On the Way to Estes Park

In our opinion there isn't much of interest for sightseeing between our home and the Rocky Mountains. The one stop we did make was at the Strategic Air Command museum outside Omaha. It is of interest only if you like airplanes and rockets. That means that it was interesting to me, and Nancy tolerated it.

Outside the museum are a Atlas ICBM (left) and a Thor IRBM (right).
 

This is the SR-71 Blackbird. It is capable of Mach 3 (three times the speed of sound).
 

The frontal view of the SR-71. Imagine that coming at you at three times the speed of sound. It looks pretty small from the front, which gives it a stealth quality. There is very little wing; I guess that a lot of the lift is provided by the fuselage.
 

The U-2. This plane is the opposite of the SR-71; it has a lot of wing and can cruise at 85,000 ft. It was used for spying on the USSR during the cold war. One was shot down in Russia in the 1960s; as you may recall, it created quire an international incident.