It’s huge!!! We easily spent four hours just in the main exhibit hall. The second floor has several aircraft simulators and actual cockpits of aircraft you can climb into.

You may even get lucky during your visit, as we did, to witness a military retirement ceremony taking place.  The facility is commonly used for military events.  Over Jay’s 27 years in the Navy, I always loved attending the many ceremonies over the years.  Like homecomings, I still get emotional every time I witness one. 

The museum is on a Navy Base. At the time of our visit, increased security measures have temporarily limited access to current DoD ID cardholders and Veterans with a Veteran Health Identification Card (VHIC) only. As a result, we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. They do allow those with IDs to escort non-ID holders on. If you can link up with someone who can get you in it’s worth the price of admission (free).

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If you’ve ever bought a camper anywhere on the planet, there’s an 80% chance it was built in Elkhart, Indiana. On our visit to THE RV CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, we took the opportunity to tour the Grand Design Manufacturing Plant and visit the Recreational Vehicle & Motor Home Hall of Fame.

Grand Design Tour

Grand Design RV loves to show customers & potential customers how they build their RV’s. The company, known for its customer service and quality, is relatively new in the industry and has a pretty interesting story.  Production happens early in the morning at the GD facility, and it’s nearly a ghost town when the public tours start at 2:00 PM. Cam Boyer, the company’s CFO, actually joined us and answered many questions along the way.  We enjoyed the tour and found it very interesting and educational.  Details on factory tours are here.

Recreational Vehicle / Motor Home Hall of Fame

We also took the opportunity to visit the Recreational Vehicle / Motor Home Hall of Fame. The RV/MH HoF is 100,000 sq. ft. Museum, which features various historical, recreational vehicles from Airstream, Winnebago, and other American makers.

The museum features RV’s dating back 100 years and continuing through the 1980s. The oldest vehicle on display is a 1913 Earl Travel Trailer, and it’s the oldest surviving specimen known. The museum is divided into areas that highlight key events in the history of RVs, such as the introduction of the first microwave oven, the first indoor toilet, and other features. Vehicles from the 1980s are displayed at the Go RV’ing exhibition hall, within walking distance of the museum.

One of the vehicles on display is the 1931 Chevrolet Housecar offered as a bribe to Mae West by Paramount Pictures to persuade her to make movies. The oldest Winnebago and the smallest Airstream ever built are also to be found in the museum.

Our trip to “The Crossroads of America” also allowed us to visit many local farms, Amish businesses, and even a cattle auction or two!   All things not too easily found on Oahu! 

It was great to show Caleb all of this “‘Merica” at once!

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The facility builds the BMW X models and produces the X3, X3 M, X5, X5 M and X7 Sports Activity Vehicles and X4, X4 M, X6 and X6 M Sports Activity Coupes.

Tours are $15 or less and they fill up pretty quickly.  They have two tours – a one hour tour and extended two hour.

From BMW’s website:
Walk along our assembly line and see for yourself how the Ultimate Driving Machine is Built. This tour begins with the painted body of the vehicle and ends with the completed vehicle driving out of the plant.

The physical size of BMW Plant Spartanburg is approximately 7.0 million square feet with the recent addition of a new body shop, an expansion of the X5/X6 assembly hall, and an expansion of logistics. Current construction includes the expansion of Assembly North (X3/X4 assembly) by 140,000 square feet and renovation/re-tooling of the first-generation X4 body shop.

Currently, BMW Manufacturing produces more than 1,400 vehicles each day. The factory is the global producer of BMW X3, X4, X5 and X6 Sports Activity Vehicles and Coupes (and their variants) to more than 140 global markets.

The two hour tour is the same as above but it takes you to the incredible new body shop where you will see sophisticated robotics build the frames of the vehicles.  Check the availability of tours here.

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You do NOT need to like beer to enjoy this tour (but it helps). As an avid homebrewer (back in the day), I had a great time walking around and seeing all the equipment during the tour. This whole place was a homebrew setup on super steroids!

This tour is free, and it’s highly recommended you reserve a time. They do take walk-ins if space is available on the departing tours, but they’re usually full. Once in – You’re greeted by a tour guide who gives a quick history of the family-run company. They also talk about Sierra Nevada’s recycling and sustainability program, which is internationally recognized and mind-blowing impressive.

