The program runs from 4-7 pm (not overnight) and celebrates the Museum’s current Artist and Researcher exhibition presenting art inspired by science.
Alexandra Bowers, Deciphering The Nature of Cardiokines,
For the exhibition, nine local artists were paired with local researchers to create artwork based on their different areas of study.
The teams worked side-by-side in labs, classrooms, and art studios to create works that are visual representations of the scientific progress happening in Phoenix and other places in Arizona.
During the “Night at the Museum’ event, the public will be able to meet the researchers and artists, view the collaborative artworks, and participate in an augmented reality experience that allows viewers to walk through sections of the brain.
The event is open to the public and will take place in the PHX Terminal 4, level 3 gallery.
Atchison is also home to the Amelia Earhart Earthwork, a one-acre portrait created by Kansas artist Stan Herd in 1997 using plants, stone, and other materials.
And it now sits adjacent to the Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum which will have its grand opening on April 14, 2023.
The museum centerpiece is the world’s last remaining Lockheed Electra 10-E airplane.
And this plane is named Muriel, in honor of Amelia Earhart’s younger sister, Grace Muriel.
The fully restored Lockheed Electra is identical to the plane Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan were flying in 1937 when they disappeared during their ill-fated attempt to fly around the world.
Surrounding the plane are 14 interactive STEM-inspired exhibit areas and activity stations. Visit them all and you’ll learn about Amelia Earhart of, course, but also some history, culture, science, technology, aviation, engineering, mathematics, and more.
Museum visitors can scroll through digitized images of Earhart’s mechanic logbooks, compare the inner working of airplane engines then and now, learn about celestial navigation, practice packing the plane, and squeeze into the full-scale replica of Muriel’s cockpit.
After listening to recordings of radio interviews with the real Amelia Earhart and watching an uncanny computer-generated Amelia Earhart video, museum visitors can try ‘being’ Amelia Earhart.
Museum admission includes a chance to fly Earhart’s red Lockheed Vega 5B in a virtual reality simulator. And the flight programmed includes the same route and challenges (bad weather, mechanical problems, etc.) Earhart faced during her 15-hour flight on May 20-21, 1932 when became the first woman to fly nonstop and alone across the Atlantic.
The Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum in Atchison, Kansas will have its grand opening on Friday, April 14.
Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) will once again be handing out hundreds of red, pink, and white carnations to passengers on Valentine’s Day. Look for the PHL Volunteer Navigator team starting at 10 am in Terminal AEast and F.
At PHL, Philadelphia artist Carole Loeffler will also be onsite Valentine’s Day handing out hundreds of her hand-cut red felt hearts bearing rolled messages of love. Her HeartFelt giveaways will occur from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm, across from the food court located between Terminals B and C.
Big Flying Things Made Very Small in Seattle
Seattle’s Museum of Flight will be hosting one of the world’s largest displays of model planes, cars, tanks, ships, figures, sci-fi, and more during the 2023 NorthWest Scale Modelers Show on Feb. 18-19. Special exhibits include models celebrating Black History Month and the animated world of Gundam.
The event is all weekend and is free with admission to the Museum.
Plenty of Super Bowl Swag at Phoenix Sky Harbor Int’l Airport
And if you’re headed to the Big Game in person, it looks like you’ll have no problem finding swag to show your support for your favorite team.
It was a scrolling sort of day. And an educational one. Here’s what we learned today about the Concorde, Janet Bragg, and Pan Am’s “First Moon Flights” Club.
Janet Bragg always dreamed of flying. When she enrolled in a program for Black pilots at Curtiss Wright Aeronautical School, she had to work extra hard to prove herself—many students didn't accept her because she was a woman: https://t.co/UPaam7SO4d#BlackHistoryMonthpic.twitter.com/zBdEPe3DdW
For the next 4 years, 90,000+ people signed up for a space trip and received these First Moon Flights Club cards. The card's back read, "Pan Am makes the going great: first in Latin America, first on the Atlantic, first on the Pacific, first round the world." #52Objects#PanAmpic.twitter.com/CjBLPFpq4R
The Kanas City Chiefs will play the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LVII on Sunday, February 12 in Glendale Arizona at State Farm Stadium.
