blm2003

Looking at the picture I don’t have a lot left from our time in Ohio, so I thought I would just put together one more update and finish it up. Our TR isn’t over yet though, we still have a few more states to cover and a two night side trip to get through before we get back to Boston.

We got up a little early on Friday morning, it had been a long week and DS1 was pretty tired. So much so that he sat down in front of the drawers his clothes were in and promptly fell asleep.

We managed to get him dressed and into the truck and it wasn’t long before we were just about ready to go

Our neighbors for the week, the goats

We drove past The University of Dayton on our way to meet the inlaws for breakfast.

The dog made herself comfy for the ride. She was sitting on her seat with her head wedged between my shoulder and the seat. She rode this way for several miles before settling down.

We had a great breakfast with Gramma and Grampa at the local Bob Evans, then it was time for the inevitable, the goodbyes.

We took a bunch of pictures on a little island in the parking lot before leaving

And of course no family photo shoot is complete without one photo of the DW choking the life out of me.

That was the last photo we took before heading out, and then something weird happened. My DS 1 was crying. This never happens. He said he was just going to miss gramma. This got DS 2 going, which got DW going……you know, it was a chain reaction thing here.

The boys had not met there grandparents since they were 1 and 2, so this was their first memories with them, and I’m so glad things went as well as they did. This trip was long and we did a lot in a little time, but it was all worth it. We made a lot of memories that will last forever, and my wife and her mother were able to connect in a way that they have never done. I was a happy man driving away from that restaurant.

Here’s some photos from the road heading out of Dayton back east.

A train, we don’t see long trains like this back home (already told you I’m a train nut).

I’m fairly certain this is the Columbus skyline, I may be mistaken, but I don’t think so

This is a great looking resort, the Fort Rapids Waterpark and Hotel. Looks like a lot of fun to be had here.

This is a nice looking house, but I bet they get a lot of noise from I-70. I don’t think I’d want to sit in my backyard with all that traffic racing by a couple hundred yards away

It wasn’t long before we noticed that this was the scene in the back seat.

I can get some money from those kids for these photos in a few years!

The country out here is beautiful.

Another barn, this one was an advertisement for the painter

That’s it, 30 photos. And we aren’t even out of Ohio yet. Long way to go still. I think that’s going to do it for me today though, I’ll be back tomorrow with more

Joe

Milkshake + Vortex = :barf:

 

 

Love the farm pics. 

I agree, and so did my father in law, he was nauseous for quite a while after the ride.  Many more farm pics coming up in a minute! 

Yep.  Still here... That's the Ohio where I was born and raised.  Glad you had a good time.  

Glad your still here Judy! We had a great time! Can't wait to get back out there next year

I think I can put together another quick update for you this morning. I was surprised when I just looked and found out there were only 15 pictures taken on Thursday. I warned you it was going to be a quite day.

We started out our last full day in Ohio with breakfast, if your mouth started watering and you said, “I bet they went back to Waffle House”, you are absolutely correct. No photos though, sorry

After breakfast we had some post cards we needed to mail so it was off to the Post Office.

Nothing else on the menu for today so how about a driving tour of the area, all 15 photos from today were taken while driving around the area, here we go

The corn fields were massive! Hard to comprehend for a city boy

Soy bean fields too

This barn has certainly seen better days

Beautiful house in the middle of the corn fields

My favorite photo from the morning

Tractor crossing sign! You don’t see those in Boston.

Every time the kids saw a tractor or combine they would make a reference to “Frank” from Cars. You remember during the tractor tipping scene when Mater tells Lightning, “Don’t let Frank catch ya”

Last picture from Thursday, can you believe it? I can’t.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the campground. Did all our laundry and the kids spent some time riding their bikes all over the place. We had some dinner and then headed over to the inlaws house for the evening. Spent some nice time talking and the kids played Wii. It was really really nice.  

But that is it. Tomorrow is a big day, we are hitting the road again for a side trip on the way home. Are you still with me? I am still having fun writing this up, and we still have a little ways to go.

Joe

A happy group of people right here!

You won’t believe where we headed after this…..Did you say back to the bumper cars?? If you did you are a winner!

I have lots more bumper car photos, but I think we’ve seen enough of those.

Remember I said my DW wasn’t a roller coaster person? Well, she came up to me and whispered in my ear, “I think I want to ride the Diamondback”!

What the Fort?? The girl who never rides roller coasters now wants to ride the biggest, baddest coaster in the park??

It was getting close to closing time, remember this is off season officially as the schools are back in session so the park was closing at 8pm tonight. We had to hustle as it was just after 7:30 at this point and the Diamondback was at the other end of the park.

We passed a couple of mascots on our way to the coaster.

A broken clock

And a world famous pumpkin patch

And finally we ended up here.

The Diamondback stands 230’ tall, features drops of 215’, 193’, 131’, 129’, 110’, and 106’, and oh yeah, it hits 80 MPH!