You’re quickly moved into the heart of the brewing operations as you can observe the grain mill, which processes 1000’s of lbs of grain a day.

Then over to the hops room. This is where a lot of the flavors of Sierra Nevada’s IPA’s get their distinct taste. To my surprise, they use many of the same hops most homebrewers would use. I didn’t see any crazy hybrid or proprietary types of hops in the room. Just a bunch of classics!

I forgot the weight of these blocks (maybe 200 lbs), but they’re full leaf/cone hops which are pressed and wrapped for freshness. The amounts are massive once they’re pulled apart again. The smell was incredible!

Then over to the mash, boil, sparge, and whirlpool tanks. These are the iconic copper kettles synonymous with breweries from Germany. So big and so shiny…ohhh! Again the smell was just amazing! We also got to sample wort directly from the process.

The tour continues, and you get to view the yeast lab & vault, then down to where the magic happens in the fermenters. It appears to be an endless plumbing experiment to a novice, but if you know the brewing process, it’s what brewers dreams are made of :-).

Once you round the corner, you’ll go to the second floor and see the high tech bottling and packaging facilities. They can bottle 900 beers a minute! It’s mesmerizing to watch and see how quickly this can be done. You’ll spend more time here than you planned… so many processes to observe at one time.

The second floor is where many of the brewery offices and brewers are actually working. The Head Brewer actually walked by and said “hi” to us as we walked the spaces. The founder of Sierra Nevada, Ken Grossman, is a massive collector of brewing memorabilia and historical artifacts. Many of his personally owned items are on display for the public to view. They “of course” have a lot of Sierra Nevada memorabilia, which is also interesting to see in its own right.

Then you land in the taproom. You’ll get to sample 5-6 beers, which are typically their first brews, current seasonals, and maybe one unreleased brew. We had Torpedo IPA, Pale Ale, Celebration, Tropical Torpedo, Otra Vez, and the 2019 Narwhal. They were all delicious as expected!

This is where the tour ends, and you can roam about the 2nd floor while finishing your samples.

Next, we went over to the Torpedo Room restaurant for lunch. We had eaten before the tour and weren’t extremely hungry, so we decided to get some appetizers. We all agreed on the pretzels and beer cheese and hot wings. The wings came out lollipop style and were oh so very good!

I couldn’t leave without hitting the gift shop. I picked up a bomber of the Northern Hemisphere Harvest (a day before it was officially released), a sticker, and a koozie. What a fantastic tour! I had a great time! Kudos to the wife for setting it up for me!

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The The International Spy Museum  was absolutely awesome! The new facility is amazing. Tons of interactive displays and a fun role play which ties the whole experience together. If you’re ever in DC it’s definitely worth the cost of admission. Agent Cover: Adrian Rodriguez, Personal Trainer from Reykjavik, Iceland. Mission: Classified

The Museum’s mission is to educate the public about espionage and intelligence in an engaging way. It provides a context for understanding of the important role intelligence has played in history and continues to play today.

As a non-profit, the Museum aims to provide an objective and apolitical forum for exploring important topics such as the impact of secrecy on civil liberties, the changing role of technology in intelligence work, and the challenges of disinformation in a social media environment.

It also has one of the largest libraries of spy related books under one roof you can look through and make purchase of.

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Caleb and I decided to climb the 294 steps of the monument! Inside, they number the steps to help/torture you during the climb. As we got to step 200 & he looked at me like “What did we get ourselves into?” I gave him a Braveheart style charge “For freeeeedom!!!” and he promptly finished the task. . Love that kid!

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Maine has always crossed the Penobscot River in style. This bridges predecessor, The Waldo–Hancock Bridge has some interesting history (circa 1930’s). It’s really awesome to drive over. #cablebridge #cablestayedbridge #bridge #maine. Read more on here.

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Just finished our tour of the Grand Design facility! Check out our post about it here.  It was pretty cool to see where our RV was built and the manufacturing processes. We also got to meet one of the company founders and current #CFO. Thanks Rocky for a great tour! #fulltimerv #fulltimefamily #fulltimefamilies #granddesignrv

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Today, Momma took the lead on teaching our son about #respect for those who have served our nation throughout history. #ilovethiswoman #wifey4lifey #ohanaexpedition

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