Thousands of football fans will be heading that way, whether they have tickets to the game or not. And most of the fans flying to the game will be arriving and departing via Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX).
The days leading up to the big game will be busy. But February 13, the day after Super Bowl LVII will likely be one of PHX’s busiest days on record. The airport projects a 50% increase in traffic on that day.
But they’re ready.
“Our staff has been working with airlines, the TSA, the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee, law enforcement, our restaurant operators and other partners to ensure we are ready to welcome visitors coming in for the Big Game,” said Director of Aviation Services Chad Makovsky. “Phoenix Sky Harbor is no stranger to welcoming visitors to big events and to town for the Super Bowl. With our focus on service as well as recent enhancements we’ve made to our facilities, we look forward to providing our visitors with an exceptional experience.”
Airport officials tell us the NFL and Host Committee have put up some signs welcoming travelers. And that many shops are already selling Super Bowl and team merchandise.
There’s a countdown clock running in the PHX Bag Claim. And a long list of travel tips for Super Bowl LVII visitors on the airport website.
Reservations can be made up to six days in advance.
For those with bags to check:
On Sunday, February 12, and Monday, February 13, anyone boarding the PHX Sky Train at the 44th Street Station or returning a car at the Rental Car Center can check their bags before getting to the terminal. That’s a big time saver for those who can take advantage of it.
This service is available for those flying American, Delta, Southwest, or United. Bags must be checked a minimum of 90 minutes before your flight. There is no additional charge to use this service, but individual airline bag fees will still apply.
— Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (@PHXSkyHarbor) January 30, 2023
The airport’s team of Navigator Buddies therapy dogs is working on an MVB (Most Valuable Buddy) promotion. And the TSA’s canine explosive detective canines are also in training for the game.
First Boeing 747-121 , 1969 – Courtesy Museum of Flight
Curent and former Boeing employees, customers, and aviation fans of all sorts gathered at Boeing’s Everett factory on Tuesday to mark the deliver of the final 747 aircraft to Atlas Air Worldwide.
The event closes out more than a half century of production of the iconic airplane.
And here’s a video from December 6, 2022, when Boeing rolled out the final 747 from the factory in Everett, WA. in advance of its delivery to Atlas Air.
The Seattle-based Stuck at the Airport team took a short road trip to Oregon last week to join a special dinner hosted by Humble Spirit.
The new(ish) farm-to-table restaurant in historic downtown McMinnville celebrates the wonderful wines and seasonal bounty of the Willamette Valley.
On our winter tasting menu: Hazelnuts and Pork Belly, Whole Trout, Winter Braised Vegetables, as well as meatballs, burgers, and other dishes made with beef, chicken, and pork attentively raised and harvested on Tabula Rasa Farms in nearby Carlton, OR.
Farm products even make it into the restaurant’s version of Oreo cookies. Evidently, the recipe for the now-classic snack called for sweetened pork lard, an ingredient later replaced with hydrogenated cottonseed oil. The Humble Spirit chef has his own oreo cookie-like dessert (complete with milk for dipping) that puts sweetened pork lard from Tabula Rasa Farm hogs back into the mix.
Hotels That Embrace History With Wit and Charm. And Books
It’s a small town, but there’s plenty to do, see, and learn about in McMinnville and surrounding Yamhill County. There are oodles of wine-tasting rooms, plenty of charming restaurants, and a thriving art scene. And if you time it right, you can land in town during the annual UFO Fest, honoring a 1950 UFO sighting documented with some pretty believable photographs.
It’s impossible to take it all in during a quick visit. So we were delighted that our home for the night, the 36-room Atticus Hotel in historic downtown McMinnville, is filled with locally-made products, specially-commissioned artwork, lots of handmade furnishings, and Oregon-made products (including Pendleton bathrobes) at every turn.
We loved that each of the hotel’s 36 rooms has an antique door knocker, that guests are offered a complimentary glass of bubbly before they even check in, and that the front desk will make you an espresso drink any time of the day or night.
But what we truly loved about the Atticus Hotel is the history lesson front and center in the lobby.