I couldn’t do this ride, and MIL and Step Dad had had enough for today. So that meant that if she was going DW was going alone. She did it! Twice!

Here she goes up the first hill

What might have been the worst wait of the day besides the scrambler line

Strapped in for take off

And returning to the station

I was so proud of her for doing this, she doesn’t do things like this, and she did it by herself. I was so happy for her!

Sadly though this was the end of our day. It was time to head back to the locker and grab our stuff and head for the parking lot.

Another view of the fountains

And now a flurry of photos at the entrance before leaving.

Sorry for the sideways photos, photobucket is doing something wierd to me right now and I can't seem to figure it out. 

The rubber ducks in the water in that last photo could be purchased for $5, you were given a number and if your duck is picked out of the fountain by Bengals Coach Marvin Lewis you will drive away with a brand new Toyota Yaris. There were a lot of ducks in the fountain.

The reason for this entire trip:

Mission Accomplished!

That’s it, the end of the Kings Island day. We were all exhausted, and we had an hour ride back to the campground. Kids were asleep in about 2 miles.

Thursday is going to be a quite day, not to much going on other than some laundry and hanging out.

Another update coming up soon.

Joe

Here we go again. Remember I said we finally found a ride DS2 would go on. Well here he is getting ready for the ride.

They convinced me I needed to go on with them, so here I am

And Grampa

DS2 and Grampa on ride number 2

Doesn’t he look like he’s having fun?

I think this picture shows the aftermath of a horrific crash

DS2 even convinced Gramma to go for a ride with him, bad back and all

“What have I gotten myself into” is all I can think of looking at this picture

I think we spent close to an hour standing here as the boys ran round and round for ride after ride on the bumper cars. I was glad to see them both having fun together.

Two more empty park pictures

Gramma and Grampa decided to give Windseeker a try

Here they are on the way back down

DS 1 wanted to ride “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” so his mom went on with him, try as I might a good picture was hard to get on this ride

Success

While I was waiting for them to come off this ride, I saw a young man go buy with a delicious looking milk shake, I had to go find where he got this from, I did, and they had this neat display in the corner

Here’s a look at the menu

After milk shakes it was time for DW and step dad to ride the Vortex together.

DS2 keeping track of everything for us

The Vortex

When they got off my father in law looked at me and said, “I think that one was just a little past my limit”. I think I captured that in this photo

Some more of the Vortex

Next up was the Backlot Stunt Coaster

\

DW and DS1

They did 4 rides on this one if I remember correct. One right after another, and you know what, they didn’t have to wait in line at all. They walked up the ramp and climbed into the cars. It was great!

That’s it for another update, 30 more photos in the book. I think I have one more update from Kings Island and then it will be on to something different.

Joe

Wow, you found the missing barrels!  Good job.

 

I would not want to have to carry a giant lizard around all day.

 

I've never seen a coaster like the Firehawk either.  Sea World in Orlando has a coaster where you lay face down, but not on your back.  The more extreme they make these coasters, the more I worry about a failure of the equipment.  Your life is in the hands of someone getting paid minimum wage to inspect those things.  A missing bolt or two, and out you go. Not a real comforting thought.

 

TCD

I did not want to carry a giant lizard either. The kids did ok, it wasn't till right at the end of the day that I was stuck carrying the lizzards

I too think often about the equipment, I'm not a little guy, I am depending a lot on that equipment to do it's job.

Is Jabberjaw still walking around King's Island?  If not, there is a very good reason.  I was there with my daughter when she was about 4 years old (1979-ish).  Jabberjaw walked up behind her and when she saw him, she let out the loudest, most blood curdling scream that went on and on.  Sully and Mike Wasowski would have been so pleased.  It seemed like the entire park stopped in its tracks to find out what was going on with this poor child. 

 

I'm glad you had a good time.   Since you liked the Air Force Museum so much, check out the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan (a suburb of Detroit).  It's worth two days of your time. 

I didn't see or hear anything about Jabberjaw, but it wasn't the nicest weather and it was very quite in the park, so maybe he was held back for those reasons.

I would love to visit the Henry Ford Museum. Someday....

Wow.  That coaster made me nauseous just looking at the pics!

It was a great ride, but only a once a day I think. That wait at the end really messes with your head. 

Off to write a new update, more pics up soon

Hey, I drink caffeine free diet Pepsi!  Not by choice, but I have a medical reason why I can't have caffeine.  Guess I'm nobody.

 

Meanwhile, really enjoying the TR.

My wife drinks the caffeine free diet Pepsi, not by choice either, she gets all jittery and anxious with the caffeine. Only in soda though, coffee doesn't bother her. It's weird, just like the rest of her! 

Thanks for reading along with us

Love the report! 

 

Can't wait for more!

Glad you like it! Won't have to wait long for more, writing an update right now, will be up soon!

I've probably tried every kind of soda there is out there.  I am not much of a soda/pop/whatever you call it drinker.  I prefer iced tea or water.

