PICTURES - read the post before viewing though.
Saturday was pretty boring. The weather was supposed to be bad, so I didn’t plan getting out of the hotel at all. However, the morning wasn’t too bad, so I decided to get out and about and see the sights.
I checked out OSU, and drove around Columbus. Some neat things to see, but nothing to really write about.
Today, however, was a beautiful day. I hoped in the car, and headed to Dayton, OH.
For those of you who don’t know, Dayton is where the Wright brothers did their work, and I’m a huge history buff as well as a flying buff.
The first place was in downtown Dayton; The Cycle Shop. The 4th shop that the brothers had is still in the same place. This is the shop where the idea of flight first really became serious to the brothers. They started some of their first drawings and ideas in this shop. Over the years, the shop became many things, but it’s been restored to the best that history can tell us. It was awesome to stand in the same shop as they. The floor was still original, and you could see the “walk paths” that they took around machinery and such. It was great.
I then went next door to the Wright Museum. This was neat in that there was a really informative movie on their life and progression of flight. Other than that, there wasn’t too much to see.
I then got in the car and drove across the Mighty Miami river (which is very big) and went to the Carillon Historical Park. This is an open air style park meaning there is a bunch of building in a park and you walk from one to the other. The first part of the park was a really nice walk through the Pioneer age of Ohio, roughly the last 20 years of the 1800’s. A schoolhouse, cabin, and tavern where all open for full walk through, these are all original buildings.
The crown jewel of the park however, is the Write Brothers Aviation Hall. In the late 1930’s Orville Write (the remaining brother) worked with the founder of NCR from here in Ohio, to build a building that would house some of the Wright brother’s actual work. He retrieved all the pieces and parts of the original 1905 flyer. Now, the brothers took the first powered flight in 1903 at Kittyhawk. That’s the famous flight that everyone talks about. However, not until they built their 3rd plane in 1905 did they consider their plane usable and flyable. This is the first plane they could actually turn and they did it at Huffman Prairie just outside Dayton. With the 1905 flyer, they could stay in the air up to an hour and had complete control of the flyer. This is also the plane they used in 1908 to prove to the Army that it would work. In other words, out of all the planes the brothers built, this is the most important to them. They used the 1905 as the basis for their “Wright Flyer I” which was the first production one built. He personally worked with people who put it back together, and when all was said and done, the plane was 85% all original, not replicas at all. That’s huge, because even the first plane that is in the Smithsonian is only about 20% or so original, much of it had to be rebuilt from drawings.
I stood and stared at it for almost an hour. I was alone with the tour guide (this is the end of the tourist season up here) and he gave me tons of information and pointed out all kinds of things. I was amazed, and it felt great.
The rest of the park had a ton of great things, the original Engine ever built by the B&O Railroad company. Some first class luxury train cars from the early 1900’s.
I spent about 5 hours in the park total and plan to go back again.
I didn’t bring my digital camera with me here on this trip, but I took a ton of pictures with my phone, they aren’t all that great, but you get the idea of everything. I plan on going back there again soon and taking better pictures.
All in all, it was a great trip over to Dayton today, one that I will cherish, and one that most everyone reading this is happy that I didn’t drag them along on.
Sorry for lack of updates lately, for some reason I’ve just not been in the mood to post.
Lots of stuff going on right now at the Huff House (I seem to start off most of my posts with that line).
Poor Ashton has been through just about every sickness that a little girl can go through. Strep, Flu, even Chicken Pox has tested her ability to handle being indoors and not going to school. The worst is that it all started on her birthday. Poor little girl. However, the good news is that she is finally over the Pox and tomorrow she gets to go back to school. The bad news, is that she has missed 9 days of school this year and it’s still only the first half. So now if she gets sick even for 1 day, she has to go get a doctors note. In true fashion though, she is going through it all like a trooper.
Grant is at the end of the “terrible three’s”. I said this about Ashton, and it proved true with Grant, I’ll take the two’s any day of the week over the three’s! Just about everything makes him cry right now. This happened to him almost a year ago and now again, exactly as it did with Ashton. So to all you out there reading this and might be planning a family, make vacation plans for the age of three.
On the work front, I’ve taken a contract with KForce to do some work for American Electric Power (AEP) which is the upper mid-west electric utility provider. The great thing about it is that I will be telecommuting on this three or four month contract, the bad thing is that it is based in Columbus, Ohio. Which basically means I have to spend a little of each month in Ohio which is actually where I am right now. I flew in last Sunday from a wonderfully nice day in Houston to cold rain. Monday morning I awoke to snow. Ugh. I’ll be here for two weeks until Nov 4th. Which means I’m missing Ashton’s field day which I worked at last year, as well as Halloween. The family understands, but it still sucks all the same.
Corri is having fun trying to deal with everything while I am gone. Luckily I’ve traveled a good deal in my career so she is used to me being gone, unfortunately she’s not really used to it with both kids being home and one of them being sick. So for that, a quick “I love you Corri” for her being such a trooper. I’ll have to make sure this Birthday and Christmas is really great for her.
It’s a little after midnight here in OH so I’m off to sleep.
First off the PICTURES.
This past weekend was packed FULL of activity. I picked up Austin Friday afternoon and Kamie got in that evening. Saturday, we all packed up and went to Austin's second baseball game of the year. It was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed it. Since Ashton's birthday was on a Thursday this year, we decided to put the party off until the weekend.
Ashton let us know, that she wanted to have her party at my moms house with all her friends there. So Sunday, we loaded up 3 cars here at our house and all treked up there. It was a grand adventure for the kids to say the least. There are monkeys up there (no, really), 4 wheelers, fishing, horses, and the list goes on. We had 7 kids running from one end of the ranch to the other.
All in all, Ashton had a great time with all her friends, as did they.