Wright Brothers – the other ones
Day 16:
Sammy slept in, in the morning. He really knows how to enjoy a hotel. He loves big beds, big breakfasts, and all the little things that come with them. We had a great breakfast at the hotel. There were lots of big fluffy eggs. On our way out of the hotel, we saw a Mississippi license plate. It was the one plate we had not been able to find (besides Alaska and Hawaii) and we finally spotted one on our last day.
Then we headed to Dayton Ohio about an hour away, to the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historic Park. This is where the Wright Brothers had their bike shop and print shop and invented their flying machines. It is an interesting museum. It wasn’t very busy but extremely detailed. The ranger giving the tour at the bicycle shop is an engineer and bicycle enthusiast and is very passionate about this second career. The museum told a lot about the times during which the Wright Bros lived, their print shop partner, Paul Laurence Dunbar, a groundbreaking African American poet, and novelist. There is a portion of the museum devoted to writers of the time. It also has a whole section about parachutes that I didn’t really understand the connection to the Wright family, except perhaps a loose association to airplanes in general. It gives a lot of great explanations and demonstrations about their airplanes and displays artifacts from their print shop as they would have been when they were working. There are also photographs of the Wright family and information about their history.
We left Dayton after making ourselves a quick car lunch and headed for home. We drove through Indiana and Illinois on our way back to Iowa over the Mississippi River. We got to see our puppies who were already tucked in for the night and were confused that someone was there to see them. They were overjoyed that we had returned to them. They seemed like they could hardly believe it was us, jumping to kiss our faces over and over, and clinging to our sides. It was both good and really strange to be home. It took some time to get used to it. We had a big week ahead of cleaning out all our gear while celebrating Sam’s birthday, his special day, and a party with friends. We needed to prepare everyone for school to start with school shopping, prepping schedules and supplies, Meet the Teacher night and school tours, and a family reunion, a friend’s birthday party, possibly the state fair, finally doing that bonfire with the neighbors… but for the first night home we ate pizza and snuggled our puppies.