 

TCD

I to only drink water most of the time. If there is juice in the fridge I will drink that, but mainly just a water guy.

Only decaf iced tea for me.  And that's hard to find in restaurants.

 

I had to quit caffeine cold turkey because of that medical condition.  You can't imagine the withdrawals I went through.  It was awful for three days.

In my high school days I lived on Coke, first thing in the morning right up to last thing before bed. I know what you mean about the withdrawals. I had migraines for a week. It was not fun!

So cool you were in my neck of the woods.  We've done the Halloween weekends at the KOA you were at and boy do I feel silly not recognizing the zoo.  LOL  My defense is that I have not been there since they redid the entrance location.  No 4-D movies then either.  I would love to pull my kids out of school for a day to do Kings Island without a crowd, but hubby is not going for it.  I'm just glad we talked him into the two days at Thanksgiving to go to the Fort.

 

Loved all the museum photos.

Thanks for keeping up with the report. I really do like it out there in the Midwest, I can see myself living there, or perhaps the North Carolina / Tennessee area some time after the kids are finished with school. Glad you liked the museum pictures. There is another entire section of the museum that features the Air Force One craft that served all Presidents from Kennedy through Clinton, among other things. If I am informed correctly you are able to get on board the plane and look around. These displays are in a secure area of the Air Force Base and thanks to the government sequestration that part of the museum is closed. I really want to get on to Air Force One and check it out, hopefully we will be able to see this next year when we go out.

Good job getting the photo of the person with the Fort Wilderness magnet.

 

They ought to put one of those rides on the fake Eifel tower at Epcot.  There's some kind of a construction project in a couple of your photos- what are they building?

 

That theme park looks pretty nice.  I wish the Disney parks would empty out like that after a little rain.

 

TCD

The are building a new roller coaster which will open next spring, "The Banshee". The worlds longest inverted coaster at over 4,000 feet of track with 7 inversions. Sounds like fun to me! It has it's own page on the parks website, you can see it here: https://www.visitkingsisland.com/banshee/the-ride

That park used to have a wooden coaster named "Son of Beast" that was insane.  Literally.  It broke the world record for speed for a wooden coaster and was the only wooden coaster to feature a full loop at that time.  Unfortunately, the technology wasn't quite there when built in 2000 and it suffered a couple of accidents which resulted in it closing permanently in 2009.  They just tore it down last fall.  The company that designed it went out of business. 

Wow, nobody I talked to out there mentioned this. Thanks for the great info and for keeping up with the report! More to come later on.

As you may remember, I have a keen eye for ingenuity.

 

I was almost going to award you a TCD Real Man of Genius Award for the use of the 12 pack to support the dog platform.  But, I had to deduct points because it wasn't a 12 pack of beer, and I also didn't see any duct tape used for this project.  You came really close though.

 

TCD

I couldn't possibly have used the twelve pack of beer...that was in the cooler. No way would the seat have stayed in place the entire trip had there been alcohol underneath it. 

Thanks for the comment!

Wow, I got behind today when you went on a posting tear!  But I'm caught up now. 

 

I love the pictures of the Curtiss planes from WWII, like the P40.  A great many of those were built at the main Curtiss plant in Buffalo, NY, some of which still stands today.  I used to drive by there all the time, and would imagine how incredibly busy it was 24 hours a day during the war pumping out planes for the war effort. 

 

The goblet story....I don't know what to say.  That is very moving, and having never heard it before I am glad you shared it. 

 

Now, regarding the pic below.....it is interesting to me that the swastikas are backwards.  While that symbol is a "swastika", it is not how the Nazis used it.  I know in the context it is in, it doesn't matter as it depicts what it depicts, and that's all that matters.  I just noticed it as I've seen swastika symbols in mosaic tile floors from periods before WWII that look alarming, but really are not Nazi symbols. 

 

In any case....enjoying the trip report! 

Thanks for the comments Dave! I'm glad your enjoying the report, hopefully I'll get an update put together this evening, otherwise it's going to have to be first thing tomorrow morning

Wow!  Great job so far, Joe!

 

I've only been to Ohio once in my life, and that was for a very short visit, so I appreciate all the photos of the places you visited.

 

I had no idea the Cincinnati zoo was so big, or that there was an Air Force museum in Ohio.  Thanks for sharing the photos.

 

Looking forward to the rest of the report.

 

TCD

Thanks for checking in Andrew! My family and I have been reading your trip reports for a long time and we always look forward to them. I'm glad your enjoying the report. I'm having a lot of fun putting it together. I can't wait to write about Kings Island, it is a wonderful place

I spent several years doing IT work for the Dept of Energy in Oak Ridge and worked about 50 yards from the building where they worked with the U235 to create the "boom" for this fella. It was really neat working out there, sadly it is demolition project now and all of the buildings\history is going away. There was talk for a little while about building a museum of some sort to remember all of this and the workers\families that worked out there but I believe they decided against doing that. I think they were afraid of offending someone so they scrapped that idea and now it will be an industrial park\office park.

