Wasn't sure I was going to have a good day out. Woke up to a blood sugar of 400. Sigh. Took my insulin. Had breakfast with my soccer team, the New Boys veterans (which I was only half right. they are mostly from Jamaica but are US veterans, this team is out of MN)

I first went to the The Wright-Dunbar Interpretive Center and plaza area It is in a neat old section of the city. It's oddly enough run by the National Park Service (and is free) and I got there just in time to join the ranger on the tour of the next door building which is the last remaining Wright Brothers' cycle shop. (Henry Ford took most of their stuff to his museum in MI) There was only one bike of theirs in there.

The whole downstairs of the center was their story from being printers/would be newspaper men (they gave out a freebie paper duplicated from theirs. I have yet to really look at it) talked about their bishop father and their sister Katharine (who now has a historical mystery series based on her which wasn't half bad)

Turns out Orville was friends with Paul Laurence Dunbar, a poet laureate who is first generation post enslavement (both parents were slaves). He helped Paul set up a paper for the Black community (which failed) and to get his book of poems printed. Paul sold them from the elevator car he was the operator for (which I'm surprised that they allowed him to). He became insanely popular, You might know a few lines of his if you don't think you know him.

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—

There is also a parachute museum in here too. I did not know that people (including some early daring women) parachuted out of hot air balloons.

Froom there I tried to go to lunch. Two roads were closed, my GPS knew one was but not the other and kept circling me back so I gave up and thought 'i'll get something on my way to the air force museum.' Turns out that was closer than I thought with zero fast food (or any food) in between. Guess I'll be over paying for museum food (10$ hot dog/bottle of water)


So it's been forever since I've been to Wright Patterson: the national museum of the air force . I was meant to go two years ago to the steampunk ball...only I ended up in the hospital with cancer. Sigh.

Let me say this up front: if you're in Dayton, see this (unless you hate planes). It's free. It's enormous. And right now the AF is giving Trump the biggest middle finger. They are not following the party line to remove women from military records (ditto people of color). Hell they're doubling down on it. I have never seen this much women's history in a general museum before.

If I lived closer I'd come more often. There is too much to see. WAY too much. I would love to read all the placards etc (Yes I wanted to be Edalyn Clawthorne, I'm Lilith. Sigh) If I was closer I'd come and see just one section until I saw it all and then move on.

You begin in the beginning with Orville and Wilbur again and some of the European balloonists and gliders. What struck me as unmeasurably sad was in less than a decade we went from taking our first flights to dog fighting over Europe (and their big WWI display)

This gives way to WWII which is a huge, incredibly packed area. Again they have not hidden the Tuskeegee airmen (and there was an all Black all female group as well but my brain has lost their names) they did big write ups on flight nurses (who also flew supplies which is also what the all black team was doing) but since they flew supplies they couldn't use the Red Cross symbol meaning anyone could/would shoot at them.

Now my sugar is dropping so I go for that bad food.

From there it's Korea then Viet Nam. I'm now on a mission. I must find the SR-71 Blackbird. I know she's in here. (I found her). I went to their small space collection and stared at rockets. I've been here for hours now. My feet are mad. My knee is suing for divorce.

And then it hits me. I did NOT see a P-51 Mustang in the WWII section. That is my favorite plane (yes I have a favorite). WHERE? WHY? I found docents. They told me the where. The why was it's so big in the WWII area that I just plain missed my baby.

I also love nose art (even if a lot of it is rather sexist) and bomber jacket art. They had plenty. I had fun.

And I was reminded of how Arakawa named most of the main characters after WWII planes

I now have all the books for the holidays for dad, though there is no repeats for the most part (a few exceptions) between all these museums. I should have bought the one about Charlie Taylor, the first airplane mechanic (dad was one in the air force, sort of, doing electronics) There was the books by the former high ranking AF guy who is on all the alien shows (and they were signed!) I got myself fly girls about those early pilots, one on the waves and codebreaking, Katharine Wright's bio and one on all the body snatching that went on in OH in the 1700 and 1800s.

It's now 4 pm and I want to hit the mall. I now remember why I don't go to Ross any more. their plus size collection was like 6 shirts. They did have a Halloween thing I wanted not at a price I wanted to pay. Went to Macy's, took 3 steps in the room spun and I started sweating and shaking. Well fuck. My sugar is cratering. I had to go to the hotel (which luckily is directly across from Macy's)

After I stablized and had some tea I picked dinner. That Blue Juicy Crab place had bad reviews but there is Hook and Reels on the opposite side of the mall doing the exact same thing and now I want seafood. I got and get Joe's Crab Shack vibes. Anyone remember that chain? I think it's gone entirely. I got the crab/shrimp boil which was good but also reminded me why I don't go for this much. It's messy, the shellfish gets cold by the time you crack your way through it and it's overpriced (this was cheaper than Red Lobster's offerings though)

But a half pound of shrimp and half pound of crab really equals about 8 little shrimp and a meatball sized bit of crab. I was hungry when I left so I said let's go get some DQ. There with DQ is Skyline Chili (I don't get them in east OH just near Cinci) I'm like okay lets get another chili dog while I'm here getting my pumpkin pie blizzard. Good call because with my sugar fucking about I'm feeling hungry again as I type this. I'd be looking for late n ight taco bell otherwise.

