blm2003

Looking at the picture I don’t have a lot left from our time in Ohio, so I thought I would just put together one more update and finish it up. Our TR isn’t over yet though, we still have a few more states to cover and a two night side trip to get through before we get back to Boston. We got up a little early on Friday morning, it had been a long week and DS1 was pretty tired. So much so that he sat down in front of the drawers his clothes were in and promptly fell asleep. We managed to get him dressed and into the truck and it wasn’t long before we were just about ready to go

I agree, and so did my father in law, he was nauseous for quite a while after the ride. Many more farm pics coming up in a minute! Glad your still here Judy! We had a great time! Can't wait to get back out there next year

I think I can put together another quick update for you this morning. I was surprised when I just looked and found out there were only 15 pictures taken on Thursday. I warned you it was going to be a quite day. We started out our last full day in Ohio with breakfast, if your mouth started watering and you said, “I bet they went back to Waffle House”, you are absolutely correct. No photos though, sorry After breakfast we had some post cards we needed to mail so it was off to the Post Office. Nothing else on the menu for today so how about a driving tour of the area, all 15 photos from tod

A happy group of people right here! You won’t believe where we headed after this…..Did you say back to the bumper cars?? If you did you are a winner! I have lots more bumper car photos, but I think we’ve seen enough of those. Remember I said my DW wasn’t a roller coaster person? Well, she came up to me and whispered in my ear, “I think I want to ride the Diamondback”! What the Fort?? The girl who never rides roller coasters now wants to ride the biggest, baddest coaster in the park?? It was getting close to closing time, remember this is off season officially as the schools are

Here we go again. Remember I said we finally found a ride DS2 would go on. Well here he is getting ready for the ride. They convinced me I needed to go on with them, so here I am And Grampa DS2 and Grampa on ride number 2 Doesn’t he look like he’s having fun? I think this picture shows the aftermath of a horrific crash DS2 even convinced Gramma to go for a ride with him, bad back and all “What have I gotten myself into” is all I can think of looking at this picture I think we spent close to an hour standing here as the boys ran round and round for ride a

I did not want to carry a giant lizard either. The kids did ok, it wasn't till right at the end of the day that I was stuck carrying the lizzards I too think often about the equipment, I'm not a little guy, I am depending a lot on that equipment to do it's job. I didn't see or hear anything about Jabberjaw, but it wasn't the nicest weather and it was very quite in the park, so maybe he was held back for those reasons. I would love to visit the Henry Ford Museum. Someday.... It was a great ride, but only a once a day I think. That wait at the end really messes with your head. O

How about an update this morning before the lawn gets mowed and the pool gets closed. We left off walking through an almost empty park. We were heading back to check out the I Love the 80’s store while the in-laws grabbed a Starbucks. Yes, even Kings Island has its own Starbucks restaurant right on the midway. They are everywhere now. I mentioned that if any of the famous Wild Women from the Fort were reading along I was about to make them want to visit Kings Island and here is why: I found the new home of the famous “Barrels of Fun” It seems they were being abused so much in Florida that t

My wife drinks the caffeine free diet Pepsi, not by choice either, she gets all jittery and anxious with the caffeine. Only in soda though, coffee doesn't bother her. It's weird, just like the rest of her! Thanks for reading along with us Glad you like it! Won't have to wait long for more, writing an update right now, will be up soon! I to only drink water most of the time. If there is juice in the fridge I will drink that, but mainly just a water guy. In my high school days I lived on Coke, first thing in the morning right up to last thing before bed. I know what you mean abou

Thanks for keeping up with the report. I really do like it out there in the Midwest, I can see myself living there, or perhaps the North Carolina / Tennessee area some time after the kids are finished with school. Glad you liked the museum pictures. There is another entire section of the museum that features the Air Force One craft that served all Presidents from Kennedy through Clinton, among other things. If I am informed correctly you are able to get on board the plane and look around. These displays are in a secure area of the Air Force Base and thanks to the government sequestration that

Let’s see if we can’t get this train rolling again. We left off at the campground on Tuesday night, heading to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a big day. DS1 invited his grandparents over for breakfast, he was going to cook everyone French toast. He learned to do this at scout camp last spring and is very proud of his French toast. Well, breakfast time came and he cooked two pieces of French toast and then he was off, so I got to finish cooking breakfast. Then it was time to leave for Kings Island. The park is located in Mason, OH and boasts it is the “Largest Theme and Water Park in the Midwest

I couldn't possibly have used the twelve pack of beer...that was in the cooler. No way would the seat have stayed in place the entire trip had there been alcohol underneath it. Thanks for the comment!

