My trip to the US! (1 Viewer)

[wwiibuff]

Great pictures of you time out west Tom. Love seeing the shots of you holding/firing the MG42.

 

[Artillery_crazy]

Hi Tom,
It seems you have had great travel plans up the sleave....Brazil, then continental US and the works...and still had time to assemble great dios.....how many hours do the days have down under?{sm4}
What a nice trip with a mix of all, meeting club pals and shooting MG42....and all...
Have say that it is in my list to one day also shoot an MG42 just to see what it feels like....
Also I am amazed by Chris´collection.......{sm4}{sm4}...I new pics of his FFL Fort ( we chatted about it ) but the rest........wohhh...the shelf with the FFL and Askari columns marching, the forts and all ....gee that would be an excursion on its own...
Congrats to you on the trip and to Chris on his collection.......
Cheers
Luiz

 

[TomNT]

Nice pics Tom! You had a blast during your trip it seems.
Great to meet you in San Antonio!
Kangaroo is in the office watching over the TS

Julie

Thanks Jules, yeah, I had a blast and thoroughly enjoyed every minute in the US. I didn't have enough hours in the day, hence me being super tired when I got home. As you can imagine, I slept like a bear!! Glad the roo is keeping an eye on the little blokes! ^&grin

Hey Tom,

How come you show up at the Pawn Shop and you do not get hold of Rick or the Old Man....{sm4}{sm4}
Do they actually hang around the shop or only when they are filming the series?
Do they have any toy soldier dept?
Cheers
Luiz

Hey Luiz

I was thinking the same thing but it appears Rick, the old man and his sons are only there for the filming. I was told sometimes Rick pops in but it's only every now and again. It is a working pawn shop but also a tourist attraction as well. The shop is not all that big and there's no toy soldier department.

Great pictures of you time out west Tom. Love seeing the shots of you holding/firing the MG42.

Thanks mate, it was fun and if I had more money to play with I would have blasted another 40 rounds off but this time got it recorded on a video clip. I would have liked to fire other weapons as well. They do have package deals where you can fire half a dozen weapons for a price.

Hi Tom,
It seems you have had great travel plans up the sleave....Brazil, then continental US and the works...and still had time to assemble great dios.....how many hours do the days have down under?{sm4}
What a nice trip with a mix of all, meeting club pals and shooting MG42....and all...
Have say that it is in my list to one day also shoot an MG42 just to see what it feels like....
Also I am amazed by Chris´collection.......{sm4}{sm4}...I new pics of his FFL Fort ( we chatted about it ) but the rest........wohhh...the shelf with the FFL and Askari columns marching, the forts and all ....gee that would be an excursion on its own...
Congrats to you on the trip and to Chris on his collection.......
Cheers
Luiz

We have long days here mate ^&grin Thanks Luiz and if you can get to Vegas then I highly recommend visiting Battlefield Vegas but be warned, ammo ain't cheap! Yeah, Chris's collection is awesome and very well presented. I like how he uses historical military pic's, equipment and other artefacts in his collection, they compliment the toy soldiers and vehicles.

Tom

 

[TomNT]

Continuing with my travels, here's some more pic's of Vegas but this time at night. They were taken on the last night I was there.

Tom

 

[TomNT]

Last lot. There's some interesting characters walking around the strip. I saw several blokes walking around in Storm Trooper outfits (Star Wars) and even Darth was lurking around. There was other blokes in spider-man and other super hero outfits as well. One bloke was disguised as a bush and was scaring the sh*! out of people!!

Tom

 

[villagehorse]

A trip of a life time Tom, heaps of memories here for you. I heard people were being scared by both George Snr and junior^&grin. Robin.

 

[TomNT]

I left Vegas the next day and flew to Miami, Florida where I hired a car. I drove down to Key West the following day which has always been on my bucket list of things to do. I enjoyed driving my rental hot set of wheels although picking it up from Hertz, Fort Lauderdale was a mission in itself! When I was last in the states 20 years ago, I only went to Orlando and Cape Canaveral (Kennedy Space Centre) and not this part of the country. It was awesome going over the overseas highway which goes over many bridges and small islands that connects all the way to Key West. The longest bridge is the Seven Mile Bridge and it connects Knight's Key in the Middle Keys to Little Duck Key in the Lower Keys.

Tom

 

[TomNT]

I arrived in Key West late in the day and checked into an historic, renovated little hotel that was pretty close to Duval Street in Key West. This street is famous for lots of bars and parties, kinda like Bourbon Street in New Orleans but in a smaller way. I had a stroll down there in the evening but I didn't do a bender as I had to continue on with my travels the next day. ^&grin Sorry, But I didn't take any pic's of Duval Street. It was the weekend and it was pretty crowded, not to mention parking was horrendous around the area.

Tom

 

[TomNT]

The next day I left Key West and starting making my way back to Miami where I was going to stay for one night in an area called Hollywood. Along the way I stopped off to look at some of the old road bridges that linked Key West and all the Keys to the mainland. I was amazed at this old bridge as it has seen better day and as you can see it's no longer in use. I don't know how they fitted two lanes of traffic onto this bridge with all the big SUV's, Pick-up Trucks and large trucks that I saw on the freeways and highways.

