Wright Stuff (6/13/2015)

Today we did the "Wright Brothers" stuff around town on the "Aviation Trail," but our first stop was the 2nd Street Market downtown.  It was filled with food stands, free samples, and some live music, and  It turned out to be more of a series of food booths, with a few "flea market-type booths thrown in, but some of the food being cooked there was pretty interesting, and pretty tasty.  There was a lot of fresh produce, breads, cheeses, as well as quite a variety of other foods.  It appeared that a lot of people came there just to eat, which we did not know.

"Local growers, bakers, culinary specialists, and artisans fill this charming historic freight house. Reminiscent of European markets, it's alive with vendors, people and activity during market hours."

"The 2nd Street Market operates in an historic block-long former 1911 B&O railroad building. It was saved from demolition and renovated in 2001 in partnership with National City Bank, now PNC Bank.  Five Rivers MetroParks is proud to help support growing and buying locally produced goods. The 2nd Street Market strives to promote sustainable, local food systems in order to shrink the ecological footprint of Montgomery County."

From there, we went to the Wright Brothers bike shop.  On the way out of the Base, we saw 3 groundhogs (or woodchucks for our Canadians), mostly around the golf course.  I got a picture, but he's pretty small. It just looks like a speck.

The bike shop is in downtown Dayton.  They actually rented at least 3 different buildings, and this one we toured was not the one they built the flying machine in.  That building has been demolished and is now a vacant lot, just across the street and down 3 buildings.  The state park hostess in the bike shop did a really good job of telling the history of the Wright brothers and she made it very interesting.

Then we  walked next door to the Aviation Trail Visitor Center,

 which includes the Parachute Museum, which tells the story of the development of the free-fall parachute.

Also included here are exhibits of the Wright Brothers printing company.
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We watched a very interesting film here as well, depicting the lives of the Wright Bros., from their interest in flying machines at an early age, through the development of ones that flew.

You can spend a lot of time here, but we finally left and went to get some lunch.  Joe had spotted a rib place across the street, but when we walked over there at 12:40, they were only serving breakfast, their lunch service didn't start until 1:00 p.m.  So we found a Mexican restaurant on the GPS and headed there.  After lunch, the girls made one more stop, at the Wright Memorial, which Marilyn had seen before.  We were supposed to be able to see the Huffman Prairie Flying Field where the Wright Bros. flew their experimental planes, but the view seemed to be obstructed by trees and brush.  And our attempt to drive to the field was unsuccessful, so we headed back to camp.

The guys had come back from the lunch stop, so Dave already had their laundry going.  I quickly gathered mine and got it started, so I could free up the machines for Marilyn.  Tomorrow is moving day, and it is always nice to move on with the laundry caught up.