That must have been quite the experience to work among all that history. I hate to see pieces of our past torn down or left to rot. The idea that saving a piece of history, whether it be a good part of history or something dark and scary, is a good idea. There is something to the phrase, "those who don't learn from their history are doomed to repeat it".

Thanks for sharing your story, and reading along. More to come soon! 

very good tr!  my dh would love to go to that museum.  i'd almost have to leave him there on his own.  lol   loving the pics so far!

HaHa, I don't think my wife was having a spectacular time at the USAF Museum, but she put up with it because she knew I really wanted to go. I'm a lucky man to have the DW I have. She puts up with a lot from me and hardly complains at all....or maybe I just don't hear her when she's complaining!

Great report so far

Thank you! I'm glad your reading along and enjoying it. Taking my new 12 year old out for a birthday dinner tonight, not sure if the next update will come tonight or tomorrow...but it's coming....stay tuned

Joe

Keeping this report moving, we are still only on Tuesday, and Wednesday is going to be a big day….let’s get these museum photos finished up!

They had several cockpits on display that guests could climb into and try out the fighter jock life. Here’s the boys trying them out.

Someone didn’t like something that was just said to him!

Didn’t take him long to get over it though!

This was the cockpit of an F-16 Fighting Falcon. I can not imagine spending hours at a time inside one of these.

I think the DW would have made a pretty hot fighter pilot, I am a lucky man!

The sign outside the display

Another photo I wish had come out much clearer. This is the nose wheel door on the B-2 Stealth Bomber on display. The “Fire and Ice” is painted on (so the sign said, looks like a decal to me) and represents this planes use in extreme environmental testing. This testing took place at Eglin AFB in Florida, and Eielson AFB in Alaska. When the testing was complete the crew painted this panel then they all signed it with sharpie.

Here I am looking at it before taking the above picture

We had just about had it at this point. It had been a long day looking around so we decided to head to the food court in the museum and get some lunch. We had some acceptable food court food, nothing too awful, but nothing I'd race back for either. The tables to eat at sit beside very large windows that look out over the Air Park. It was during our lunch that we saw the only fighter jets in flight of our whole trip. You could hear them before you could see them, there were two and they flew by a couple times and then were gone. I really miss that sound from my youth next to the air base. 

After our expensive lunch we headed down into the gift shop for a more thorough look around. Here is DS1 showing us that he is still a child at heart and not nearly as grown up as he wants us to think he is!

Yet another photo fail, in what the museum refers to as the “air park” out side they had several different models on display that you could walk up to and touch. One of these was a C-17 Globemaster. This plane was my third celebrity encounter of this vacation. 1^st was the “What day is it” camel, 2^nd was the “Who? Who?” owl, both of Geico commercial fame. This plane was in fact a movie star, it has appeared in Transformers, Transformers 2, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and the video for Toby Keith's "American Soldier". How cool is that? On the fuselage where bombs or swastikas have been located on other planes, this plane had movie cameras. It was creative.

Next up was a small Nissan Hut that had been brought over from Europe and reassembled just as it had been used during the war. I had one of the best moments of my vacation in this small hut. The hut was staffed by another volunteer who had greeted us as we came in. He introduced himself and explained that he could answer any questions we had.
 

I mentioned that I am a biker earlier in this report, I was wearing a shirt for the  “Rolling Thunder” motorcycle event in Washington DC. The volunteer came up to me and said he’d like to speak with me. He explained that he was a WWII Vet and had recently been on an Honor Flight to see the WWII Memorial in Washington DC. He explained that when they got off the plain in Baltimore they were met by a group of bikers from Rolling Thunder and the Patriot Guard and they were escorted all the way in to the Memorial site and back to the airport afterwards by these bikers. He said it was almost midnight when they got back and he asked one of them, “don’t you people have anything better do?” the biker replied, “This is what we do”

He wanted to thank me for supporting them and everything I do. I was choked up that this Hero who put himself on the line for us wanted to thank me. I told him it was the other way around and I needed to thank him. He said “hogwash” and he shook my hand.

As you probably guessed, photo fail right here. I should have asked to take a picture with this man, I didn’t think of it. I walked away from this encounter with goosebumps all over.

In case your interested, the "Honor Flight" program provides free transport to Veterans to Washington to visit the Memorials dedicated to them. They do this absolutely free of charge. It is a wonderful program. You can see more about them here if you want to http://www.honorflight.org/

Here’s the pictures of the “Belly Tank Bar” in the Nissan Hut:

The three hangers that will soon be joined by a fourth

That’s it for pictures in the museum. We walked back to the parking lot now and took a walk around this area.

