... the final stop on our itinerary was a visit with adrien's uncle philip, who lives next door to mcguire air force base in new jersey ... retired from the u.s.a.f. after serving america for almost 10,000 hours flying in a c-141 starlifter, he is now the manager of a firm that provides services for the military ... what services ... near as i can tell, they get stuff, big honking expensive things, pile 'em up, then arrange to have them delivered to all sorts of strange faraway places* ... phil's office is inside "hanger number one," which once enclosed mighty dirigibles, one of which was the ill-fated hindenberg ...
*if i'm way off, phil, just drop me the corrected description
... phil drove us into the hanger to see where he works ...
... it is difficult to convey the scale of this building ... if you parked the titanic inside of it you'd still have unused floor space ... each half-door ways over 1,300 tons, more than a world war one navy destroyer ... it is almost eight-hundred feet from where i stood taking this picture to the other end of the building ... there is over 210,000 square feet of clear floor area ... simply, it is gianourmous ...
... we got to play around with the machines and examine all sorts of wonderful toys, then, after warning us about "looking down" and "stepping on rotten boards," phil led us on our ascent of the huge structure ...
... it's obviously been some time since the hanger was painted, hopefully someone will find funds to spruce it up a bit for it's one-hundreth anniversary, which is fast approaching ...
... how large, you ask ... well, sitting on the floor of the hanger, used for training purposes, is a 1/4-sized aircraft carrier ... !!! ... look closely and you'll spy the tail of a phantom jet fighter parked on hanger's spark proof floor ...
... adrien and her cousin, at the top ... hillary and norgay, finally astride the summit of everest, could've been no prouder, and, i imagine, equally winded ...
... portable building air conditioners, pallets of "meals ready to eat," tents big enough to do a baptist revival minister proud, these are some of the things philip "makes arrangements" for ... large air-tight aluminum "shipping containers," too, with the word "head" stenciled at one end ... how efficient, how practical, how sad, because, when all is done and said and written, that's all it's ever really about ...
... we shared a delightful but far-too-short visit with phil and his family, then, leaving jon at the air base to connect up with some work he had been assigned while we were on the road, adrien and i completed our little road trip with a leisurely drive to rhode island, arriving just in time for a most excellent easter supper ... after that it was back to new hampshire for her, then on to maine for me ... fifteen days, 4,985 miles ... what great fun ...
NIKON D200 & OLYMPUS E-PL1
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