Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Saturday night we went to “Hops and Props,” a beer-tasting fundraiser at Boeing Field’s Museum of Flight.  Let me say now and for the record, if you visit Seattle you and do not go to the Museum of Flight, you’re a fool.

Of course, I’ll also point out that I hadn’t been there in, well, a loooong time, so I’m a bit of a fool myself.

Organized into three major sections and chock-a-block with some of the most beautiful aircraft, from the earliest experimental gliders to the SR-71 Blackbird, this place is a stupendous treat for the young boy that lives inside me.

At one point, getting a cider for my wife, I looked up and realized I was directly underneath the Blackbird (okay…it’s an M-21, but it’s as close as makes no difference). As a boy, I loved that plane–its lines, its nacelles, its chines, so unlike anything else in the day. And to be able to see it in person, walk around it, see it from almost every angle. It was hard to keep myself from grinning like a fool.

Later, while hunting for a triple IPA, I found myself in a gallery devoted to the piston era, surrounded by names from my youth: Warhawk, Lightning, Mustang, Thunderbolt, Spitfire, and my beloved Corsair. Walking among them, I didn’t keep myself from grinning like a fool.

There are spacecraft, a Concorde, the Gossamer Albatross, a B-17, a B-29, even a B-52.

My inner child was dancing, and I’ll be taking him back for a longer (less crowded) visit, soon.

k