It is huge, at least the size of two football fields. There are monuments all over the place out here. We would have liked to walk around and see them all, but we were all pretty tired of walking by this point, and it was hot out in the sun! I took photos of some of the ones that stood out to me:

The names of all the Airmen who have been awarded the Medal Of Honor are on these tablets

And one last photo as we drive out of the parking lot

From here it was back to the campground for some relaxing around the campfire. The kids made it in time to take a hay ride while we were getting dinner ready

We ate and turned in for some rest. It had been a great day, but we must have walked several miles so we were tired.

Tomorrow MIL and Step Dad are taking us to King’s Island. I’ve never been there before, in fact, I’ve never even heard of it before. But I broke out the laptop and looked it up and I am Excited!! I love roller coasters and this park has a lot of them. Weather looks great, it's going to be a good day!

Sorry for getting a little long winded in the middle there, but I really wanted to share the story of the WWII Vet, it was a great personal experience that I will not soon forget!

Last update for today, I should be able to get a couple in tomorrow, we’ll see. The wife has been working on my Honey Do list all day today. I might be busy!

Joe

Damn. Take me on your next vacation. Zoo, train ride, military museum. This is some good stuff here.

You think it's fun so far.....wait till I get to the pictures from Wednesday!! (not to mention Saturday) 

I am in...   What an awesome trip so far, and the museum is fascinating.  I had no idea about Quentin Roosevelt.  Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for chiming in with us! I used to think of myself as a US History nut, it was one of the few topics I paid a lot of attention to in school, and I don't recall ever reading or hearing about Roosevelt's son.

That museum is awesome. Reminds me of Pensacola NAS but with cooler stuff.

More fun still to come....stay tuned!

Here we go again. Hope you are  ready for some more museum photos.

We left off looking at the 50 year anniversary quilt. On the other side of the hall where this quilt is was a series of paintings done by a Vietnam Veteran. I wish I had better quality photos of them and their descriptions, they were magnificent.

Here is my DW checking out the intakes on an F-22 Raptor.

They had an extensive display on POW / MIA ‘s. As the display indicates the hash marks on the wall represent the 2,689 day Air Force Maj Lockhart was held captive in Vietnam.

That’s a lot of hash marks.

Next up was the Missile and Space Gallery. It was great to stand in among the Titan, Minuteman, and Peacekeeper missiles.

These are Minuteman reentry vehicles, one new, one used. The amount of damage done on reentry is astonishing.

I really wanted to get a good photo of this next plane, but the hangers walls were painted black, the plane is black, and the lighting was dim. This is the SR-71 Blackbird, and these are the best two photos I was able to get of her. She was beautiful!

The Blackbird still looks like space age technology today, in my opinion. And it was introduced 49 years ago and retired from service 23 years ago!

This next picture is an interior shot of the cockpit of the Blackbird. My son told me he didn’t think he’d want to fly one of those because of all the buttons he’d have to learn.

Across from the Blackbird was this machine gun. It was as big as my dining room table!

And beside the machine gun was one of the big boy toys!

The next plane was from the Operation Desert Shield / Storm. It flew 172 missions, more than any other plane. And notice the WWII Swastikas have been replaced with a new design.

Going to take a break here, this is a good place. I think we will wrap up the museum photos in the next update. Then we are going to ride some rides on Wednesday! I’ll post another update soon

Joe

Those sunset and moonrise photos are fantastic! 

I'm in! My wife and I have been thinking of a cruise like the one you took for a while now, can you convince us to go? Looking forward to more

Moving on through the WWII side of the museum, I apologize for not having a lot of info about the next few planes, I’m just learning how to do this trip report thing and was really just in awe of the displays at this point.

Seeing the Swastikas on the sides of many of these aircraft, like the ones below, really brought home how real this was. These aren’t just aircraft in a hanger, these are the real deal, they were over Europe and the Pacific and won the war for us.

Here is a B-24 Liberator. I apologize if the language on the side offends anyone.

DS 1 + 2 with an anti-aircraft gun

Not sure on the details of these next couple

A German V-2 Rocket

Looking down one of the rows of planes in the WW II hanger.

A P-51 Mustang. I have been enamored with this plane since reading Chuck Yeager’s autobiography, “Yeager,” many years ago. The freedom that these pilots had once they took off is unprecedented in today’s modern military. If you like to read, and enjoy learning about a little history, I highly recommend this book.

For obvious reasons I had to take a picture of this plane as it’s my namesake

I had to ask exactly what the bombs painted on the side of this bomber meant, each bomb represents a completed bombing mission. My namesake had been pretty busy!

The nose of the “Little Joe”

Don’t mess with “Little Joe”

This was a different looking aircraft

I think most of you may have heard of this plane, another one that made me stop and say wow, imagine being in this plane almost 70 years ago and doing what those brave guys had to do! It is hard to imagine.

DS2 wanted to get his picture taken with “Fat Man” and he didn’t mean his dad!

And right beside “Fat Man” was this little guy

It’s almost unfeasible to me that so much destruction can come from something so small.

