Step Into The Past

My absolute favorite part of the open house at the air museum had to be this airplane:

My husband thinks this is a Douglas C-47 Skytrain or maybe a Douglas DC-2/C-39.  Originally it would have been a military transport plane that was later converted into a passenger plane. They were charging a dollar to go look inside, so I figured, what the heck? TOTALLY worth it!

You'll notice that the body of the plane sits at a pretty good angle parked here in the hangar.

You can't tell from this photo, but it was a serious hike to get up that aisle.  Isnt' it cool though?  Seriously, it was like it was pulled straight from a set for Mad Men.  Instead of rows of seats, there were little conversation areas.  In some, there were four seats facing each other with a table in the middle.  In others, there were swivel chairs, while in others, there were long seats like couches on either side of the plane.

The window coverings were actual fabric curtains and the end tables looked like something you'd find furnishing someone's house, right down to lamps and coasters!   Oh, and notice that the armrest in the above photo has an ashtray built in.  HA!

This is the galley area that separated the cabin from the cockpit.  You can just imagine cute stewardesses in sharp uniforms preparing cocktails here!

And here's the cockpit.  Can you imagine trying to keep track of all those buttons, controls, and gauges all at once?

Getting up to the front of the plane was the easy part - getting back to the door at the rear presented a challenge.  Since the plane was sitting at such an angle, when I turned around to leave I got a serious case of vertigo.  It was so weird!  It didn't help at all that my center of gravity is all off right now with this big ol' belly either.  I had to very slowly go down the aisle, hanging on to the chairs and leaning backwards a bit.

Of course, Bubba seemed to not be affected at all.   Of course.

In the very last row there were these old intercoms.  They look almost EXACTLY like the ones in my old elementary school when I was a kid.  The bathroom was pretty roomy, but it was full of junk storage so I didn't take a photo.

Here we are getting off the plane... yeah, we needed help getting down.  :)  After we got off the plane I had to sit down for about ten minutes until that disoriented feeling passed.  Still totally worth it!