June 20, Ohio. Fairfield to Dayton

 June 20, 2016  Monday

Happy Birthday, Greg! We talked with both Bryan and Matt yesterday and Mom called with her Happy Birthday rendition.  Lots of good wishes on FB too.

Good night’s rest.  We decide to do a little laundry, as they have a guest laundry area here at the hotel and we can hang out in the room.  We watch the news and plan the next few days in Ohio while having  coffee and some tasty pastries from downstairs.

Two spots we had hoped to visit in Cincinnati are closed Mondays, so we move on to Jungle Jim’s International Market in nearby Fairfield. 

It is an immense complex of 285,000 square feet and includes 1400 different cheeses, 1.5 acres of produce and over 400 kinds of beer.  There are international food sections for many countries, including some odd ones like Bosnia and South Africa.

And there is a section with dishes, cookware, appliances, etc.  Would be fun to shop if we had a kitchen but as it is we buy just a few staples and some grits.  We are thinking of making shrimp and grits at Gwynne’s.

Throughout the store there are animated displays, as a stated goal of the owner is to make grocery shopping fun.

 Prices seem  reasonable.  This whole thing began as an outdoor produce market in 1971 by a recent college grad whose parents thought he was nuts.  Hasn’t done badly!

Next stop is the National Museum of the Air Force, in Dayton.   It is a million square feet in 4 different hanger/buildings – all air-conditioned (Yeah!).  A pleasant volunteer named David gives us a map and explains the layout.  There is also an Imax theater, small café and gift shop.

We decide to go to the last hanger first, which houses experimental and unique aircraft.  Many are one of a kind or one of a few produced and some were from the early age of aircraft.  There are some odd shapes and sizes, as they experimented with sizes, shapes, power, etc.  This one had forward thrusting wings,

  Another was developed to take off vertically.

 Some were failures, some worked but not well enough, some had funding cut.  It was easy to see how some could be identified as UFO’s – especially this Australian number!

Next hanger had many missiles and a mock-up of the space shuttle that you could walk through and four presidential Air Force One's....from FDR, Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy.

Next was the Korea era and Southeast Asia,  the cold war era, followed by World Wars I and II.  Couldn’t help wondering what our Dads and my brother flew in when they were in the service.  There were Japanese zeros, German Messerschmidts , and French, Australian and other aircraft as well as US.

There was also an exhibit on Bob Hope and his entertaining the troops, which included entertaining film footage.

We were “planed out” by the end, but pleasantly so.  The Air Force pays for ½ of the upkeep of this museum and the other half is funded by admissions, the Imax and some simulator rides.

 Greg got a kick out of the various artwork on the planes.

From the museum, we headed east to Xenia and then north to Yellow Springs and Clifton Gorge.  We walked about a mile trail through Clifton Gorge nature preserve. 

Photos were difficult as it was late in the day and very shady to boot.  A few signs gave some history, such as a spot where Daniel Boone and another man in his party escaped from Indians.  Once again we see work by the Civilian Conservation Corps.

There are supposed to be some covered bridges in the area but we didn’t see anything – will research more tonight.  We went to an Applebee’s for dinner and then found a quiet spot at Walmart.