Corrales Chronicles: The Museum of Flight

In mid-February, our younger son, Drew, and I spent a short weekend in Seattle to attend a family memorial service for my mother's last living cousin.

During the 40 hours we were on the ground, when not sleeping or participating in the family gathering we visited a number of iconic Seattle institutions, the most notable of which was the Museum of Flight, located at the south end of Boeing Field (officially, the King County International Airport) south of Seattle.

The museum opened at its current location in 1987, and is the largest private air and space museum in the world. Its primary attraction for my family is the Lockheed M-21, a specialized version of the better known SR-71, the world's fastest jet-propelled aircraft. Drew and his brother, Owen, have been fascinated with the plane since they were little.

Most importantly, the museum also has the cockpit section of an SR-71 in which you can sit -- as close as it's possible to come to that childhood dream.

Besides the M-21/SR-71, the museum's main indoor exhibit area (the Great Gallery) is filled with historic aircraft.

We visited the museum twice -- on Sunday and Monday mornings. On Sunday the Great Gallery was hosting the annual Northwest Scale Model Show on the floor beneath the M-21/SR-71:

There were hundreds of scale models of airplanes, cars, and the Millennium Falcon, along with scores of hobbyists.

But the scale models weren't what we were there to see . . . and, in my case, photograph. The stories of the aircrafts, and their place in aviation history, were all interesting, but for me the attraction was visual. Some examples, beginning with details of one of the engines of the M-21/SR-71 (most of which worked well in black-and-white):

Details of other aircraft also worked well in B&W:

I also noticed a common feature of many early jet aircraft: Don't get sucked in.

Speaking of "intake," the other iconic attractions we enjoyed were late-night burgers at classic Seattle burger joints Pick-Quick and Dick's . . .

This was the scene at 10:30pm on Saturday night.

The burgers were OK, but none as good as a New Mexico green chile cheeseburger.

We also had breakfast Monday morning at Blazing Bagels, which claims to have the best bagels "east of New York." I'm not sure what that implies about the quality of bagels between NY and Seattle, but I have to say the bagels were superb!