To The Moon!

Growing up in Houston during the 60s, I have always been a space enthusiast. I remember watching the Apollo XI mission from a lunar module made of card tables and blankets in my grandmother's living room. When I began collecting watches it was natural that I would have a goal of including the two moon watches in my collection.

Last week, I made a trip back to Texas for a family visit and, of course, I had to stop at a few stores to look at watches. Houston has some great options available. Hal Martin's has a fantastic selection of pre-owned Rolex's. Where else can you try on one of everything! They had some great Explorer II's but no Speedmasters. Next stop was the Galleria where all the big boys live! The Breitling store was fun, but Omega was where I was heading. I had never tried on a Speedmaster and getting that chance, it convinced me that a Speedy is my real ultimate goal. I was able to try on a Speedmaster Racing, the Professional Moonwatch, and the new white-dial version, which the sales associate was quick to tell me was not for sale! I just couldn't justify spending that much (yet!). I'll be saving my pennies.

On the way out of the mall, I was walking through Macy's and one has to stop at the watch counter, right? They had the "other" moon watch, the Bulova Lunar Pilot. I was drawn to the white-dial version. It looked really good in the jewelry case lights! Appropriately, for a moon watch, all of the stars were aligning. When I asked if they were having any sales, The wonderful sales associate told me that they were having a 25% off sale starting the next week, but they were having a pre-sale that day with another 10% off and I could pick it up the next week. When I explained that I was just visiting Houston, she said, "That's OK, we can ship it to you!" Great service, and I put my money down. They even sized the bracelet before I left the store.

I survived the week long wait, and the watch arrived exactly on time, preceded by texts from my sales associate letting me know when she shipped the watch and the tracking number. Great service...check out Macy's!

If you've made it this far, thanks and I'll get to the part where I talk about the watch. You can all look up specs so I'll skip the boring stuff and tell you what kind of emotional connection this watch creates. The watch has a presence. It is all polished and has striking blue pushers, a white textured dial, and blue sub-dials providing plenty of visual interest. The bracelet is comfortable and well made. I'm not a big fan of butterfly clasps as they can be kind of hard to get a good fit, but the bracelet does have several half-links and I eventually got it pretty close. The bracelet has quick release spring bars and a blue leather strap, also with quick release spring bars, is included in the package. The leather strap is surprisingly comfortable, and was not the uncomfortable, plasticky strap I was expecting as a 'throw-away bonus.'

The main purpose of a watch is to tell time, and the Lunar Pilot excels at that task. Bulova is very proud of their 262 kHz quartz movement, and rightly so. It hasn't lost a second over three days when compared to my iPhone!

The watch is beautiful, comfortable, and accurate. With it's historical connection as detailed on the engraved case back, this watch is a home run. I'm half-way there, by number of watches, in my goal of owning moon watches, even though I'm only about 7% of the way there based on cost!

I'm very happy with my new watch and look forward to lots of timing adventures. Now I need a rally strap to wear with it for racing season!