Back in my modeling days, when I was a young lad. I came across a strange model that glowed in the dark and seemed for all intents and purposes to belong to the Star Trek line of space ship models making the rounds back in the day. My model was rather sloppily built and unpainted, see even then I new the value of glow in the dark plastic, it was best to leave its surface untouched so you could get the maximum glow effect, but it had glorious battles with the crew of the Starship Enterprise, and the lesser known Starship Lexington. My first encounter with this ship ended with its ultimate destruction in a summer of swimming and taking it in the water. It eventually lost it nose cone and wings, and the little ship that could be placed inside the working shuttle bay.

A few years later I made a friend named Randy who owned a copy of the very same ship. I was probably now on my 100th model Enterprise, another Lexington to be exact, that I would use whenever the group of us would play Starships. I was never that good at keeping them together long, but I feel I kept AMT model company in the black for a few summers buying starships, so they kept releasing the model which was good for me. Randy would use his Interplanetary U.F.O. Now Randy was fanatical about taking care not damage his model, and I will go on record as saying it was the finest example of a U.F.O. as ever was seen. We had a whole back story for this ship, it was a friend of the Federation, but no ship could get too close to it because it would melt right through the wandering ships haul. I had a horrible clump of pant on the bottom of the saucer section of the Lexington due to my inexperience with spray paint, so it was common knowledge that in a fierce battle with the Klingons, the Lexington and the Interplanetary U.F.O. outnumbered three to one, tried a flanking maneuver where that resulted in close proximity passing of the two ships. In case you are wondering three decks were lost that day on the Lexington, but the two ships were victorious in the battle known as Lemonwood Lane 324.

We spent a summer of recreating all these wonderful Starfleet engagements when the unspeakably happened, the little U.F.O. shuttle craft was lost, in my back yard. We spent two days and a night combing the area where it was lost before we gave up. Randy never seemed that much into Starship battles ever again after that. You see the kit was discontinued and had been out of circulation. I believe he even crafted a new little shuttle craft out of extra bits from other models, but it wasn't the same. I often thought about finding it on Ebay now, but it is one of the more rarer kits out there so it goes for a chunk of change if they even get posted at all. I've heard of this ship also being issued non glowing as the Lief Ericson, an exploration ship, but I refuse to see it as anything else but the Interplanetary U.F.O. Also I recently learned that Matt Jefferies was asked to designed the model for the AMT corporation, having designed the ships of Star Trek back in the day. What a great link to Trek!


click image to check out Round 2's U.F.O.

So where am I going with all this? Well, when I saw that my favorite Mr. Spock Kit was being re released, I started to wish for a few more kits, now I know the Interplanetary U.F.O. does not belong to the official Star Trek universe, but it was one that I was secretly wishing to make a come back. I'm not sure how I missed this the first time, but having read the article and posting about Mr. Spock, I thought a few days later I would see where I could maybe pre order the Mr. Spock Kit. I went back to the article source and followed the link they gave to a model store and there in front of me was none other than the Interplanetary U.F.O. just as I remembered it. Holy Crap! I quickly found Round 2's website to see if this was true, and low and behold it's going to be re released as well. First Spock and now this ship, how freaking good do I have to be this year now that the toy gods have smiled upon me. So now I'm looking at this a thinking I have to tell Randy, I ran into him about a year ago and we exchanged email addresses, he forwards jokes to me on occasion, but we really never email back and forth much. I knew that I have to send him the link, oh and look how convenient a "mail to a friend" link on the Round 2 page. So I'll have to keep you posted as I'm gathering up the images for this post and to email to a past friend, hoping he's still a geek at heart like me.

So this past weekend I drove my wife and son to a family reunion on my wife's side near Dallas. We always take an exit at the "Biggest little town in Texas!" Italy, Texas. One because we can avoid construction on the highway, two it's a straight shot through to the little town of my wife's family, and three the scenery is much better than said highway. So what's with the Starship Pegasus here? I have no clue. It just appeared over the years and just as fast went out of business, leaving the shell of the former business sprawled out in the Texas country side like some sort of Roswell crash landing. It's funny we remember the exit because of a Dairy Queen and not this. Like I said it appeared one trip and the next it was out of business, we never got to stop and see what it was about. Now we make this trip maybe once a year, and the one where we first saw this we didn't have time to stop. But from the looks of it it was a little amusement area with a small miniature golf course and maybe an arcade. At least that's what I gather from the signage.




This time I decided when we made the trip back we would stop and get pictures of the remains of this out of this world building. My wife and son waited patently as I trekked around the structure snapping different angles. The inside is bare and what I could see through the doors it's been stripped down. The rectangle, or engineering section, could of housed a kitchen, which got my wife and I to thinking it might be fun to renovate and start a little galactic burger joint. Pretty much by the time we got home we had half the menu planned out, the interior re designed, and were joking about selling the house to go into the short order cook business. If anything I'm going to take this on as a side art project just to keep the imagination sharp.




Surprisingly the ships engines are still intact, and with a little work probably could make quite a light show in the Texas night. We would definitely want to add a laser light show and maybe some smoke f/x. the inside looks like it might only accommodate a few patrons, so we decided a patio area with UFO covered tables would be in order. I think at the center of the structure we would make a little control center with seating all around, and what the hell a little gift shop near the door. Now I also would like to add a Robbie the Robot at the door to great guests, and maybe the B-9 to warn of the upcoming laser show. See what I mean, we've put some thought into the theme. Not that the Starship Pegasus is not a good name, but we were thinking maybe Galactic Burger, or Off World Diner. We also thought that it would be good to just make it a family diner, the Dairy Queen looked like it was going down, but the area was starting to see the build up of a few shops, a huge rest stop type gas station, and the largest car wash I had ever seen, well it was an eighteen wheeler wash.




If anything it's fun to just think of things that could be. So back to walking around. The front of the ship sports three large bubble windows and what I can only guess is a UFO photo op at the front. It really didn't look much like a sand box, way too deep, and it didn't have any accompanying play elements. Besides the three bubble windows there were two sets of glass doors, and that was it for natural lighting. Now I'm not sure, but if the structure would allow, I would make the painted windows actual windows to make it less dingy and maybe more friendly. As I walked around the only signs of graffiti was in the back of the ship. Apparently aliens tag spaceships they visit as was evident by several alien drawings. Make me wonder do they bring their own spray paint, or do they stop at a True Value in the area. I thought the graffiti was pretty funny, maybe not too original, but funny non the less.



There is only one way to get in and out of the parking lot, that would have to be solved, plus I think I would take down the miniature golf area and make a playscape with those rocket shaped slides and space themed play elements. It would be great to make the surface like a moon scape with that soft recycled rubber play ground flooring. I also think it might be funny to add a couple of storage units in the back that look like those old airstream trailers, because lets face it UFO's only visit trailer parks right?



So if you happen to be heading towards Dallas and there is a UFO lighting up the night sky around Italy, you know I decided to quit the toy business and start serving up "the Best Burgers in the Galaxy!", so stop in an say hi! In the very least you might check back here from time to time as I get a chance to do some restaurant designs, that might be a little less expensive, doesn't cost much to dream.