Ohio: The Mother Land & A Tornado

My mother was born in Ohio.  Random....I know.  Her birth certificate actually says, "Place of Birth: Ohio" and that is all.  Her father was in the military and they moved around a lot.  My grandparents met while my grandpa was stationed at the air force base Aaron works at now.

They just happened to be in Ohio when my mother was born.  And they just happened to be living outside of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Friday morning, Aaron and I drove over to the base to look at the Aerospace Museum that they have.  That's right, I haven't been to the Museum at Hill Air Force Base 10 minutes from my house but I went to this one hundreds of miles from my house.

We made it in time to catch the tour group that was going through.  I don't know how we always manage to get things like that so often but we do.

The tour started with the early history of aviation.  Orville Wright was born in Ohio and Wilbur was born in Indiana but for some reason, Ohio claims them both.  The fact that the first power controlled flight in North Carolina seems to be a touchy subject.

This is a contemporary of the Wright brothers but I can't remember his name.  He liked his planes with wheels since he liked to drive stunt motorcycles.

This engine was the first to go into planes but....since all of this weight a lot and pumped and spun really quickly in one direction it would cause a lot of torque....which isn't the best.  Apparently it made flying a little harder to manage but they did manage.

We learned about some early engineering in airplanes that got Aaron excited.  Apparently to use these planes to fight, they threw guns on the side of the plane and reasoned that the propeller would be moving to fast to get hit by the bullets.  The hypotheses was tested and.....was found stupid.

Engineers came up with a mechanism to stop the guns from firing when the propeller was in the way.  That way they wouldn't blast their own propeller off.

To be considered a "Flying Ace", you have to get 5 confirmed kills.  That means that people have to watch you do it or it didn't count.  The Red Baron had 80 confirmed kills.  He was kind of the boss.

This isn't his airplane.  His was red.  Hence the name Red Baron.  But he flew this type of aircraft for the German Army Air Service during World War I.

This is an American plane with a decal of a hat going through a ring because this was the first group of the United States Air Force to join World War I which was the US "throwing the hat in the ring".

Aaron checking out the latest 1910's technology.

And of course....some random Buddhist monk at the museum.

This guy is getting chewed out because he crashed his plane at flying school...how embarrassing.

Aaron explained to me that planes are extremely front heavy and so if you don't land butt first, you tip forward...like this guy.  Poor mannequin dude.

These jackets made me think of how grateful I am that the way we treat women has come as far as it has.

No wonder men didn't want women in military service....they would have to stop this nonsense behavior.

There was a theory that they painted the shark faces on these planes as a tactic to fight the Japanese....to scare them.  The truth?  Some guys thought that it looked really cool.  And it does.

We ditched the tour group about half way through. It had been an hour and a half of just standing and after the crazy day yesterday, Aaron and I tired out easily.  We moved to the kid interactive stuff.

I'm very worried about space.

And Aaron is very bored by space.

We got the chance to land an airplane of an aircraft carrier.  You had to drop the plane by the bands at the beginning of the ship or risk not stopping in time.  This person didn't live.

Getting ready for my turn....

You can't tell but I totally aced it.  I'm so ready to be a fighter pilot now.

Aaron's turn.

Japanese attack!!!!!  Not really....but kind of.  It is a good representation of the dangers of World War II.

The last room was modern planes in war.  This is a drone.

This is another drone.  It is exciting to think that airmen won't have to be put in harms way in a war.  It would be great if we could eliminate all killing but their will always be evil people who start wars.

"Sawadee" is the Thai word for "Hello/Goodbye" and so it surprised me to see it on an American flag.  The plaque with it didn't have a lot of explanation as to what this flag was....and why.

B-2 Bomber.  Aaron did this section of the museum by himself.  My feet were still tired from yesterday and this was like when I take Aaron to an art museum.  It is interesting for him to a point but after awhile...and that's how I felt.  This stuff was really fascinating to him but he works on a plane now so....he REALLY likes this stuff now.

More fighter planes.

It started to get stormy out and so we decided to look at the Memorial Park really quickly.

Then....the weather really turned.  Fast.  Clouds started to gather.  The wind started to blow.

I wanted to get a picture to show how strong the wind was getting. In the field in front of the museum, dust started to whirl up toward the sky and Aaron booked it to the car.

But I wanted to record and document this intense wind.  I wanted to show all the stuff zooming across the parking lot....like the tops of trash cans.  But this video was blurry...I wanted to get a better one.

In my defense, I've never seen a tornado....or the beginning of a tornado.  I come from a place with monsoons.  Storms that bring intense wind before a glorious warm down pouring.  I didn't realize what was happening...till I was stuck in the parking lot struggling to get to the car.

I remembered the wind storm in December up in Ogden...this was a little scary.

You don't have to watch the whole video.  Once I start running for the car, I forget that I'm holding the camera and that it is still on.  Oh and when the camera turns to me and I'm holding my mouth, it is because dirt and other things in the air were being forced into my mouth by the wind.

Aaron got cut from the car door when he opened it because the window forced it open harder than he expected.  He was worried that I would make the same mistake...I did not.

He wanted to get out of there ASAP.  I wanted to pull out my DSLR and take pictures....I might have a problem.

All of the power was out pretty much all the way back to the hotel about 15 minutes away.  No street lights and no traffic lights.  Apparently people don't know that when the light is out at an intersection it becomes a 4-way stop.  I don't have a drivers license but I know the law....come one people.

When we got to the hotel, we went to the bar for a Shirley Temple to calm our nerves.  The bar tender wasn't there.  Apparently he was riding his bike to work that day....bad move.  Raj came and got us drinks.  He was really curious as to why we didn't drink alcohol.  We talked about it for a little while and watched the news over the counter.

The report told us that a tornado was sighted at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.  The concert that was going to be held that night was canceled because the wind ripped down lighting all over the stage.  A whole row of port-a-potties were knocked over.  Yeah....Aaron's sunglasses were LONG GONE.

In hindsight, a smarter plan might have been hiding in the museum.

Happy Birthday Mom!!!  Visiting your birth place was as exciting as you are!