Rexburg, Idaho Air Show

Me in Ole Yeller!  P-51 Mustang

Rexburg, Idaho:  Flight Museum and Airshow
The town in which I live has a flight museum, mainly devoted to WWII propeller driven aircraft, but a few exhibits that are older and some that are newer.  Rexburg is a small town, so to have this kind of history is pretty cool.

The main feature of the museum are the P-51 Mustangs.  The P-51 Mustang was a single engine fighter that was designed and built later in the war by the Americans and the British.  The airplane was an American design and American engineering with a British made Rolls Royce engine.

Before the Mustang, the heavy bombers flying over Germany had a terrible attrition rate.  They were being shot down by the Luftwaffe at an incredibly high rate.  The fighter escorts they had before the Mustang were short range and couldn't go the distance.  The German air force knew the range of the previous fighters and would hang out at the turnaround point and then shoot the bombers out of the sky.

That all changed when the Mustang came about.  The Mustang had a long enough range to fly from England to Berlin and back again.  Not only that but it was fast, elegant, could fly at high altitudes or low.  The Mustang had wing mounted machine guns and could carry a torpedo beneath.  The wings were also fitted with drop tanks to increase the range.  There was no other plane that could compete with the P-51 Mustang.

There were other planes that on a single attribute may be better than the Mustang, but no other airplane did everything as well as the Mustang did.  Once the Mustang entered the war, we lost very few heavy bombers because of it.  When Hermann Goring, the head of the Nazi Luftwaffe saw the first Mustang fly over Berlin, he declared the war to be lost.

Today there are an estimated 150 P-51 Mustangs in the world that are flight worthy.  Rexburg, Idaho has three of them on display most of the time.  Most of the time, meaning when they aren't in the air...

The Mustang is my very favorite military aircraft of any war at any time.  It is truly an elegant bird.

Last year, for the Memorial Day airshow, one of the curators of the flight museum asked me to supply him with costumed actors to work as ushers for the event.  I helped him out and in return I got to sit in the most famous P-51 of all, Ole Yeller!  Old Yeller still has the speed record for a single engine, propeller driven airplane flying coast to coast in the United States.  It was owned by Bob Hoover and he set that record years ago.  He sold it to a man here in Rexburg who is an airplane enthusiast.  The Smithsonian wanted it, but they would have put it in a static display and it would have never flown again.  Hoover sold it to the gentleman in Rexburg because he knew Ole Yeller would continue to fly.  He couldn't conceive of a world in which Ole Yeller wouldn't fly.

Every year on Memorial Day there is an airshow, free of charge for the public here.  50,000 people show up sometimes.  Typically, my family and I drive down to Moreland, Idaho to visit my father's grave site and we miss the airshow.  Last year, I caught the first part of it.  While my family was getting ready, I walked over to the park with my camera and took a few photos.  Sadly, we had to leave before they brought out the Mustangs.

Here are some pictures.

Starting with Ole Yeller

And the Mormon Mustang

Yellow Bi-Plane first pass

WWII or Korean War vintage

and it's Marine counterpart

I think this is a Korean War vintage aircraft

Yellow Bi-Plane second pass

Here's that plane again

And it's brother

And a crop duster

The red Bi-Plane

Big ole boy

Banking

Red Bi-Plane second pass

All in all, this is a pretty cool place to live.  It's a small town, and yet there is so much to do here.  What other town this size could boast three P-51 Mustangs?

How I Spent My Spring--Travelogue: Part IV Memorial Day

My new skull shirt

For Memorial Day, we went to the Moreland, Idaho cemetery to visit my Dad.  When he was still living, Dad used to say things like, "When I kick off..." and other things that were slightly irreverent about death.  Because of that, I wore my new skull shirt to the cemetery.  In my own odd way I was paying tribute to my Dad.  Of course, some of my family members objected and thought it was slightly inappropriate, but I didn't care.  My nephews thought it was cool.  That was enough.

Moreland, Idaho is a very small town.  It seems to be shrinking, too.  When I was a kid we'd go visit and there were stores and gas stations.  They're all boarded up now and it seems that the population is less.  The best thing about Moreland, though is that it's where my family comes from and many of them still live there.

With a town that small, it is funny and ironic that both my wife and my son-in-law have people buried there.  Chimene is from Seattle and Nick is from Baltimore.  Chimene's grandmother grew up in Moreland and was friends with my grandmother.  I got to know her for a few years before she died.  We go and visit her grave every year as well.

Dad and Mother's stone

My kids were scandalized when they put the stone over Dad's grave.  They were wierded out that their grandma's name was on it when she was still living.  Imagine their consternation when they saw the back and my name was on it.

The backside

My grandparents' stone

Chimene's grandparents

Nick's family members

The extended family at the cemetery

After the cemetery we drove on into Pocatello where a Viet Nam veteran has for the last 8 years set up a memorial to the casulties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  This memorial has grown in size and scope over the last eight years.  Part of why it has grown is the number of casulties has gone up every year.  The organizers of the event said they hoped it didn't get any bigger, and I knew exactly what they meant by that.

I had intended to show up, take a few pictures, explain the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to my sons and be done.  When we got there, however I realized just how important this thing really was.  Seeing over 6000 crosses and realizing that each one represents a deceased American serviceman was sobering.  Just seeing it on television or on the internet does not give one the full impact of seeing it for real.  It was heartwrenching.  We stayed for almost two hours.  It was a sacred experience.

There was a section for the soldiers killed in Afghanistan, one for the soldiers killed in Iraq and another section for the Idaho soldiers killed in both conflicts.  There was also a small section reminding us that there are still eight Idaho soldiers who are still unaccounted for from the Viet Nam War.  I grieve for the families and friends of these soldiers.

Idaho's Field of Heroes

Operation Iraqi Freedom

Operation Enduring Freedom

Idaho's MIA from Viet Nam

Idaho's casualties from Afghanistan and Iraq

Field of crosses

Nick and Cynthia and their children were with us all day, and on the way back to Rexburg, we decided to walk the interpretive trail at the rest stop at Hell's Half Acre.  I have always liked Hell's Half Acre.  I have always wondered why filmmakers haven't used it as a location.  It is some of the most rugged terrain I have ever seen.  Hell's Half Acre is a 4100 year old lava flow along the Snake River Plain.  Interstate 15 runs through the southern arm of the flow and there is a rest area there.  At the rest area there is an interpretive trail through the flow.  Both sides of the highway have trails and I have walked both of them.  In my opinion, the trail on the southbound side is more scientific but both sides are very cool.  It's called Hell's Half Acre, but in reality, the flow covers about 150 square miles.  The trails at the rest areas are paved and not too long. 

The family at the trailhead

Pahoehoe flow

Fissure

Small fern that grows here

Juniper berries

Moss on the rocks

Lichen on the rocks, the first step in soil building

Connor and Haydn on the path

Jonathan, Garrett, Chimene, Hunter and Rhys

Holden, my youngest grandson

Nick and the boys exploring a cave

The boys on the lava

Nick and Cynthia and a whole bunch of boys on the trail

I never get tired of Idaho.  I'm glad we moved here.  There's alot to like about this place.  Most of all, though I love my family.  I was thankful to spend the day with them.