This quilt was created for the 50^th anniversary of the Air Force. It was very nice. Here’s the boys checking it out

I think this is a good place to take a break. We have lots of museum pictures left. I am still having fun writing this up for you guys, I hope your all enjoying reading along. I’ll be back in a while with another update.

Joe

We ended our last update as we were pulling up to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. I grew up a few miles from Naval Air Station South Weymouth in Mass, and it was really cool to have witnessed the constant jet traffic over our little town. In fact, when I was a teenager my father and I returned home from the annual 4^th of July party at my grandparents late one evening and a twin engine jet, I believe it was a Tomcat based on looks alone, went over our house at a very low altitude with flames coming out of the turbines. My dad and I watched it fly over, then he turned to me and said, “I sure hope they’re just celebrating the 4^th!” NAS South Weymouth was closed in 1997 and it has been quite in the skies over home ever since. I was hoping that being in such close proximity to such a large Air Force base would mean we would see a lot of traffic overhead that the boys could experience. It wasn’t meant to be, we saw a couple of jets fly over, and a few large transports, but that was really it. Anyways, enough reminiscing, let’s go to the museum!

You enter into a long rectangular building between the hangers and the IMAX theatre. There is a lot of information available in this little room. They have maps of the facility, a model of the soon to be constructed 4^th Hanger showing the layout of the displays that will be in there, as well as two info desks staffed by volunteers. I don’t know exactly how accurate this info is, but I was told that the museum gets no funding from the government and is run entirely on donations and gift shop sales.

When you leave the entry way and start to walk towards the exhibit halls you go through the gift shop. It was very nice and for the most part reasonably priced. T-shirts where between $14 on the cheaper side, and $29 on the more expensive side. They had everything you could imagine, posters, hats, model air planes, toys, and lots of Air Force Bling. We were hoping to find some Air Force Parent paraphernalia as my step son is serving, but they had nothing parent related for us.

In one corner of the shop they had an item that got me very excited. I am a biker, and I have been a huge fan of American Chopper and Paul Sr and Paul Jr’s work for a long time. They have the Air Force Bike built by OCC on display!

That’s my DW and DS1 admiring it in the background.

The detail on this machine is mind boggling! I will say though, as much as I liked looking at it, I don’t think I’d want to ride it very far, just doesn’t look comfy at all. But if the museum is looking for someone to garage it for them, I’m more than willing.
 

The first section of the museum you come to into is called “The Early Years”. This chronicles the time period from the Wright brothers through the end of World War I and the time leading up to World War II.

That’s me in the white shirt walking in with the boys

They first plane you approach is a replica 1909 Wright Military Flyer. This planes motor only had 30 horsepower. My lawn tractor has 2/3’s of that, and there is no way I’d consider flying on my lawn tractor. These guys were absolutely crazy amazingly brave and determined. You walk around the corner and it is instantly WWI

I was surprised and excited to learn that the museum not only displays the aircraft of the United States, but also has aircraft from around the world as well

I was really sucked into this next exhibit.

I spent quite a while reading most of the autographs. It was really cool.

I also learned about President Theodore Roosevelt’s son, a story which I don’t think I had ever heard before.

Could you imagine being several thousand feet in the air, sitting in one of these two seats?

No Thank You!

Anyone up for a ride in the AutoGiro?

Here we have a Boeing P-26A

Hanging above the P-26A was a Douglas O-38F. There was a monitor playing a long video of the story of this plane. It crashed in the Alaskan wilderness in 1941. The pilot and mechanic who were on board survived. They were air dropped supplies and then had to hike for 10 days to the nearest civilization to be rescued. The pilot later reminicesed that it was the best 10 days of his Military career. The plane sat in the wilderness for 27 years until it was recovered, by helicopter, to be restored by the Museum. The Alaskan weather had preserved the plane so well that only the wings required major restoration, and that damage was done more by the crash than by time. I was so interested in the video,  I forgot to take any pictures of the restored aircraft. Fail!

This is a North American BT-14, displayed showing what could happen to a rookie pilot taxing with a tail wind who hits his brakes too hard.

You can see the pilot getting chewed out by the commanding officer on the left of that photo.

Next up:

How about a blurry B-25 picture

I learned that the nosecone of the B-25 could be removed, in the field, and changed depending upon the type of mission the plane was going to be flying. There was a bombardier nosecone with the plexiglass windows and two fixed forward firing guns. There was also a more streamlined metal nosecone that housed 8 .50 caliber machine guns.

This next display, right behind the B-25, was really moving. A tribute to the 80 men who made the B-25 a household name in 1942. Here are two photos of the sign which explains the display, and a couple photos of the display itself.

You can see that at the time of our visit there were only 4 goblets upright. There was a chart next to the display that listed the names of all 80 men and their duties during the raid. As I said, already, this was very moving to me. 

I believe that is the limit...30 more photos in the book. We’ve got a ways to go yet, back soon with another update

Joe

Nope, not sick of zoo pictures. Love the kitty pictures! They are so cute..