So sugar aside, another good day

It was an amusing start to the day. Well...didn't start amusing. I was woken up early than I wanted by noise. When I got to the Hamptons' comp breakfast I see that the room is filled. I sit down with my fresh made sweet potato waffle (with hot apple topping) with what has to be a pro/semi pro soccer team from Jamaica (since they all seemed to be later 20s early 30s, definitely NOT college aged) and they're watching soccer as they eat and shouting at the screen and each other like we're in a sports bar. Also I was the only one not on the team sitting there

I could not have asked for a better day. So cool and with a nice light breeze as I headed to Carillon Historical Park It's 65 acres of recreated (for the most part) village where all the buildings are little museums. The big welcome building had a stein collection of over 400 steins, history on several major innovators in Dayton including the Wright Brothers (naturally), Patterson (who did national cash registers) and Deeds (who was the one to donate the 57 bell carillon tower) There was bits about the brother's inventions (also there were animatronic 'innovators' telling their stories (those uncanny valley things freak me out).

There was 90 of those gorgeous antique cash registers, things of beauty as well as function (I rather miss that in the modern age). there were some old cars in there too and the world's most confusion carousel with just bizarre shit (though in a later picture of Wilbur I know understand the St Bernard style dog one), there was a cash register (had I gotten on I would have ridden that, it's the non moving bench one for grandma) cans of pop, chip bags, various animals.

From there I bought the 5 dollar train ride just to a) sit and enjoy the cool weather b) see the park and that was fun. From there I started investigating the offerings including (but not limited to) an antique fire truck car show (including two belgians and their fire carriage), Newcome tavern from 1796, a one room school house from the 1800s, the last surviving remnant of the Watervliet Shaker village, a horse barn (no horses), the hetzel summer kitchen and the really interesting stuff was:

Sugar Camp Waves cabin. I had no idea there were WAVES doing code breaking in Dayton in WWII
Gem City Letter press - which is an operational print shop (you can get a printed souvenier (I didn't))

The great 1913 flood exhibit. I had no idea Dayton was flooded up to 20 feet and horses were on the roofs because they swam there (more than a thousand drowned, poor things)

Dayton Cyclery that had some cool old bikes

The transportation center with some really cool old train cars and trolleys

The Wright Brothers national museum which included their No. 5 flyer which Orville felt was their best one. It was bigger than I imagined. Also I had no idea that Wilbur died so young (45 of typhoid fever)

The history on the hill interpretive center talking about the Hopewell people and the fact that this hill had been a small pox quarantine hospital (and after that for prostitutes with STDS)

I wish I remembered that Carillon Brewing had food and I'd have skipped the overpriced, underwhelming food trucks (I was still a little hungry and got a giant pretzel, nibbling on those leftovers now). They brew historical recipes and the one I got, coriander ale, was one of them, low abv, nice pale ale (not my usual choice) brewed with peppers and you could feel that.

From there I went to America’s Packard Museum I think the 20s-early 40s Packards were sexy cars. They were luxury, easily 3-5 times the price of an average car. The post WWII cars are less great (not a fan of the carribbean) they have one from the Godfather. They have one from a woman who wanted it kept for her when she returned from beyond the grave (the family kept it until 2015 when it came to the museum). The museum itself is from 1917 and was a Packard dealership.

I wanted to go next to Calvary Cemetery which I saw references to at the historical park. (this is not the cemetery I planned to go to) I put it in my new GPS (I can't use my phone. It's decided it doesn't know what the internet is) and it wants me to go to KY (that is not close). What I didn't know was that the Calvary in Moraine OH WAS the right one (that's a neighborhood, or sucked up suburb)

So I came home to the hotel for tea and relaxing and looking up the damn address. Here's the kick in the head. When I came out of the historical park I turned left on Patterson. If I had LOOKED right I would have seen the damn thing. It's right behind the park. Head desk (it's only like 7 miles so it's not a big deal). This is a CATHOLIC in all caps cemetery. Okay yes I've seen ones with more crucifixes but this had some truly interesting stuff.

What sucked it was the cloudless sky. SO many pictures are probably sun glared to death (I don't know. I haven't looked yet, you'll get pics another day). There were a few things I've rarely seen (btw do watch the video at the above link to know why I wanted to see it) lots of Mary statues by herself (one with cherubs at her feet which is unusual and another with her standing on the world crushing the serpent, much more familiar, how many times did I have to kiss that statue?) one family had stylized rosaries on their head stones. Some had historical markers (which was cool),found a whole mess of Nun graves, an entire section of baby graves (will use that picture the next time I bitch about Trump and RFK). There was even a brand new mausoleum. I swear to god I didn't know people were still making them!! (built about 20 years ago. They're still awaiting the fourth member or she choose to go elsewhere. She's my parents age so she could still be out there)

I went to dinner at Jimmie's Ladder 11 a bar/restaurant in an 1800s firehouse. It was good. I had their namesake sandwich (basically a reuben and a rachel in one sandwich) which was good. I wasn't going to drink but I decided I wanted the Grandma's Puddin' cocktail. Probably should have went with no drink. Don't get me wrong. It was tasty but a little small for the price. Putting it here for my own reference Giffard Banane du Brésil Liqueur, Five Farms Irish Cream, Oyo Honey Vanilla Bean Vodka, Cream

Now I'm in for the night (too tired to swim), off to the airforce stuff tomorrow.