Titan Missile Museum, Sahuarita, Arizona

Yesterday Mary and I took the Bronco about 10 miles south of our current Moose Club RV parking location. We went to the Titan Missile Museum which is located about 20 miles south of Tucson, Arizona. The site is an actual former ICBM launch site. It is the only one that has survived to become a museum. After the Cold War ended all the other 53 silos were destroyed per the SALT Treaty.

Here’s The official museum website link…
http://www.titanmissilemuseum.org/

and here’s a Wikipedia informational link…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Missile_Museum

Here are a couple of Google Earth images. First a general site view…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

And then a closer view of the missile silo half-opened…

Under terrible photography conditions…harsh sunlight on a bright white light-colored structures and dimly lit interiors…we nonetheless ventured forth. Here are some of the photos that I took…

In the above photo all three underground components of the site can be seen. The middle is the access portal. On the left is the control center and crews quarters. On the right is the missile silo. The highest state of alert ever reached was on the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. On that day the launch keys were taken out of the safe and set on the control console desktop. They were not inserted into the control panel. This complex was built for a one-time only launch. None were ever launched.

We spent two hours here…one hour of which was a guided tour. Another enjoyable day of full-time RVing.

In other news…

More than 12 hours late with today’s entry. A 2.5 hour Verizon Internet signal outage early this morning…then another full day out exploring…then an evening meal at Moose Lodge #1964…the friendliest Moose Club in the United States where we are currently parked…and finally a little time to post today’s Blog entry this evening.

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
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Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, Michugan

Jim says:

I’ve been in a lot of museums in my many years on the road, but nothing quite like the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn Michigan.

Yesterday Art and Sue and Mary and I walked, walked and walked some more in this 12 acre museum…all under one roof. We didn’t come close to seeing everything, among which includes such things as:

# A model of the nuclear-powered Ford Nucleon automobile.
# An Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.
# The 1961 Lincoln Continental, SS-100-X, that President John F. Kennedy was riding in when he was assassinated.
# The rocking chair from Ford’s Theatre in which President Abraham Lincoln was sitting when he was shot.
# George Washington’s camp bed.
# A ten-person safety bicycle made in 1896
# A collection[5] of several fine 17th and 18th century violins including a Stradivarius.
# Thomas Edison’s alleged last breath in a sealed tube.
# Buckminster Fuller’s prototype Dymaxion house.
# The bus on which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.[6]
# Igor Sikorsky’s prototype helicopter.
# Fokker Trimotor airplane that flew the first flight over the North Pole.
# Bill Elliott’s record-breaking race car clocking in at over 212 MPH at Talledega in 1987.
# The Newcomen type engine from Cobb’s Engine House in England[7].

We also did not go into the adjacent 240 acre Greenfield Village portion of the museum. To read about this unique place…see the two links provided below. In the meantime here are some photos that I took…

An old 18 foot Airstream Travel Trailer…

The last of the three RV’s used by Charles Kuralt during his 25+ year On The Road TV Show…

A 1950’s trailer similar to one my family lived in back then…

An early RV…

Road were pretty rough back then…

Not many stopping places…

Here Mary takes for a spin in a 1917 Ford Touring Car that still runs!…

Some of the exhibits are huge. Can you see Mary on the upper level of this power plant?

If one were to see and fully appreciate everything every. they would need many visits. All in all another most enjoyable day!

Here’s the official Henry Ford Museum website link…
http://www.hfmgv.org/

Here’s a Wikipedia informational link…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Henry_Ford

To see the other 90 photos I took, click this link…
http://picasaweb.google.com/jimjrver/HenryFordMuseum082210#

Today we do the Ford Rouge Factory Tour where Ford has been building cars since the Model A.

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2010
My three books may be purchased at http://www.lulu.com
Just enter Jim Jaillet in the search box.