 

I have never heard of an alligator snapping turtle..that thing is scaaaary! 

I had heard of the Alligator Snapper before, but had never seen one in person. The picture really doesn't do this monster justice, he was HUGE! His claws were a good 2 inches long. I like turtles, but not this one!

Looking forward to the museum pics, Joe. 

Get ready, they are coming soon!

Great TR! 

 

It has the perfect balance of great photos, fun kids, an adorable dog and rhino butts!!  What more do you need??  :)

Rhino Butts! (I couldn't help it, it makes me smile every time I type it) Thanks for reading along

Love the zoo pics and really looking forward to the pics from the museum. 

Thanks for checking out our report! I failed to mention that we were only able to cover a little more than half of the zoo in the time we spent there, about 5 1/2 hours. We have several zoo's around us at home that we have visited often with the boys, but this Zoo is so much nicer and so much larger than anything of those. We really enjoyed it and it is definitely on the agenda of our next trip to Ohio. Museum pics coming right up....stay tuned!

Ok, I think I can squeeze in one more short update this evening.

We left off coming out of the restaurant we had our dinner at and watching the train go through the crossing. We were having a debate as to what time the Zoo closed tonight, it was just about 5:50 at this point. I saw a sign coming in that said it closed at 6pm, my MIL and DW were sure it was going to be open later. I had noticed while we were eating dinner that the employees in the restaurant had been cleaning up so I was pretty sure I was going to win this one.

Armed with that confidence I tracked down the nearest Zoo employee I could find and asked what time they closed. It was indeed a 6pm closing tonight. Hearing this  the boys insisted we hurry off to the train station and try and get a ride. The train had just pulled in as we walked up and we were told that they would squeeze in one more run for us. We had the entire train to ourselves, it was nice.

This engine was parked on the siding next to the station. It looked like it was well taken care of.

The train travelled through a good portion of the Zoo and across a long bridge through the middle of a lake in the Zoo. The train crossed the bridge very slowly so we were able to see some of the fish in the water as well as several turtles sticking there heads up and swimming around. Here’s the pics from our ride.

I thought we had more photos from the train ride, but that was it. It was now time to make our way to the front of the Zoo and head out. The one thing this place lacked was signage for the exit. We had to ask an employee how the heck to get out of this place!

I appreciated the flower beds in the middle of the park and grabbed a couple of shots:

The kids wanted to say goodbye to the doormen, I think I know how baby’s ear was broken off now:

When we had arrived earlier and parked I noticed the very large parking lot was mostly covered with what I thought were angled steel panels. I assumed to help keep some sun off the cars. They looked like this

It wasn’t till we were walking out that I looked a little more closely and realized they were indeed trying to keep the sun off the cars, because they were tying to collect it! The parking lot is covered almost entirely with Solar Panels that generate about 20% of the electricity the Zoo uses! How cool is that?

It is the MeLink Solar Canopy.

That’s it, all the pictures I have from the Zoo. Moving right along now….

I have a thing for our Flag. I Love It! And my DW knows this and is always trying to get pictures of the huge flags flying along the highway when we travel. So as we were coming up I-75 she got this picture of the Flag hanging from a crane on the side of the highway

What she didn’t realize at the time is that she also got a picture of a GIGANTIC Rubber Duck!

On September 21 they will hold the 10^th annual Rubber Duck Regatta on the Great Miami River which snakes through the middle of Dayton. 15,000 rubber ducks will be dropped in and race down to the finish line. People can sponsor a duck and if they win there are “great prizes” awarded. The money raised goes to help disabled children and adults in Dayton. I bet this is a fun event to see. A close up of the big duck

 The semi truck in that photo should give you some idea of just how big this duck really is!

That was it for Monday. We got back to the camper and DW step dad met us there and we hung out and had some dinner and then it was time to say good bye for the night and hit the sack.

MIL and Step Dad were both working on Tuesday so we were going to be left to our own devices to entertain ourselves. Not to fear, I had a plan, and I was pretty sure it was going to be an awesome day!

We got up and had some breakfast then it was out onto the road to put my big plan in action.

I had listened to my father tell a particular story several times from his days in the Army. He was on his way home from Vietnam for emergency leave as his father had passed away while he was overseas. His flight home was going to leave him at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base for several hours one afternoon. Well, not being one to sit around and do nothing he did some looking and found out that there was a museum on WPAFB, the National Museum of the United States Air Force. This was in 1968, but the museum had been started in its earliest forms in 1923, so there was a substantial collection even at that time.

It wasn’t long before we were seeing things like this:

The three hangers you see here are the museum. The tall cylindrical building houses several rockets of various types.

A decoration in the yard

And we are here!

The round building here is the just recently completed IMAX theatre.

The best part about this museum, it doesn’t cost a penny to get in. There is a charge for the IMAX theater, but the entire rest of the museum is free to the public. I think this is a good place to wrap it up for tonight. I have a lot of pictures from this museum that I will share with you tomorrow with any luck.

