Day 2: Terror

 I had plans for writing about this trip - I was going to write one post a day for the four day trip.  I wrote on on the 16th - and now it's the 19th?

Well, I thought I had brought home one souvenir from the trip: a pair of socks from the Alien Museum.

Actually, I brought home two souvenirs - socks and a case of Covid.  I had a couple of rough days, but the fever broke last night.  It is not a bad case (I did have a booster shot last month) so it mostly feels like a cold.  So much for being the last Covid virgin standing.

A couple more thoughts from Day 1 of the trip.  This was the first time I've ever flown at dawn, and boy - is that a beautiful time of the day to be taking off.

I've seen the evolution of in-flight entertainment.  When I was a kid, there would be an actual screen pulled down - you sort of had to peek over people's heads or between seats, and could rarely hear anything.

That progressed to either screens that you could pull up from the armrest, or screens that were on the back of the seats.  When I went to Boston a couple of years ago, I thought I was being fancy and brought a long my Bluetooth earplugs instead of the plug-in type - only to find that I needed to have the plug-in type.  I didn't bother to buy the airplane set - I could be content with my reading and knitting.

This time, I brought the plug-in set - only to discover that in-flight entertainment has evolved into "bring your own screen."  You can watch on your personal devices.  Because this was a short trip, I hadn't bothered to bring my tablet, which left my phone.  I thought I would at least listen to music  - and that's when I discovered that my phone does not have a jack for earplugs.   Back to the reading and knitting.  Someday I'll get it right.

Back to the first full day - which I'm realizing is going to take two posts because I'm starting to fade again (stupid Covid).  Wednesday morning - the most fascinating and terrifying day.

As well as the missile-site-turned-AirBnB that Gary owns, he also owns another site, still in original abandoned condition.  Raul took us out to see it.  The footprint of all the sites is identical, so we could find our way around, but it's amazing what Gary did with what he had to work with (he said he paid $50,000 for the site, and $400,000 to refurbish it).

Then we went into the silo.
Ahem.
"Our" silo in the AirBnB has a nice sturdy expanded metal floor with waist high railings, and a friendly alien to share a cup of tea.

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Even at that, looking the 40 feet up and the 150 feet down make me feel a little queasy.

This silo?  A distinct lack of handrails and chunks of the floor.  And if we wanted to, we could climb down into the belly of the beast.  How often do you get a chance like that? (Answer - just once, if you make a misstep)

I have never thought of myself as being particularly acrophobic/agoraphobic, but I will admit that this place got to me.  In "our" silo, I didn't mind popping up and down the 30" wide steps, with that looooong drop off to the side.  Without the handrails - let's just say that I was suctioning myself to the wall.  We maneuvered our way along the catwalk and down a set of spiral stairs for a couple of levels.

 (Notice that there is no railing at the base of the steps.

This shot is taken from those steps - we went down to that second level.

These next two shots crack me up - Michael and I looking over the edge.  I am hiding behind an I beam, hanging on for dear life (I may have impressed my fingerprints into it).  Mike has his hands in his fricken' pockets, just casually leaning over the edge.  Sheesh.

Pictures just can't give an idea of the scale of the silo.  The missile elevator was mounted on springs (because you certainly don't want it to be jiggling) - this shot gives an idea of the size of them.

And always, in the back of our minds, was that our father was here, underground, when that 80 foot long, 130 ton missile, effing exploded.  Two of them, six weeks apart.  And by some miracle ("miracle" meaning that my father had safety drills on a very regular basis) everyone survived.  It's still a terrifying thought.

We were too young to think about it at the time.  It never occurred to us to even consider that he might not have survived.  And, in later years, he never talked about it, and we never asked, what that experience had been like.

The rest of the day was much less adrenaline provoking, but that will have to wait until tomorrow because I'm really crashing now.  Stupid Covid.