So I got a few pics of the seat I built for the dog. I bought a piece of 2' x 4' x 1/2 birch (I think it was birch, may have been oak) Cut it to fit in between the boys in the back seat, and then notched the front of it so it would go between the two front seats and rest on the center console. I left it long enough so that when the front seats were pushed back they were ever so slightly pushing the board into the back seat, keeping it from sliding front / back or side to side at all. I bought a package of 2" foam at Walmart, cut it to fit the board, spray adhesived it onto the board, then used

Thanks for the comments Dave! I'm glad your enjoying the report, hopefully I'll get an update put together this evening, otherwise it's going to have to be first thing tomorrow morning Thanks for checking in Andrew! My family and I have been reading your trip reports for a long time and we always look forward to them. I'm glad your enjoying the report. I'm having a lot of fun putting it together. I can't wait to write about Kings Island, it is a wonderful place That must have been quite the experience to work among all that history. I hate to see pieces of our past torn down or l

Keeping this report moving, we are still only on Tuesday, and Wednesday is going to be a big day….let’s get these museum photos finished up! They had several cockpits on display that guests could climb into and try out the fighter jock life. Here’s the boys trying them out. Someone didn’t like something that was just said to him! Didn’t take him long to get over it though! This was the cockpit of an F-16 Fighting Falcon. I can not imagine spending hours at a time inside one of these. I think the DW would have made a pretty hot fighter pilot, I am a lucky man! The

You think it's fun so far.....wait till I get to the pictures from Wednesday!! (not to mention Saturday)

Thanks for chiming in with us! I used to think of myself as a US History nut, it was one of the few topics I paid a lot of attention to in school, and I don't recall ever reading or hearing about Roosevelt's son. More fun still to come....stay tuned!

Here we go again. Hope you are ready for some more museum photos. We left off looking at the 50 year anniversary quilt. On the other side of the hall where this quilt is was a series of paintings done by a Vietnam Veteran. I wish I had better quality photos of them and their descriptions, they were magnificent. Here is my DW checking out the intakes on an F-22 Raptor. They had an extensive display on POW / MIA ‘s. As the display indicates the hash marks on the wall represent the 2,689 day Air Force Maj Lockhart was held captive in Vietnam. That’s a lot of ha

Those sunset and moonrise photos are fantastic!

I'm in! My wife and I have been thinking of a cruise like the one you took for a while now, can you convince us to go? Looking forward to more

Moving on through the WWII side of the museum, I apologize for not having a lot of info about the next few planes, I’m just learning how to do this trip report thing and was really just in awe of the displays at this point. Seeing the Swastikas on the sides of many of these aircraft, like the ones below, really brought home how real this was. These aren’t just aircraft in a hanger, these are the real deal, they were over Europe and the Pacific and won the war for us. Here is a B-24 Liberator. I apologize if the language on the side offends anyone. DS 1 + 2 with an

We ended our last update as we were pulling up to the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. I grew up a few miles from Naval Air Station South Weymouth in Mass, and it was really cool to have witnessed the constant jet traffic over our little town. In fact, when I was a teenager my father and I returned home from the annual 4th of July party at my grandparents late one evening and a twin engine jet, I believe it was a Tomcat based on looks alone, went over our house at a very low altitude with flames coming out of the turbines. My dad and I watched

I had heard of the Alligator Snapper before, but had never seen one in person. The picture really doesn't do this monster justice, he was HUGE! His claws were a good 2 inches long. I like turtles, but not this one! Get ready, they are coming soon! Rhino Butts! (I couldn't help it, it makes me smile every time I type it) Thanks for reading along Thanks for checking out our report! I failed to mention that we were only able to cover a little more than half of the zoo in the time we spent there, about 5 1/2 hours. We have several zoo's around us at home that we have visited often

Ok, I think I can squeeze in one more short update this evening. We left off coming out of the restaurant we had our dinner at and watching the train go through the crossing. We were having a debate as to what time the Zoo closed tonight, it was just about 5:50 at this point. I saw a sign coming in that said it closed at 6pm, my MIL and DW were sure it was going to be open later. I had noticed while we were eating dinner that the employees in the restaurant had been cleaning up so I was pretty sure I was going to win this one. Armed with that confidence I tracked down the nearest Zoo emplo

Thanks, stay tuned, more to come tomorrow! I'll take just about any excuse to head south from here to anywhere that I can get a Waffle House breakfast at This Zoo has multiple levels of entry. We chose the highest level which gave unlimited rides on the train and carousel, as well as entry to a 4-D theater with an Ice Age themed show the kids loved, it worked out to $23.40 per person for the 5 of us. I didn't think that was unreasonable at all and the Zoo is Huge!

We left off visiting the Reptile House! I was really enjoying this Zoo. I think I forgot to mention that school had gone back in session? This meant that there was not much of a crowd here at the Zoo. That was excellent! It was pretty hot out today in the sun, but Mother Nature took care of us and gave us some cloud cover to cool us off. The Zoo also has several misting fans placed throughout it that help keep you cool. Our next stop was to see a crowd favorite: I wish I had taken a picture of the sign posted on the fence stating that the gorilla’s are known to throw “clumps of mud” whe