SR 71 Blackbird Air Park/Davies Air Park

Have done a series of day trips on my vacation and today, 7-11-14, I visited the Blackbird Air Park/Joe Davies Air Park located in Palmdale Ca. If you're within driving distance, it's well worth the visit. Two helpful links:
http://afftcmuseum.org/afft-museum/blackbird-airpark/
and
https://www.cityofpalmdale.org/airpark
Basically you're up close and personal with an SR-71 and a U2 in Blackbird park. My daughter took some images of me with the SR-71 which I'll try to upload at a later date. When you pause to consider the planes were probably top secret area 51-type stuff a awhile ago, and now you can walk and take pictures with 'em, well, what a difference a few decades can make!
There's some neat stuff in a gift shop and you walk around the back of it to go thru a gate to enter the Davies air park, There, you've got ample representation from the Navy with a corsair, sky hawk, F4 phantom and an F-14 Tomcat. The airforce includes an f104 starfighter, f100 super sabre and a B52, among others. I got a kick out of a missile system included with the B52, called a hound dog or something to that effect. The latter was to be used against hardened silos and the like and it looks like a bulkier version of a modern day cruise missile. Here's the kicker: its main munition is noted to be none other than a thermonuclear warhead and in parenthesis it says:
"Removed"!
A couple of caveats if you decide to go:
1. You're in a dry desert environment so bring plenty of hydration, a good hat and sunblock, otherwise you'll fry.
2. The navigation gets squirrely around there and it'll put you about a half click away from where you need to be. Even google driving directions kept shifting back and forth between Avenue P and M. It's almost like you're being jammed.

I saw my first SR71 in 1965, it was not called that then, it was an experimental designation that I cannot remember. It landed after it had problems at Barber's Point Hawaii. It stayed out on the runway and no one was allowed to get very close except a couple of mechanics. I watched it leave though and it was very impressive. It took off, rotated and pointed almost straight up and disappeared. There was nothing like it in the Vietnam era flying around. I am not sure what it was doing at the time.
I worked on the F4, A4D, and the C130 engine doing a minor overhaul. It was always a kick to put the engine in and run it up during testing.
Later I was in an attack squadron, VA93, an A4D squadron that was based on the USS Hancock CVA19, the oldest carrier in the Navy. We spent a lot of time off the shores of Vietnam flying bombing runs.

Rod,
Thanks for the post! I didn't realize the extent of the collection there and will make the trip. Looking forward to your daughters pictures.

There is also an SR-71 and a bunch of other classic planes at the Castle Air Museum in Atwater, CA: http://www.castleairmuseum.org/

in the late 1990s, I did the civil engineering for the federal prison on the back part of the old Castle AFB and visited the museum several times after doing site visits.