January 22, 2005 - Volksmarch in Midland, Texas

Our first order of business was to walk the Volksmarch in Midland, so after breakfast we drove over to sign up and start the walk. This was one of the Volksmarches where you sign up in one place and then start in another, so although we signed up at a Kinko's on the route 250 bypass, we started the walk in a nearby park. The local club offered 3 walks in Midland and we chose the one that qualified as a President-related walk. In this case the President in question was George W. Bush, no less, and as we wound through the city we saw his birthplace, his first home after marrying Laura, and their second home in Midland. I was surprised that none of these houses were at all extravagant. President Bush's birthplace was quite humble, in my estimation, and the first home where he lived with Laura appeared to be solidly middle class while the second one was slightly larger, perhaps upper middle class. In fact, the entire section of Midland that we walked through basically looked and felt like any middle class suburb in the US.

The walk route was absolutely flat and we had no problems except that the sidewalks were spotty and in some sections we were forced to walk in the street. On the positive side, there was a lot of hardware lying around that had fallen off cars or trucks. I of course picked these treasures up because after all you never know when you might need a particular screw, washer, or bolt for your own car or truck.

After the walk we had lunch at a combination Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken place that offered a small buffet for $3.99 for Seniors, and fortunately they defined Senior as anyone over 55. We thought it was a great way to have a nice big lunch where we could choose relatively healthful food at a reasonable price. And that wasn't our only piece of luck on the price front. On our way over to a Wal Mart Supercenter to restock on groceries, I found a Circuit City and we bought two new batteries for my camera. That came out much more cheaply than I had feared as we found Olympus Accessory Kits on a close out sale for $20 apiece that each contained one of the proprietary lithium batteries. As it turned out, we could buy 2 of those kits and come out cheaper than a single battery at the regular price of $44 (Super Ouch!!). I was very happy to have 3 batteries because I could rotate charging them and hopefully never again be struck pictureless due to a dead battery.

Stopping by the trailer to unload the groceries and put one of the new batteries on to charge, we next drove a couple miles down the road to the Midland International Airport where the Confederate Air Force (AKA the Commemorative Air Force) is situated. That basically is a group of folks dedicated to preserving WWII aircraft in flyable condition plus anything related to that period of aviation. One part of the complex was a big hangar where they were working on restoring a Flying Fortress (I think), a truly monumental task. The hangar was huge, but that big bird stretched most of the way across it.

The CAF preserves planes of all nations involved in WWII, including ones from the Soviet Union and Germany. The Soviet fighter they were featuring when we visited (exhibits change regularly in the hangar) was apparently the mainstay Soviet fighter at the beginning of the war. It was a tiny thing with a big radial engine hanging off the front, and I was very surprised to see little doors in the cowling in front of each cylinder. I expect those were used to control cooling air to the cylinders when the airplane was used in the bitter Soviet winters, but I wasn't sure.

German aircraft on display included trainers, pursuit fighters, and a Junker's medium size bomber. Curiously enough, the primary trainers for both the US and Germany were rather similar looking biplanes with radial engines and tandem open cockpits. I suppose that the forgiving flight characteristics of the biplanes and slow take off and landing speeds were instrumental in choosing these trainers, and I wondered if all the air forces of the time used similar aircraft for that role.

A Messerschmidt 109 on display interested me because I had built models of it when a boy. I knew it was the mainstay of the German fighter force at the beginning of the war although later supplanted by the Focke-Wolfe, Me262, and other advanced fighters. But I remembered the fuselage as distinctly triangular, and I was therefore surprised that the fuselage of this 109 was nicely rounded at each edge.

Nearby was a Junkers was built from corrugated aluminum that resembled old galvanized tin roofing, but apparently that contributed to the strength of the airframe. It also sported a painting of an old lady on the engine nacelles with the legend "Alte Tante Ju", which roughly translates as "Old Aunt Ju (Junkers)".

There was also some nose art painted on a small Stinson L5 Sentinel used as a utility aircraft for communication, photographic reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and medical evacuation. In fact, the main building of the museum housed a gallery with a really great exhibit on nose art painted on US WWII bombers. Monika and I both enjoyed the paintings and the fascinating details of the inspiration and execution of the artwork under extremely difficult conditions.

But as we toured the main gallery that housed a detailed chronology of WWII and the role of aircraft in it, Monika became increasingly nervous and on edge. Having been bombed by US aircraft during WWII and almost killed, I could understand her reluctance to revisit those dark, stifling hours patiently waiting in the bunkers while death rained down all around. Not having had those traumatic experiences, I found the exhibits very interesting and didn't have the same anxiety reaction. But even for me it was also depressing to think of so many resources essentially wasted and so many young lives cut so tragically short.

It is amazing what countries will do when motivated by a simple idea, however right or wrong. As Hitler or one of his gang put it, "If you tell a lie often enough, people will eventually believe it to be the truth", a principle that continues to be used by modern politicians. But the German people have to bear some responsibility for not seeing through the lies of that time and that war, just as US citizens will have to bear some responsibility for not seeing through the lies of our time. Near the end of this trip, for example, I saw poll results to the effect that 60% of people in the U.S. still believed that Saddam Hussein really had the proverbial "Weapons of Mass Destruction", a belief without a shred of real supporting evidence. So a clever and unscrupulous politician still can, to coin a phrase, "fool most of the people most of the time", or at least enough of those who vote to continue to win elections.

I was chased out by the museum closing at 5 p.m., but we did manage to purchase a couple of half-price books that they had cunningly laid out right near the exit. I was particularly interested in one with first-hand experiences of WWII fighter pilots and later enjoyed reading their autobiographical comments in detail. On our way back to camp we stopped by the Vietnam memorial that was, for me at least, quite moving. The memorial showed a Huey helicopter coming in to pick up three soldiers, a scene that I strongly associated with the Vietnam war.

We refueled the truck (always easier when I didn't have the trailer hanging on behind) and returned to camp for the evening. Since I was a little tired of sandwiches for dinner, Monika cooked some eggs on toast, after which we both worked on our computers until around 9 o'clock when we retired to bed to keep reading about the search for the lost city of Ubar in the Arabian desert.