Vega writes: We met at a school parking lot south of Salinas, and headed south on River Road. River Road is the country alternative to the freeway, and goes south to where Foothill Road branches off, driving through miles and miles of vineyards and past quite a few wineries. There were also a few fields of lettuce, broccoli, cauliflowers, etc. We made a pit stop at Greenfield, at a park with porta-potties. Note – next time we know there are porta-potties, be sure to bring a roll of toilet paper.
From there, we headed south again to Fort Hunter Liggett, to the historic San Antonio de Padua mission. Since it was a Sunday, services were taking place, so we admired the outside and took another pit stop.
From there we headed south again (this time on the freeway) to Paso Robles, where we got off at Highway 46 for the visit to the Estrella Warbirds Museum. We were greeted at the entrance by a decommissioned Army tank on display. We drove in to the airfield past a rocket. A hanger was in front of the airfield with work in progress, but we wanted lunch. We lined up on the airfield in front of all kinds of decommissioned Army and Navy and Air Force jets of various types.
We were late for lunch, but the caterer waited for us, and we had a great lunch of barbecued ribs and chicken, with salad, beans, and French Bread.
Then we explored the museums. There is a war museum with displays from a variety of wars, including models, unitorms, weapons, stories and more. There is gift shop next to it with more displays. The next building is a car museum with all kinds of interesting cars, from the 1950s, 1960s, dragsters, one-off models and even a few motorcycles. The last building we visited was the Red Ball museum, with large trucks from the Red Ball express that supplied World War II troops with petroleum, ammunition, medical supplies, food and anything else they needed. The whole place is great and we highly recommend it for anyone interested in historic vehicles and planes.
To view the PHOTOS taken by Vega and Mark, click on the image below.
