Wright Patterson Air Force Base (6/11-6/12/2015)

We've spent the last 2 days at the Wright Patterson Air Force Base, visiting the National Museum of the United States Air Force, located near Dayton, Ohio.  This has been on Joe's bucket list for several years; we visited here in approximately 1982, and Collins and Marilyn have talked about it a lot in recent years, so he has wanted to return for a long time.  Collins was stationed here at this base at one time in his career, and they visited it again 3 or 4 years ago, so they are our tour guides both at the base, museum, and in and around Dayton.

Joe loved this Adventure.  He was always the last one, dragging behind and reading, looking, taking pictures.  He was in charge of the camera, and he took 401 pictures.  I don't intend to post very many of them, because there is every imaginable kind of aircraft here.  We did get to tour some of the Air Force One planes, and even walk inside, so I will post some of those, along with several other interesting planes. 

"This museum is the largest and oldest military aviation museum in the world. Exhibits include more than 300 aircraft and missiles." 

The Museum is organized in different sections and it is a lot of walking:
 
Early Years Gallery
World War II Gallery
Korean War Gallery
Southeast Asia War Gallery
Cold War Gallery
Missile and Space Gallery
Presidential Gallery
R and D Gallery


The first section obviously was a lot about the Wright Brothers' early efforts to build a plane.  They had a couple of displays of wind tunnels used in their labs.

On the wall on the way to the next section was a huge quilt representing all of the closed Air Force bases, quite impressive.

The next section was World War II, and had haunting displays of Pearl Harbor, and a lot of planes used during the war effort.

Joe found his plane here.

Although this was part of the World War II section, this decking was similar to what Joe hauled and laid in Viet Nam, building roads and air strips.



There was also an exhibit of the plane that dropped the Fat Man bomb on Nagasaki to end World War II, Bockscar was the plane and it happened on 8/9/45.  (Enola Gay dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima on 8/6/45).

The next section was the Korean War.  I can never remember what years that war covered, so Joe took a picture of that information here.

Here are some of the various planes we saw today:

They had a Stealth on display.  There were only 21 of these built, but this one had some problems, I think structural, so it was not air worthy, that's the only reason it was available for an exhibit.  "The museum's B-2 stealth bomber is the world's only B-2 aircraft on permanent public display."

That ended today's "hiking" and we loaded up and headed back to camp to rest for a while.  We walked at least a couple miles in this museum and are only about half-way through.


Friday morning, it was back to the museum, and we picked up where we left off yesterday by starting with the Viet Nam war.  Joe spent a lot of time in this section.  He found a helicopter very similar to what his  buddy Ed Williams was crew chief on during his stint in Viet Nam (nicknamed a Huey).  Ed was recently honored at the Decker Alumni as this year's "distinguished alumni," and his military service was part of the criteria that earned him that award.

Another display was of the Tet Offensive in January 1968, both Ed and Joe were serving over there at that time.  Joe was able to find one of the bases he served at on the map (Bien Hoa). 

 And this guard shack, he said, was similar to what they used as well -- maybe a little more cushy than the Army's.

We all have various aches and pains (thus the name, the 6 Rusketeers).  Marilyn gave Mazie a little demonstration on loosening up her neck and shoulder.  (Dave should have been out there too because he's having neck and shoulder issues).

 But we all continued on, and finally got to the space section.  This slowed Joe down again.  We completed this section with a tour inside the space shuttle.

 

We had a bite at the museum cafe, then got in the cars and drove other to the Presidential and R&D Galleries.  We were able to walk inside some of the Air Force One planes, including the one that President Kennedy's body was flown back to Washington in.

In the R&D section was a little one-man helicopter that Collins thought Jeff should build in his backyard.  And it would be a perfect way for them to come to our house, they wouldn't have to deal with our dirt road, and I think we both have enough room for landing and take-off.

 

Sometimes, you just needed a break!

Some more R&D planes.

 Finally, we finished -- or at least 5 of the 6 of us did.  Joe finally caught up with us, resting.

We had a couple rainstorms while we were in this building, but we caught a break and were able to get to our cars during a lull.  The girls went to the grocery store and the guys went back to the base, stopping to pay for another night's camping here.  After we got back, Marilyn and Collins left again to go shopping at the PX.  It stormed off and on, and I couldn't get my pictures to load onto the blog, so I spent my evening being frustrated with the computer.  I had to seek help from my experts, but this morning when I tried, they were loading fine, so I guess it was the weather and the strength of my Hot Spot.

Collins said his pedometer showed that he had walked over 5 miles yesterday, so I'm sure that would go for all of us.  Except I know I walked more than that, because I was always going back to find Joe!

So we can put a checkmark beside this museum on Joe's bucket list.  Today we are going to see some other things around Dayton (mostly about the Wright brothers), and the plan is that we will leave here tomorrow.  This museum is unimaginably vast, and I would encourage any aviation, military or history buffs to spend a couple of days here. 

Arriving Dayton (6/10/2015)

We left our pretty state park and continued northward.  I let Joe sleep in so we didn't get a very early start -- 10:20.  It was 73 when I woke up, but it got a lot warmer today, and was in the 90s by the time we reached Dayton.  After yesterday's slow, crooked, narrow road, Joe decided on a little different route.  The 11 and 15 ran together for a while, and the road improved, then we took the 460 up to U.S. 68, another scenic byway.  This took us through pretty horse country, with high dollar fencing and horse barns.