Tom

 

[TomNT]

Here's a few pic's from my hotel room in Hollywood, Miami. It's a nice area but unfortunately very pricey, especially for hotel rooms although I'm sure I could have found a much cheaper place not to far away.

Tom

 

[TomNT]

The next day I started heading up Florida towards Duke in Thomasville, Georgia. I used the I 75 Interstate highway and another freeway to get to Duke and I racked up quite a few tolls as Florida unfortunately has plenty of tolls on their freeway system. I hired a GPS with the car and it was an invaluable tool to navigate the freeway, highways and roads but it tended to provide the quickest route which more often than not included tolls. {sm2} If I didn't have it when I hit the Florida turnpike though I would have been driving around in circles for hours!!!^&grin

I arrived in Thomasville, Georgia late in the evening (it was a long, all day drive) and met Duke, his lovely wife Cynthia and there son Thomas. Duke had got permission from his mum, Barbara to allow me to stay in her spare cottage which is on Barbara's property just outside of Thomasville. The cottage was perfect and I thoroughly enjoyed staying there with all the nature and wildlife around. Thanks again Duke mate and also to your mum. Duke and his family have a beautiful home as well and Barbara's main house is gorgeous. She has a lovely looking southern style home by a lake that's on her property and Duke lives in an awesome neighbourhood surrounded by gardens, lakes and Canadian wild gees which think they own the place! ^&grin

Tom

 

[TomNT]

The lake, gardens, community (and geese) around Duke's neck of the woods. I liked the cool little stone arched bridge.

Tom

 

[TomNT]

Here's a couple of pic's of the Lake that's on Duke's mum's (Barbara) property. The lake is only a short distance from her house. Duke took me around Thomasville and one of the places we visited was this big old oak tree that's 336 years old. We had lunch at this local restaurant and the food was delicious and super cheap as well. In the restaurant Duke knew many of the locals and we also celebrated the birthday of this old Thomasville local gent (sorry, I forgot his name) and he kindly offered a slice of his cake to the each of us which tipped me over the edge as far as eating goes for the day! {eek3}^&grin He and his mates spun some yarns and it was typical Southern hospitality at it's best!

Tom

 

[TomNT]

Duke showed me his collection which is massive to say the least and he took several AFV's, figures and other vehicles out of their boxes so I could have a good look at them. He has loads of 1:32 scale aircraft, many of which he built himself which show's he is not only talented with the camera, but very talented building models as well. We did a photo shoot which you may have seen in another thread that Duke started and he took a pic of me trying to look like I knew what I was doing setting it all up...^&grin

Tom

 

[TomNT]

More of Duke's collection and stay tuned, more pic's to follow later in the day..

 

[TomNT]

Last lot. There's some interesting characters walking around the strip. I saw several blokes walking around in Storm Trooper outfits (Star Wars) and even Darth was lurking around. There was other blokes in spider-man and other super hero outfits as well. One bloke was disguised as a bush and was scaring the sh*! out of people!!

Tom

A trip of a life time Tom, heaps of memories here for you. I heard people were being scared by both George Snr and junior^&grin. Robin.

Not that kind of Bush Robin. ^&grin What I mean by bush is, that he was inside a leafy bush and as people walked by he reached out and touched them with his hand and yelled out! {eek3} Bit creepy I know but also very funny to see the reaction of people! He didn't nail me luckily!!!

Tom

 

[PanzerAce1944]

Tom,

Outstanding photos. Looks like you had a yourself a Toy Soldier show before you even got to San Antonio. The MG 42 shoot put you in the my kind of guy club . {bravo}}
Duke and Chris have some fine looking man caves as well !

Wayne

 

[wayne556517]

Great stuff Tom and beautiful house Duke and your collection is awesome mate.

 

[TomNT]

Tom,

Outstanding photos. Looks like you had a yourself a Toy Soldier show before you even got to San Antonio. The MG 42 shoot put you in the my kind of guy club . {bravo}}
Duke and Chris have some fine looking man caves as well !

Wayne

Thanks Wayne, yeah had an awesome time and I have seen the MG42 in many museums when I have travelled and I jumped at the chance when I heard that you can fire one legally in Vegas.

Great stuff Tom and beautiful house Duke and your collection is awesome mate.

Thanks mate, more to come...

 

[TomNT]

Back to my time with Duke in Thomasville, we all went over to Duke's mum's house (Barbara) for dinner and she cooked a very nice meal. Duke has already posted this pic but it shows us sitting down to dinner in Barbara's lovely home. After dinner Duke and Barbara told me about the exploits of his grandfather (Barbara's father) during World War 2. He was a captain in Patton's 3rd Army and during his tour he was awarded a medal for bravery during combat (Duke may post which medal he received as I forgot). He also brought back two German flags, pistols, ceremonial knife with a swastika on it and German army knife that is also used on rifles as a bayonet. The flag with the pistols and knives is almost brand new and Duke and Barbara thinks it was in storage in some building in Germany. The flag I'm holding show's it's age a lot more and they think it was taken off a flag pole somewhere in Germany. This flag is also in remarkable condition.

The next day Duke took me to a historical plantation outside of Thomasville called Pebble Hill. The rain was threatening a bit but it held off and we were able to have a good look around.

Tom