informative. We plan to be here for a week. The trip from Kingman was good, windy but otherwise fine. KC has become a good traveler finally, once again slept most of the way in his bed. The only casualty was the umbilical cord on the "toad" when we made a sharp turn it apparently pulled loose from the plug... guess it will need rewired before we tow again.

Entering CA we passed through a produce check point. Interesting waste of time it seemed since all they do is stop you to ask if you have any fruits or vegetables on board. Of course we told them yes from the grocery and in our refrigerator. They motioned us on...

The road entering CA was really "rough" to put it mildly! Fortunately it smoothed out after couple miles. The rest of the trip was windy and dry desert scenery for the most part.

Peanut butter and Jelly was the lunch menu of the day in a rest stop.

After setting up camp and dinner at home, we are now relaxing and planning our day tomorrow.

02May12 - We rode through the base looking at all the changes in the 42 years since Gene was stationed here. We stopped at the on base museum where there was a map of the base from years ago. Gene was able to identify where his house was located on this map. Housing has changed dramatically over the years of course. We had lunch at Popeyes (of course) in the Exchange on base.

We then rode out to town of Rosamond. Plenty of new shopping there and what was only two lanes is now four! Gene decided to look for the Willow Springs International Raceway where he used to race during the time he was stationed at Edwards. It is a historic race track, in existence more than fifty years. Construction of the track began in 1952, with the inaugural first race held on November 23, 1953. The man at the office gave us permission to drive the access road around the course. We came across some drivers doing "Drifting" and two professional drifters, one being recorded and interviewed. We met Walker Wilkerson, who at the age of 21, Walker is one of the newest and youngest faces on the Formula DRIFT professional circuit. We were able to watch them for a couple hours...Gene was thrilled!

03May12 - We rode "to town", Lancaster and Palmdale. Both have really grown in last 40 years but are just as far away 35-40 miles or so! Unfortunately my camera decided to act up so no photos....

We had a great surprise this afternoon, the camp host Andy stopped by to ask if we would like to join him and another guy for a base tour. He drove us around base and really provided so much information, it was a great tour. Gene and I will go back tomorrow to take a few photos of some of the sites he showed us. Answered several questions of things we saw but did not really know what we were looking at!

04May12 We plan to visit NASA on base, there is a gift shop, several aircraft and a lunch spot recommended by Andy. The NASA tour and gift shop was interesting and enjoyable. We bought a souvenier NASA coin. We also retraced Andy's tour and took some great photos. The lunch at NASA was food court type choices... we decided to head to Golf course for lunch, turned out to be a bad idea, 40 min wait. We left and ended up at Burger King...

05/06 May12 We plan to spend Sat and Sun doing some much needed maintanance on RV. Gene spend this afternoon repairing the "umbilical cord" tow connection for the car. I cleaned all the wood in bedroom and bathroom with Murphy's Oil Soap to eradicate the AZ dust! Tomorrow I plan to finish the job. After all every day can't be "fun"!

We decided to ride up to a high point at AFB to watch the "Super Moon" come up. What a beautiful sight although the photos we took are really grainy and do not show the beauty. On the way there a coyote ran acoss the road in front of us!! Tried to get photo... not much luck with that, but was amazing to see!

07May12 - We toured the Borax Plant and visitors center in Boron, CA. Quite interesting...we never realized how many products use Borate!

09-11May12 - We made a last minute side trip to Las Vegas, NV. KC stayed home in the RV at Edwards AFB with strict instruction "NO PARTIES"!! Gene and I used our "comp points" for a two night stay at Sam's Town. Mom was so surprised by our personal delivery of her mother's day card and we were happy to be able to visit before leaving the west coast. We attended a variety musical show at Sam's and did a bit of gaming with Mom at Sam's Casino. Speaking of gambling, I saw a woman hit for $10,751.00 on the Cash Wizard slot machine....same one I played earlier in the day! She was playing only 50 cent but hit for the wizard jackpot.

May 1, 2012

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