Is this fun yet? It’s only the beginning of day 4, we still have 4 more full days of pictures to go! Thanks for reading along…..

Joe

Great zoo pics!

Thanks, stay tuned, more to come tomorrow!

Awesome trip report. I too love waffle House, their omelets are fabulous! I read somewhere that they put some waffle batter in the eggs to help make them super fluffy!

I'll take just about any excuse to head south from here to anywhere that I can get a Waffle House breakfast at

The Zoo photos are great so far.  Our Zoo has a train but it costs much more extra to ride it.

This Zoo has multiple levels of entry. We chose the highest level which gave unlimited rides on the train and carousel, as well as entry to a 4-D theater with an Ice Age themed show the kids loved, it worked out to $23.40 per person for the 5 of us. I didn't think that was unreasonable at all and the Zoo is Huge!

We left off visiting the Reptile House! I was really enjoying this Zoo. I think I forgot to mention that school had gone back in session? This meant that there was not much of a crowd here at the Zoo. That was excellent! It was pretty hot out today in the sun, but Mother Nature took care of us and gave us some cloud cover to cool us off. The Zoo also has several misting fans placed throughout it that help keep you cool.

Our next stop was to see a crowd favorite:

I wish I had taken a picture of the sign posted on the fence stating that the gorilla’s are known to throw “clumps of mud” when they get agitated. That made me chuckle.

He was hiding in the corner of his enclosure, he actually laid down and was holding his head in his hands like he had a headache while we were watching him. Again, photo fail on my part.

I know some of the readers here enjoy the little signs like the next few that some places put out. These were literally everywhere at the zoo. It was very interesting reading many of them, even though it annoyed the rest of the folks in my group!

Across from the Fig tree was the “Night Hunters” building. The boys and I had some more humor thanks to an insurance company that likes to advertise a lot. “Who? Who? Who?”

Photos do not do this bird justice, he was gorgeous! The size of him was surprising to me, and he kept turning his head so it appeared that he was looking directly at my older son the whole time we stood there. His eyes where huge, I could have stood there watching him all day.

These guys were down the hall from Mr. Owl. They were super cute, they looked like little tiny tigers. The max weight is 11 pounds.

This whole building was lit with black light type fixtures and was very dark. There were people taking flash photography in here (you know, rules don't apply to them), but I am an animal lover and it made sense to me that if they keep the building this dark, these animals probably don’t care to much for the bright lights. That being said, I have a bunch of black photographs from inside this building.

This next guy is another good looker. He’s a little bigger than the last kitty we saw though.

Finally got him to look our way

Here’s a blurry picture of a snow leopard:

He’s in the middle of the photo, laying under the trees.

Next we took a quick break for some really expensive frozen slushy drinks. Then it was off to ride the carousel. Here’s my MIL and I helping my youngest on to his eagle for the ride.

My MIL and my DW

As we were getting off the ride my youngest son noticed that the eagle he had ridden was hungry and had grabbed himself some lunch

I also noticed that the tiger my MIL had been riding was showing his teeth and some claws. I could actually see this being a little scary to a younger child. Maybe it’s just me though

As we walked away from the carousel the boys took turns wrestling alligators! It was scary

Those green cups you see are what the slush came in. They got to bring them home, but they had to carry them around all day. 

This next guy weighs in at over 220 lbs. He is an alligator snapping turtle. I do not ever want to meet one of these guys in the wild. Thanks, but not thanks

The lion enclosure is very nice. There is an elevated boardwalk that circles the entire area and lets you get as up close as I ever want to be with a lion. I have a couple of blurry pictures from right on top of the two lionesses, and then one from the other side of the walkway looking across to where they were laying.

If you look close at the last picture there, you can see the fence through which the first three photos were taken, it is just above and right behind the lions through the trees. It show you that there wasn’t a lot of zoom on those first three photos, the walkway lets you get right up next to the animals. It was very nice. 

Next up:

This was a noisy little guy

I love penguins, it was so much fun to sit with the kids a laugh at them wandering around. Not to mention the boys were trying to convince us that all the King Penguins had eggs under their bellies.

The enclosure was set up so you had a good view of them under water as well as about, it was really nice.

There were several of these guys just wandering around throughout the zoo. The kids really wanted them to open up and show their plumage, but none of them did.

This was the firepit outside the Italian style resteraunt that we ate an early dinner at. Food left a lot to be desired and was very expensive. But the theme was nice and the landscaping as well.

As we came out of dinner this was crossing the street in front of us.

I’m kind of a train nut and have turned the boys into the same, so we were all looking forward to heading to the station to get a trip on the train. Are we going to make it? You’re going to have to wait to find out because that last photo makes 30 (if I counted right) so the great train mystery will have to wait till the next update.

Are you sick of zoo photos yet? It’s ok if you are, we only have a few more, and we are going to completely change directions on Tuesday! Hold on to your hats……another update coming soon