Ohio

This morning Susan and I headed to MCO. The airport was crowded because of a systems failure a few days ago. It took an hour to drop our bags and get through security, then we had breakfast at the Delta lounge while waiting to board our flight. Our flight was full, but luckily we had gotten upgraded to Delta comfort. After a couple of hours we flew over Cincinnati and landed at the airport, which is actually in northern Kentucky.

After getting our bags and picking up our rental car, it was late afternoon. Because the flight’s departure time had been pushed back a half an hour, we needed to hurry to get to our first stop, the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument. We drove 1.5 hours northeast to Xenia, only to find the monument is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. We ate dinner at a nearby Skyline Chili, which we had heard a lot of good reviews about but we thought was just okay, then drove to our hotel in Dayton. 

This morning we visited the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historic Park, where we learned about the Wright Brothers lives and their efforts to create the first flying machine. We spent about two hours looking through the exhibits and watching the film at the main visitor center, however, we could have spent several more hours or even a whole day visiting the other sites of the park.

We also went on a ranger led tour of the Wright Brothers bicycle shop next to the visitor center. From there we headed back to the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers NM, where we learned more about General Young’s military career. The monument mostly consists of Young’s old house, which contains displays about Young and the Buffalo Soldiers and administrative offices. The displays were photos and text, and one uniform of a Buffalo Soldier. There’s not really any reason to come to this monument, almost everything at it can be experienced online. We spent less than hour there.

From Xenia we headed east across Ohio. After about three hours we crossed into West Virginia, where we stopped a Cabela’s to stretch our legs. This one had several nice animal displays. We then continued into Pittsburgh.