This morning was a busy one. Got up early with the semi truck drivers. LOL Made one last purchase for some Command Hooks in Wal-Mart. Drove across the parking lot for breakfast and coffee at the Kneaders Bakery. Then off we went!
Along the changing landscape we passed trucks and fields full of potatoes, corn fields, wheat and miles of sage. I love seeing the sage. Can’t wait to dry some more of it! We had another moment in time. Again slow motion as we passed a coyote up on a plateau right next to the road. She was backlit from the morning sun, among the sage and she stood still watching us pass by. As soon as we passed she carefully crossed the road behind us. This all happened in seconds all the while ’Time in a Bottle’ by Jim Croce played on Pandora. Poetic.
Today we actually have traveled south. South through Idaho. Clipped the corner of Nevada. Then into Utah. Then back and forth across the state line (and time zone) for an extra stop and we should be back in Utah now. We are actually staying steps away from Nevada.
Today there was one stop we wanted to make that we won’t have time to do tomorrow. So we drove just past our stop for the evening into Utah for a quick visit to the Bonneville Salt Flats. What a spectacular sight to see! Oh how I wish we had been here last week for the World of Speed 2024!!
Afterwards we drove back into Nevada by way of the interstate and then in a roundabout way back into Utah. Our basecamp for the evening is Historic Wendover Airfield Museum. When war broke out in December of 1941 no heavy bomber training bases existed in the US. A rapid buildup developed Wendover into the largest bomber-training base in the world. Enough crews trained here to fill the 8th Air Force. At its peak about 20,000 personnel were stationed here.
During World War II, it was a training base for B-17 and B-24 bomber crews. It was the training site of the B-29 unit that carried out the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This historical Airfield and the surrounding grounds is huge. Many original buildings still standing. It is the last, most original WWII Army Air Base in the world. There’s not enough time to give all the details but this is a pretty significant place and piece of history to learn about.
Tim and I were lucky enough to arrive fifteen minutes before their daily tour began. We got on a bus and were taken to a number of various hangars and were even taken out onto the original runway to see the concrete pits made to load the atomic bombs into the aircraft since the planes were not tall enough to load them from underneath. Afterwards we explored the museum learning more about its history, those who served here and those who flew in the Enola Gay. Efforts are in place to restore and preserve the legacy here at the airfield.
Eventually later in the evening we checked out the Operations Building and climbed the observation tower. We took Jett for her evening walk over to see the old shutdown training pool for the facility. It was a full day!
There’s a long drive ahead of us tomorrow! Heading back to a favorite area we have visited a number of years ago.
Note:
Numerous films, television shows and documentaries have been filmed using Wendover Field, including The Philadelphia Experiment (1984), Con Air (1997), Mulholland Falls (1996), Independence Day (1996), Hulk (2003) and The Core (2003).
Sunset: 7:42 pm
Sunrise: 7:19 am
Elevation: 4,220’
Miles from home:
2,417 miles
Wildlife viewings:
Hawks
Coyote
Canada Geese
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