Wright Patterson Air Force Museum- Henry.

We drove from Marion to Carmel to go see Aunt Jenni and Uncle Jim on June 16th. On the way, mama and papa decided to stop off in Dayton to visit Wright Patterson Air Force Base and the National Air Force Museum.

This museum rivaled the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in sheer awesomeness.

Outside, they had huge planes you could examine up close.

June took it upon herself to touch every one.

Just because she could.

This one had a satellite dish in it's nose and was modified from a passenger jet. I'm guessing this was WAY before cell phones.

Here's all of us.


I took this video and you can imagine the fun questions I asked all afternoon.

June looked so tiny under these huge planes.

Jo was such a good girl and gave up her afternoon nap, though you could tell she was very tired.

Inside, I took over the camera and took hundreds of pictures. Mama and papa were very engrossed with the planes, so June and I were sure to be on our best behavior. I took pictures while mama explained what we were seeing. These guys were dropping first aid kits from their planes. We also watched a video about the atomic bomb and mama got to answer a lot of questions.

I read this plane's name all by myself and was very impressed with the pirate on the side, though for some reason mama told me not to say the name too loud, or to ever repeat it again.

We could actually climb into the cockpit of one plane. June loved it!

The museum spanned 3 enormous hangers. We zoomed through all three and still shut the place down after 3 hours. We could honestly spend a month here and still not see everything. Next time, mama wants to start in the back because it featured things she remembered from growing up- like when the Berlin Wall came down.

She says it's one of her most vivid childhood memories. She was eating spaghetti at Grandma and Grandpa Wagner's house. Grandpa always kept the news on while they ate, even though the TV was in the other room. Everybody abandoned supper and ran in to watch the wall come down. Mama remembers not understanding how big of a deal it was. The point was driven home some days later when she say an episode of "Alvin and the Chipmunks" where Alvin goes to Germany and has a dream the wall came down, but later woke up realizing that he hadn't actually brought down communism. And you said cartoons rotted your brain. (Mama's other vivid childhood memory involves Grandpa Wagner telling her that they wouldn't have Christmas that year because the Russians caught Santa in their satellites and shot him down. She learned many crucial life lessons about communism from Grandpa.)

But I digress. We got a picture in front of a space capsule. And check out the strollers they had to use at the museum. Georgie loved it.

Of course, mama's favorite part was the exhibit about space food. A whole museum and this is always what attracts mama and Aunt Jenni. But it did manage to score us some astronaut ice cream on the way out. We also got to make those flat pennies in the souvenir penny cranking machine. Our only complaint was that the machine was right next to the donation penny funnel and June immediately pitched her flat penny in.

It was a very enjoyable afternoon and mama says we're definitely going back. Well done, people of Dayton.