I woke up very late today, it was 10:00 before I saw the sun high in the sky. I must have been effected by the turkey. I tend to sleep very well after a big Thanksgiving meal. Because we got around so late, we started the day with a lunch made up of leftovers from yesterday's feast.

The original plan was to go to the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, but I was the only one that really wanted to go, so we came up with an alternative. It was decided that a tour of the Kansas Aviation Museum (KAM), located in the old Wichita Municipal Airport terminal, would be fun. Jim, Donna, Steven, Kay and I all piled into Jim's car to get there.

When the car pulled up in the parking lot of the KAM, memories of my childhood came to mind. The parking lot was the same one my family would come to on weekends to park and watch the airliners landing and taking off.I guess I was between 7 and 10 years of age when we visited the airport for entertainment. Everything was much simpler then, with the planes taxiing and stopping just on the other side of a chain-link fence from us.

This is an entrance of the old Wichita Municipal Airport terminal building,
the current home of the Kansas Aviation Museum.

On the outside, the old terminal building still looks the same except for some wear and tear. Inside is a different story, the roof had been allowed to fail years ago when the building was scheduled to be demolished. Water leaked in and destroyed much of the plaster work on the walls and nearly all of the ceilings. Now the building is beginning to be restored, but it has a long way to go before it is returned to its original condition.

Inside the building I saw a few interesting artifacts from the early age of aviation in Kansas. One statistic that I saw was a statement that 60% of all general aviation aircraft were built in Wichita. Also there were over 26000 military aircraft built in Wichita during World War II including over 1600 B-29 Superfortress bombers built by Boeing Aircraft Company.

An unusual aircraft engine --- it is a steam engine

I was able to get up close to several old aircraft engines for a close inspection of each. There were a couple of surprising engines, one of which was a four cylinder steam engine made for a line of airplanes between the years 1914 and 1917. The other unusual engine was a four-cylinder Crosley automobile engine converted for use in a Mooney Mite airplane. The Mooney aircraft company was started in Wichita by Al Mooney. Both of the unusual engines looked way too small to be used to power an aircraft.

There was a big jet engine that came out of a F-86 Sabre jet. The engine must have taken up most of the airplane's fuselage. Next to the big engine was a small engine no bigger than a couple of one gallon paint cans mounted end-to-end. We we told that the small engine was a Learjet engine and that it produced about the same amount of thrust as the old F-86 Sabre jet fighter plane's engine. When you think about a Learjet having two of those engines, it seems as if there is more than enough power to push the plane through the sky.

A cruise missle made by The Boeing Co.

Another interesting display was a cruise missile made by Boeing. The missile is on a stand where I could walk right up to it and get a close look at everything on this interesting aircraft. It included the booster rocket that drops away before the jet engine kicks into operation. I figure that once the museum gets put together, the up-close-and-personal nature of the displays will go away. I am glad I was able to get such an intimate look at the old aircraft stuff.

Looking at the museum grounds from the old control tower
with McConnell Airforce Base in the background

There are also several complete full-sized aircraft out on the old airliner apron where people can get an up close look at everything about the planes. Among the planes are an original Lear jet and a B-52 that flew missions over North Vietnam. We finally left to check out another attraction near where Jim and Donna live.

Looking into the intake of a Learjet engine

We all went to the Sedgwick County Zoo for the remainder of the afternoon. This is a very nice zoo with a lot of the most modern animal displays. The grizzly bear habitat is a good example of a modern place for critters. The bears have a large wide open natural area in which to roam. Around their territory is a moat that is hidden by a naturally landscaped area between the moat and the people viewing the animals. This gives the impression that the bears could walk right down the hill to the people watching them. There are no fences to be seen, just natural plants and rock formations. I thought it was an excellent display of a fine looking pair of wild animals.

This animal display looks as if the bears could walk right down to us

Another animal display that I liked was the plains animals area. There was a herd of American Bison and small herd of antelope. To view the animals in a natural habitat, there is an elevated walkway high above the animals. We could walk along and look down on the critters. Also visible from the elevated walkway was a pair of plains wolves lying on a rock out on a grassy field.

This guy seemed to want to come over to where we were located

Our walk around the zoo was somewhat tiring. By the time we had circumnavigated the place, I was ready to take my sore feet home. As we were leaving, we saw a tour train that allows people to ride around the park for a quick tour of the zoo. Kay thought it would be a good way for our parents to see the zoo without having to walk all the way around the grounds. Before leaving the zoo, Kay stopped in the gift shop and bought herself a souvenir mug and bought a little stuffed toy for Steven's dog Sophia.She loves her new toy.

Sophia talks to you whether you want to listen or not

When I checked my e-mail, I found I had an interesting message from our daughter-in-law who lives in Idaho. So, I called Michael and Cindy on the phone to get the latest update on what they had been doing. Cindy had a couple of funny stories to tell. So as to not embarrass our son too much, I will simply say that one of the stories was about our son locking his keys in his car. The other story was about a news story Cindy heard on the radio. During a show she was listening to, there was a news break with a story about Wichita.

It seems that several stores in Wichita decided to have a special Thanksgiving Day sale. The sales were to start at 6 o'clock in the morning and last only four hours with all merchandise half price. The day of the sale, people began to show up at 4:30 in the morning.

At one of the Target stores in Wichita, the police had to be called because some of the shoppers became somewhat unruly. It seems some people thought they could avoid a shoppers stampeded by using there cars to block the entrances to the Target store parking lot. Our hometown made the national news again.

After the phone call, I told the funny stories to Jim and Donna. We finished the day watching TV.