 

Along here I spotted 4 geese in a pond.  Joe didn't look, and when I told him he missed them, he responded that he also missed 4 telephone poles at the same time.  Point taken.  We arrived in Maysville, KY and took the business route to see a little of the town, but we missed the main bridge and took a secondary one instead.  Just as we got to the bridge, Collins called with instructions to the Air Force Base where we were going to meet up, so I missed my picture of the Ohio River from the bridge, and spent the next 10 miles trying to get a shot through the trees.  We crossed the Ohio state line at 12:55, and Joe took a picture of that, since I was still on the phone with Collins.

Joe has a full-fledged cold now, and his nose burns, his ears are plugged up, his gums are sore, and besides that, he doesn't feel too great, but he keeps soldiering on. The wheels on the bus keep going round and round, and the miles keep racking up.

 

There are several power plants along the Ohio River, on either side, and one that looked like it had been mothballed, but there was also a nuclear plant operating.

Joe did get his reward today, though.  Once we got to the Cincinnati bypass I-275 (around 2:00 p.m.), we were looking for a place to have lunch, pick up a few groceries, and fuel up, all at the same stop.  Joe took an exit ramp to a Kroger store, and lo and behold, there was a White Castle Hamburger at this exit.  Made him a happy camper!

After we ate, I walked over to Krogers and Joe pulled over to the fuel pumps there.  But after he got situated at the pump, he saw that the price was $2.89, so he just pulled back out and met me in Krogers.  Getting fuel because a real challenge this time.  I checked Gas Buddy and found an area that was supposed to have gas for $2.65 range, so he took another exit ramp.  But just as he turned left, an emergency vehicle (fire truck) came at us and he had to pull over, which put him in the on-ramp back up to the freeway, so we missed that fuel stop.  Finally, we saw a Pilot station, and we have our 3 cent discount card, so he took that ramp, and price there was $2.63!  So with our discounted price of $2.60, we saved more than $12.00 by going through our fuel ordeal, I guess it was worth it (we buy a lot of gas!).

Finally, we are fueled and getting close to Dayton.  Marilyn and I were in contact, checking on how close we all are getting to our destination.  They and the Johnsons are coming from the Troy, Ohio area where they had a tour of the Airstream plant there, and we were meeting at the Air Force base.  Just after I called to say we were about 7 miles out, we hit traffic, a car was broken down in a construction area and had traffic to a crawl.  It took us almost an hour to go the last 4 miles on the freeway.  But we finally got through that, and got to the base.  They were just a little ahead of us, so they were parking, then came back to meet us and get us in.  So we pulled in about 6:00 next to the Johnsons, and got set up.  Marilyn warned us that we might get awaken by planes taking off during the night, but otherwise, this is a beautiful base, and the campground is very nice and grassy.

So we are all together, I've named us the Six Rusketeers (2 sets of 3 Musketeers, a little rusty).

Let the next EXCELLENT ADVENTURE begin!

Pigeon Forge, TN to Slade, KY (2015-06-09)

Today was a travel day, and with a little nagging on my part, I had Joe out of bed about 8:00, and on the road about 9:30.  It was 67 degrees when I got up, had rained more during the night, and we drove through mostly cloudy weather, in the low 80s, most of the day.  It took us 45 minutes to get through Pigeon Forge and Sieverville, then we turned the wrong way and had to turn around.  But that worked out, because it was a gas station with propane, and Joe had wanted to fill up with propane before we headed off on the next part of our journey.  But the price was $3.50, which he thought was a bit high.

In last night's travels, I did make one purchase, when I couldn't find any painted bear statutes.

Once we cleared the towns, it was a pretty drive through Tennessee.  We crossed two very large lakes -- Douglas Lake near Banetberry, and Cherokee Lake, which seemed to stretch forever.  Made us want to get John's and Bridgette's pontoon boat in the water here.

Douglas Lake

Cherokee Lake

He found a scenic lookout point at potty-break time, so we took advantage of that.  It was very pretty, great views, and a memorial to our veterans.

We spent a few minutes here to enjoy the scenery.

Along this stretch somewhere, we saw a pheasant right beside the road.  We first thought it was a turkey but decided it wasn't big enough (guess it could have been a baby turkey).  So we decided it was a pheasant.  Next up was the Cumberland Gap Tunnel.  Here we had to stop for a few minutes, then they let us through.  Don't know if that is security, or road construction.

This is at the Kentucky State Line, and we crossed it about 12:30.  There is a national park here and we considered stopping there but Joe is fighting a cold and I don't think he knew how long he would last today, so he just kept driving.  He had selected KY 11 as our travel route through Kentucky, but it turned out to be a very narrow, crooked road with not that much scenery, and he was too busy with the steering wheel to get to see much.  We finally found a place to pull off for sandwiches, but it was hard driving through here.  It finally improved, and we saw one deer just before we got to the Natural Bridge State Park near Slade, KY, for our stop tonight.  This is a lovely little campground, right on a creek, and we are creek-side. 

I kept struggling to stay awake all afternoon (that's what that hiking will do to you), and I really just wanted to take a nap when we got parked, but there was one washer/dryer here, so I opted to get my laundry caught up again.  We drove down the road to the Lodge for dinner, then drove around the park a little, but Joe is so full of mucous he can hardly breathe, so we called it an early night.