Ohio

Nathan and I headed to Akron-Canton, Ohio this morning at 7 a.m. in the Cheyenne, to get some work done on the plane. It was only about 45 minutes over there, and we went over at FL250 (25,000'). He let me left seat the trip both ways, and it ended up about an hour and 45 minutes total, so of course I enjoyed that. Three hundred eighty-seven knots ground speed and 25,000' is something I could easily get used to. ;)

While we were waiting for the work to be completed, we ended up going to a couple of attractions there on the field. First we at lunch at the "356th Fighter Group" Restaurant on field, also known as "Bombers". That was some pretty doggone good food, and it had great atmosphere. We had crab-stuffed shrimp for an appetizer, and had to send the waitress away twice while we tried to figure out what, out of all the good stuff, to eat. This picture is the outside of the restaurant, and it was right there in the middle of the airport field, so you could watch the planes taking off and landing from your table. We enjoyed that one.

Next we went to a museum that's on field, called the "Military Aircraft Preservation Society" or MAPS Museum. An older gentleman gave us a tour of the regular museum, where I sat in a Mig-17 and we looked around at several rooms of artifacts in the hangar. They had displays for Vietnam, WWII, Korea, the Tuskegee Airmen, WASPS, quite a few airplanes, a blimp, etc. It is actually a pretty nice little museum and you can tell they've put a lot of time and heart into it. After we hit the main area, our guide said he could tell we knew what we (mostly Nathan) were talking about, so he let us go over into the smaller building next door where they were doing all their restoration work on various airplanes and future exhibits. THAT was the more interesting part, really. We ran into a guy who used to fly an F-100, and he was working on some projects over there as a volunteer...they all were. The history of the artifacts is interesting, but I'll bet the history of the men volunteering their time to restore them is even more so. We spent a good amount of time looking around and checking things out, and by the time we were done at the museum, the Cheyenne was done and it was time to head home. We had weather to the north of us when we left Kokomo, and weather to the south of us when we left Ohio, but it ended up working out just fine.

Steve had a busy day, including a flight until about 8 p.m., and Kaylee had school and Awanas. I got home around 7:30, then turned around and picked up Kaylee at church, and tomorrow is a very full day!