Breakfast Club
An Affiliate of the
The
Knife & Fork
Breakfast Club Drops in on
Dines at the Crown Railroad Café
10 & 11 Sept, 2011
by Warren McIlvoy
The September Breakfast Club fly-in event was the second of our two annual over-night
fly-ins and the Event Committee decided to keep it closer to home and visit one
of the more popular summertime destinations in all of
At the
The weather was predicted to be
very good for the early portion of our day’s activities but it was supposed to
turn to thunder storms by some time in the afternoon. Some of our group was going to go up on
Friday to visit a classic car show that was in town but they canceled-out
because of the less than favorable weather predicted for Saturday
afternoon. As it turned-out, the
predicted thunder storms did not arrive until late in the evening with the rest
of day being blessed by gorgeous weather conditions.
The folks at Wisemans suggested they we might enjoy
breakfast at a place in town called the Crown
Railroad Café that was very close to our hotel. After loading-up the Suburban with our gear
and bodies, I headed-up I-17 and after passing under I-40, the road became just
another arterial street in the
Traffic on the
The chairlift rises to the
11,500’ level and is about 6400’ in length.
The ride is about a half an hour including frequent stops that, I
believe, are due to taking-on returning passengers at the top of the
mountain. As we ascended up the
mountain, I could see where the intersecting trails merged with the main downhill
sloping trail. There was little breeze
to speak-of and when the chair stopped, there was not a sound, just dead
quiet. The sky was overcast and at one
point, we experienced a brief, very light sprinkle that lasted about
45-seconds. When we reached the last
50’, the sign instructed us to raise the seat guard and prepare for exiting at
the top. The air temperature was
somewhere in the upper 40’s to maybe about 50 degrees thus making the use of a
jacket an absolute necessity.
The view from the top is
extraordinary but the overcast did limit our visibility somewhat. After taking a number of photos, I visited
the highest toilet in the state of
Before pursuing another
activity, we decided to head to our hotel to see if we could do an early
check-in to off-load our gear that was in the back of our vehicle. As luck would have it, we were all able
check-in for our rooms and promptly unloaded the car and headed off to our
rooms and to agree to meet at the lobby desk in a half hour for our next
adventure.
Our next destination was the Lowell Observatory (www.lowell.edu) that was named after Percival Lowell, the discoverer of the
planet Pluto in the early part of
the 20th century. It was a
relatively short drive to Mars Hill
where the observatory is located. After
purchasing our tour tickets, we joined a group that has just started the guided
tour of the observatory grounds and buildings.
The guide would give us a brief history of the various buildings and
their current functions. One building in
particular that is most associated with the
The actual telescope used by Percival Lowell when he discovered Pluto in 1930, was a 13” astrograph (a
type of telescope employed exclusively to take pictures). Later, it was used to study the proper motion
of stars (proper motion is a star’s angular change in position over time).
One feature of interest was the
“Pluto
Walk”. This 350’ outdoor exhibit
illustrates the scale of the solar system from the sun to Pluto. The scale is one inch
to one million miles and you would have to travel all the way to Los Angles to reach the closet star to
our solar system, Proxima Centauri. By walking the entire distance from where the
sun was to where Pluto was (using
this scale) we would have walked 350 billion miles. No wonder I was so tired when we got back to
the hotel.
When we arrived at our hotel, we
called Black Barts
for dinner reservations and we had to take a 5:30 dinner time as they had a
large tour group scheduled to arrive at 6:00.
That did not give us much time to freshen-up before heading out again
for the restaurant. Black Barts (www.blackbartssteakhouse.com)
is a well known steakhouse frequented by both locals as well as tourists (that be us). The waiters
and waitresses serve double duty as they serve the food as well as providing
the entertainment. Many of them
performed solo and occasionally they performed as a group. They performed many show tunes as well as
classics and along with a good meal, the evening was very pleasant and
worthwhile. In my “humble” opinion, this
is a must see when you are visiting the
When we got back to the hotel,
the evening was still somewhat young so after a quick trip to our rooms, we met
back in the lounge and found a somewhat secluded spot where we could sit and
relive the day’s activities. There were
quite a few people in the bar area as the large screen TV had a football game
on that generated sporadic loud cheers.
At about 9:30 or so, we decided to call-it-a-day and retire to our rooms
but before dispersing, we decided to meet in the dinning area at 0700 for
breakfast. At about 10:30 or so, I
noticed an occasional flash of light through the window but I initially
attributed it to cars traveling an adjacent neighborhood street. But in due time, the accompanying crash of
thunder signaled the arrival of the storms that were supposed to foul-up our
planned activities and caused some folks to cancel-out their attendance for
this fly-in.
The buffet style breakfast was a
$9.95 extra but since it included just about anything that you could want for
breakfast, it was worth trying. They
even featured an omelet bar where you could order your custom made omelet. After a filling breakfast meal, we agreed to
meet in the hotel lobby at 0830 for the ride back to the
The weather for our return trip
was just a gorgeous as it was the prior morning with the only exception being
that I had to wipe-down the windows on my airplane but the free wash job sorta
helped to make-up for it. Speaking of
the
The
- Warren & Jeri-Ann
McIlvoy in 93MB, BC-1 & 1.5
- Paul Fortune in 31870,
BC-201
- John &
What’s Next?
The October Breakfast Club fly-in will be to
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