Vacaville - Nut Tree, CA, USA - 10/02/2007

Having departed Travis we headed towards Sacramento, final destination Reno. We'd not been on the road long when we were led towards a little airfield near Vacaville called Nut Wood.

Again, a knock on the door paid dividends as were directed towards the resident museum collection, principally owned by Duncan Miller - WW2 veteran and qualified to fly everything from single engined aircraft right through to four-engined types.

As we started wandering around the external exhibits, the 86-year old came over and introduced himself. He was absolutely thrilled to see us, invited us to sign his visitor book and offered everyone a "soda pop" and some goodies.

He proceeded to open up all of the surrounding hangars and showed us his impressive collection of aircraft and memorabilia, including several photos of greats like Chuck Yeager and Bob Hoover, all taken visiting his collection.

After we'd investigated the hangars in the immediate vicinity, he asked us if we'd like to see something a little bit special. He refused to tell us what it was until the hangar door was up - even then we needed his help to identify it!

This is one special airplane, with a unique history. It's a Vultee Stinson - one of 400 given to Britain during the second World War by the Americans. Only two of the type made it back to the US after the war, and this is reportedly the personal air-taxi used by Churchill during the conflict.

Duncan came across the aircraft in a very sorry state in Monterey, CA, and paid $8K for it. In his own words they've spent a lot of money restoring it, but given its historical value, I dread to think what it would be worth in its current condition...

That wasn't where the tour ended. We were taken to another hangar containing a further two aircraft. The Harvard/Texan is destined for the Commemorative Air Force in Alaska.

Then finally the UH-1 that was sitting outside amongst the hangar complex.

We finished off in Duncan's "hangar lounge" where we were introduced two of his friends, who entertained us with countless aeronautical stories.

The spritely 76-year old (who flew F-100s in the Korean War and later notched up nearly 10000hrs on the C-124!), whose name escapes me, kept saying how, "when I grow up, I wanna be just like Duncan!". It was absolutely priceless and an absolute privilege to have had the opportunity to sit and chat to these guys.

What a great find this place had been. Sadly with the time getting on and the prospect of heavy snowfall across the Sierras we had to get back on the road.

It's probably just as well we did!! Having driven through some of the heaviest rainfall and windiest conditions I've ever experienced on our way to and beyond Sacramento, the temperature started to plummet as we got higher and higher and it was only a matter of time before it turned to snow - heavily!

The route is notoriously bad at this time of year and we came to a checkpoint where everyone driving non-4X4 vehicles was being forced to put snow cables on their tyres before they were allowed to continue with their journey.

I'm reliably informed that this was a tad harder than it looked, and in the end we buckled and coughed up the $30 to have a professional do it!!

We stopped for gas at about 7000ft, and being Brits who don't see snow very often, we proceeded to have a snowball fight :-)