I've wanted to visit the National Museum of the US Air Force for a very long time.  I decided to combine that visit with a group of National Park Passport Stamps at the Wright Brothers sites in Dayton, the William H. Taft National Historic Site in Cincinnati, OH and the Hopewell Culture National Historic Site in Chillicothe, OH.  It turns out that a friend of a friend is also an avid "Stamp Collector", as well as a rider, and I sent word asking if he would like to go along.  I immediately heard back that he would certainly be interested, we set a date, and this is it.

We headed out early on the morning of July 5, 2008 and got back home on July 7, 2008 in the middle of the afternoon.  Door to door I rode 850 miles or so and had an absolute blast doing it.  The photos below are the best of the hundreds that I took.  the Air Force Museum photos are on their own page at This Link.

All of the images are links to larger photos.  Click the image to view the large photo.  The large image will open in a new window on most browsers.

Saturday - 07/05/2008
I met Steve just over the Kentucky border and after a quick breakfast we headed north toward Cincinnati.  The trip up was uneventful, just miles of interstate, but the scenery of the Kentucky horse country is fantastic.  One of the things I enjoy most about traveling by motorcycle is the closeness I feel with the surroundings.  I smell things I never would have noticed in a car, I see more detail than I ever would have noticed, and I just plain enjoy the trip itself.  When traveling by car I just want to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible.

We made it to the William H. Taft NHS about 11:30 their time.  It's an interesting site although that type of history doesn't interest me that much.  Steve is an elementary school principal and a former history teacher so he really enjoys it.

Update - 08/10/2009 - I received an email today that explained the relationship between the Wright Brothers and Paul Lawrence Dunbar.  Paul Dunbar was a classmate and friend of Orville Wright, and when Orville and Wilbur Wright first went into business with their own printing press, they printed some of Paul's earliest writings, including leaflets and his African-American newspaper, in their print shop.  Thanks, Barb!  The information is much appreciated.

The site is the home in which he lived.  He died young at the age of 33 and his mother continued to live there for another 28 years before she died.  The home is full of original artifacts from his life and is in immaculate condition.

I was looking forward to the museum the next day so I called it a day pretty early.  I never sleep well the first night away from home and this one was no exception.  I tossed and turned and got up and went back to bed a number of times.  Regardless I was up before damn on Sunday and ready to go again.  Sunday is going to be good!

Sunday - 07/06/2008
All of Sunday was set aside for the National Museum of the United States Air Force.  When I get around airplanes I sometimes don't know when to quit.  This is one of the most imposing collection of aircraft anywhere and they have virtually everything that has ever flown for the US Air Force on display.

I took a couple of hundred photographs at the museum alone, and I did not want to choke this page by putting all of them here.  All of the photographs and trip information are on a page to themselves at This Link.  I have included a few of my favorites from the museum below however.

The Hopewell Culture National Historic Park in Chillicothe, OH is about 76 miles from the USA Museum so we had plenty of time for a break and the trip there.  The facility is the situated around a group of earthwork mounds that were the site of an ancient civilization, approximately 200BC to 500AD.  There are many relics on display and it is sobering to realize that they were made by people who lived over 2,000 years ago.  These are not crude artifacts either, they are beaten copper and pottery that are very well made.

Monday - 07/07/2008
Monday dawned slightly cloudy.  Had we been astute enough to take notice of the clouds we might have had an inkling of what was in store for us.  Maybe not though since we were still near Cincinnati, OH.

We headed out about 6:30am and stopped about 50 miles down the interstate for breakfast.  One of the other customers in the restaurant mentioned that there were a few thunderstorms north of Louisville and we should keep an eye out for them.  Steve checked the weather radar on his Blackberry and sure enough there was a bubble of storms north of Louisville, KY.  Oh well, they should blow out by the time we get there.

On the way north Saturday Steve had noticed a sign indicating that there was a Lewis & Clark Expedition site in north Louisville, so we decided to see if we could find it.  Who knows, perhaps they have a Passport Stamp!

We found the site and it is named "Locust Grove".  Locust Grove is the burial site of General George Rogers Clark, a Revolutionary War General and the founder of Louisville, Ky.  He was also the younger brother of Meriwether Lewis who gained fame as half of the Lewis and Clark team.

Photos from the facility are below.

We sat at a convenience store for about 30 minutes and then tried it again.  As soon as we hit the interstate and the wind hit me I started getting cold.  The farther we went the colder I got.  Luckily, or unluckily depending on your point of view, the rain got worse and we had to stop again about 15 miles down the road.  This time the rain gear came out!  Again we waited for about 30 minutes and gave it another try.  This attampt was better and we got about 80 miles closer to home before we had to stop again.  This was a planned stop though since it was where Steve and I were to part company.  I was heading on south for Nashville while he headed east for Portland.  When I got an email from him later that night he said he rode through extremely hard rain all the way home.  I got about 3 miles closer to Nashville and that was all I could do.  I stopped at the Tennessee Welcome Center just south of the state line and sat there for over an hour.  I was about 45 miles from home at this point and could see feel that warm shower that was waiting for me at home.  It finally let up a little bit and I headed out.  It rained buckets until I got about 10 miles from home and then it quit.  When I finally, and thankfully, pulled into my driveway I noticed that my grass was dead because it hadn't rained a drop at home!