National Museum of the United States Air Force

We stopped at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, on the way home from Indiana. Mark had really looked forward to stopping and seeing all the planes. He loves military stuff, so this was heaven for him. I thought it would be "ok", but I figured the girls would get bored. But I was wrong! It was great and the girls loved it! We had to run through it, since we had to make it to Lexington that night, so it would be nice to go again and take our time.

The place is HUGE. It has rockets in it. Standing up! I didn't know what most of the planes were, but they were really neat to see and the displays were very educational. The lobby sports a statue of Icarus, who flew like a bird until he got too close to the sun. Olivia kept wanting to look at the back of him. Then she and Ke Xin would giggle.

There are three huge hangers worth of tiny-to-gigantic planes, helicopters and experimental planes. I like the nose art the best.

There were dispalys you could walk through. That's Olivia on the stairs. She got quite adventurous and wanted to go by herself sometimes.

This is a HUGE quilt - 20 feet x 20 feet. Each square represents all the different AF installations throughout the world. Quite beautiful. It commemorates the 50th anniversary of the USAF.

Olivia takes a ride in the cockpit of a F-4D Phantom II.

I liked Iron Mike, the mascot of a squadron based in Alaska. He had some adventures of his own!

Real rockets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cool!!!!!!!!!

This pic keeps loading sideways, phooey. It is looking up at the top of some rockets.

The girls got quite a workout. They zonked before we hit the interstate. They slept well that night, needless to say!

And we headed for Lexington and our shining beacon in the night - The Spearmint Rhino!

Then, homeward.