{"id":3805,"date":"2013-11-04T07:45:11","date_gmt":"2013-11-04T12:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bismarck-mandan.com\/?p=3805"},"modified":"2013-11-04T07:45:51","modified_gmt":"2013-11-04T12:45:51","slug":"panning-for-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/?p=3805","title":{"rendered":"Panning for gold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bismarck-mandan.com\/images\/2013\/10\/sac_museum_pan_1302.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"sac_museum_pan_1302\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bismarck-mandan.com\/images\/2013\/10\/sac_museum_pan_1302-500x131.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"131\" \/><\/a>I promised more pics from our Cold War Mancation trip to the Strategic Air &amp; Space Museum.\u00a0 On day one I didn&#8217;t even take my camera bag out of the car; we just used the day to take it all in, climbing all over everything that could be climbed, with an occasional iPhone photo.\u00a0 I have grown to love the panorama feature, so I thought I&#8217;d share.\u00a0 <strong>You can click on each of these photos to pop up a larger version.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bismarck-mandan.com\/images\/2013\/10\/sac_museum_pan_1288.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"sac_museum_pan_1288\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bismarck-mandan.com\/images\/2013\/10\/sac_museum_pan_1288-500x111.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"111\" \/><\/a>As I pointed out before, you&#8217;re greeted by one of my favorite aircraft ever: the SR-71 Blackbird.\u00a0 It&#8217;s simply breathtaking, and this one resides in a suitably breathtaking lobby for display.\u00a0 When you take the escalators up or down between levels you travel right under this bird, and it allows a true sense of how gigantic it is.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bismarck-mandan.com\/images\/2013\/10\/sac_museum_pan_1275.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"sac_museum_pan_1275\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bismarck-mandan.com\/images\/2013\/10\/sac_museum_pan_1275-500x131.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"131\" \/><\/a>This is the main hangar.\u00a0 It contains lots of displays, models, consoles from Minuteman and other launch control facilities, videos, simulators, and rare aircraft.\u00a0 Here is where I got to see a U2, the B-36 behemoth, and the B-58 supersonic bomber.\u00a0 Those were three things on my aircraft &#8220;bucket list&#8221; before I ever even discovered this museum.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bismarck-mandan.com\/images\/2013\/11\/sac_museum_pan_1316.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3806\" alt=\"sac_museum_pan_1316\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bismarck-mandan.com\/images\/2013\/11\/sac_museum_pan_1316-500x112.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"112\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2013\/11\/sac_museum_pan_1316-500x112.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2013\/11\/sac_museum_pan_1316-150x33.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2013\/11\/sac_museum_pan_1316-1024x230.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a>This is hangar two, containing spacecraft, a Soviet MiG fighter, a Space Shuttle bouncy house for the kiddos, and room for more aircraft.\u00a0 They have an Avro Vulcan bomber in back awaiting restoration, which is something I&#8217;d really like to see.\u00a0 That merits a return trip in the future once my boys are old enough.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bismarck-mandan.com\/images\/2013\/10\/sac_museum_pan_1286.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-3777\" alt=\"sac_museum_pan_1286\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bismarck-mandan.com\/images\/2013\/10\/sac_museum_pan_1286-500x170.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"170\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2013\/10\/sac_museum_pan_1286-500x170.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2013\/10\/sac_museum_pan_1286-150x51.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2013\/10\/sac_museum_pan_1286-1024x349.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/images\/2013\/10\/sac_museum_pan_1286.jpg 1466w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a>Did I mention the SR-71?\u00a0 What a beauty.\u00a0 In addition to a ton of other cool items in the gift shop, many of which I brought home, they have a Hayne&#8217;s Owner&#8217;s Workshop Manual for this airplane.\u00a0 Its pages actually include extensive history and data on the aircraft, and if I wasn&#8217;t on a tight budget I&#8217;d own one.\u00a0 Someday&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>You can check out more about the Strategic Air &amp; Space Museum online, of course&#8230;that address is <a title=\"Strategic Air &amp; Space Museum\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sasmuseum.com\" target=\"_blank\">www.sasmuseum.com<\/a> (opens in a new window).\u00a0 I recommend not only scheduling a trip to visit and support this facility, but to make sure you set aside <strong>two<\/strong> days to take it all in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I promised more pics from our Cold War Mancation trip to the Strategic Air &amp; Space Museum.\u00a0 On day one I didn&#8217;t even take my camera bag out of the car; we just used the day to take it all &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/?p=3805\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,19,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-military","category-vehicles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3805"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3808,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3805\/revisions\/3808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bismarckmandanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}