In the early 1900s, McMinnville was known as Walnut City and walnuts galore were grown and shipped from Oregon’s Willamette Valley. A Columbus Day storm in 1963 took out almost all of the region’s walnut trees and now the region is known for its hazelnuts.
In 1908 McMinnville’s Walnut Club built a promotional archway of walnuts and in 1909 that charming display made its way to the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exhibition, the first World’s Fair held in Seattle. That archway has been recreated in the lobby of the Atticus, complete with constantly refilled bowls of walnuts and hazelnuts. (Each room has a bowl of nuts and a nutcracker as well.)
2 Choices to Stay in Portland, Oregon
The pandemic may have kept people from visiting Portland, OR, but it didn’t do much to slow down the construction of new hotels already underway. So if you head to the Rose City now, you’ll have an even wider choice of lodging options.
We stopped briefly in Portland on our way to and from McMinnville and did return visits to two of our favorite hotels.
The Sentinel
The Sentinel, which calls itself Portland’s ‘most storied’ hotel is made from two historic downtown buildings. The hotel’s east wing is the former Seward Hotel, built a few years after the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition. (That hotel later became The Governer Hotel).
The Sentinel’s west wing was once the very grand Elks Lodge.
We love the murals, the ornate lobby ceiling, the fitness center in the former ‘vault room’ complete with a punching bag in the safe, and the faux library and cozy touches in the “Room at the End of the Hall.”
The Heathman Hotel
Located smack dab in the middle of Portland’s cultural district, the Heathman Hotel, which opened in 1927, has been an iconic go-to spot for musicians, artists, celebrities, and other performers.
One of the key features of the hotel is the restored former Tea Court Lounge. It is surrounded by the hotel’s two-story library. Go ahead, take a book off a shelf. The collection is filled with close to 3000 signed editions of books by Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, U.S. Poet Laureates, a former U.S. President, and hundreds of other noted authors who have been guests of the hotel.
With the hotel’s permission, we made sure there is now a copy of our new guidebook, “111 Places in Seattle That You Must Not Miss,” on the shelves.
It looked like Stephen King’s book needed some company.
The museum shared this unusual object as the first item in its new ’52 Objects’ series. And we can’t wait to see what’s next.
Courtesy SFO Museum
The kit has an illustration of a stork – and a rabbit – on the lid delivering a baby. And the contents include a disposable scalpel, a bulb aspirator, and a receiving blanket among other things needed to deliver a baby.
The Smithsonian Museum of American History has a similar kit in its collection and has a photo of the box opened so we can see some of the items inside.
November is Aviation History Month. And that means it’s a good time to look at aviation history displays at airports around the country.
First stop: Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX). There, the Phoenix Airport Museum presents numerous history displays. And exhibits are pre-security. Even better, the airport museum has a new Aviation History Guide chock full of information about the exhibits.
The guide is accessible via QR codes by the displays or online.
Gary Martelli, the manager/curator of the Phoenix Airport Museum was kind enough to send these images, along with descriptions.
American Airlines & PHX
The World’s Largest Airline exhibition is at Terminal 4, level and looks at American Airlines’ long association with PHX. Look for fun facts, historic images, and rare objects like a ‘Flagship’ pennant that traveled millions of miles across America in the 1930s and 1940s.
You can also take a selfie with a life-size image of 1960s flight attendants dressed in their modern red, white and blue American Beauty uniforms.
Fly-In Weddings Were Once a Thing at PHX
The Fly-In Weddings exhibition at Terminal 3, level 1 tells the story of the time when couples could fly into Sky Harbor to get married at an adobe mission-style chapel located right off the runway. The chapel was available for “aerial elopers” for a short time in the 1930s and 1940s. And on display are historic images and the original 200-year-old chapel bell.
World War 1 Fighter Plane
At the airport’s PHX Sky Train 44th Street Station you can look up and see one of the world’s few remaining original World War I fighter planes – the SPAD XIII. The biplane is suspended from the ceiling inside the station and is painted in the colors of the aircraft flown by Arizona’s own flying ace, Lt. Frank Luke, Jr.
