July 16 – “Good bye, Flight Museum”

We started our day yesterday by going to the airplane museum.  Sadly, it was to be the museum’s last day of operation here in Galveston.  They are moving the planes up to a new and bigger facility at Ellington Air Field on the mainland.  They were hit pretty hard by Hurricane Ike, and ever since they have been planning how they can escape the next big one.  Meanwhile, nine years have passed and no hurricanes have threatened.  Yet they still followed through with their plans to leave. 

Every volunteer they have on staff was there, and they also were going to serve lunch.  We even saw a few World War II vets.  Also the pilots.  The guys (and girls) who fly the planes at airshows and just to keep them running were on hand to answer questions.  For me, since we have been to the museum many times, the most interesting thing to see was the inside of the B52 bomber that flies over our house all the time.  Fascinating to see the machine gun in place.  They were raffling away free flights in some of the smaller planes every hour.  You had to have closed toe shoes on to even enter, though.  We were in our island Teva best, though.  So we didn’t win.  It seemed the best decision to me, though.  The weather was unstable at best.  Not sure I would want to be up in one of those tiny things during a thunderstorm.  Now if Josh were here he would finagle a way to get some extra entries in there.

Speaking of Josh, we started sending him photos of the planes to gloat a little bit.  He eventually called back, and we ended up FaceTiming with Caleb.  He knew all about each plane and was happy to fill me in on its history and use.  I think he would have been happy to win one of those free flights as well. 

We ended up joining the support team of the museum.  It gives us unlimited free entry to the new place, but the deciding factor was the fine print offer.  All of our five to eighteen year old children AND GRANDCHILDREN receive free admission with us.  That just might be worth it in one trip.  We also get 15% off all purchases.  Not to mention a nifty membership card to carry around with us.  Now we’ll be forced to go check out the new digs up at Ellington.

I can’t close without mentioning our other jaunt of the day.  We stopped by the local First Lutheran Church to see the big quilt show extravaganza.  And then we went to another one over at Rosenberg library.  Chris filled me in on all the different types of quilts and styles of sewing involved.  She could recognize in a heartbeat which ones had been done on a machine and which ones were done by hand.  Two comment s from this peanut gallery here.  One, the handmade ones from the 1800’s were by far my favorite.  Way more impressive than the curly-cue designs of the machine era.  Two, the quilts Chris has done are certainly in the earlier category.  The comparisons make hers stand out far above the others.  So those of you out there who have been blessed with a Chrios quilt … it’s a great one.

James 4:17 says, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.”

Father, thank you for the volunteers that have made the airplane museum what it is today.  Give them safety now as they have to travel to Ellington to do their work.  Amen.