My wife's parents wanted to see the National Air & Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center out in Dulles, Virginia, while they were visiting this weekend, which was fine by me. I've been there before, but I like airplanes, so off we went on Saturday. It was crowded, but the main hangar-like gallery is so vast, it wasn't too stressful. It's pretty dark from the photography perspective, so I didn't take as many photos as I might have otherwise, but I did get a few decent shots. I really need a dedicated flash unit to mount on top of my DSLR for such applications. 

A bonus - we got to meet one of the "Tuskegee Airmen" from World War II, Curtis Christopher Robinson. It was great honor to meet someone who not only flew fighter planes in combat over Europe, but who had to content with racism and ignorance on the ground. 

The family generally got along pretty well, except my wife's stepfather was being contrary half the afternoon, for some unknown reason. Whatever... he'll be gone in 12 hours and I won't have to deal with him until the holidays.

Before I forget, here's a little shout-out to Southwest Airlines. While I'm normally unimpressed by their Lord of the Flies boarding process, garish color scheme, and casual flight attendant uniforms, I had a positive experience on my flight home from Long Island last Sunday. As I got settled in my seat and the plane filled up, I felt something strange down by my feet. They felt glued to the floor! When I peered down, I saw what looked like a mixture of gum and melted candy on the carpet, along with scattered crayons and markers. Obviously, a child had the seat before me and made a huge mess. Eeew. A sympathetic passenger gave me a page from his newspaper to try to clean up the mess with, but it was making it even worse.

One of the flight attendants noticed I was having some difficulties, and brought me several packets of pre-moistened towelettes to clean up my shoes and hands. Then, she got down on her hands and knees with a rag and bottle of Windex, and cleaned up the mess as best she could under the circumstances. She did a great job and it made the rest of the flight more comfortable and probably kept the sticky mass from ending up on the new car's floormats. Later, she came by and offered a free drink, which I politely declined. She didn't have to do that, I would have been happy if she just handed me a paper towel or something.

While disembarking the plane at the end of the flight, I meant to get her name and call Southwest to leave a commendation, but she was busy assisting a handicapped passenger and I didn't want to disturb her. In the unlikely event anyone from Southwest is reading, the flight was no. 799 from Islip to BWI, 12:10 PM, Sunday 6/17 and the flight attendant was a young (20-30?) blond woman. I appreciated the first class service at a discount price.