The Promised Land

Seems that I keep meeting people from Ohio. That's right. Keep meeting them everywhere but Ohio. Most of them love it which begs the question, "why did they ever leave?"

So I took the opportunity of Paula's cousin's wedding to visit the great state this last weekend. We borrowed my father-in-law's Land Cruiser (I owe him big time for that one because it made the nine hour drive bearable) and we set off last thursday. The trip up was okay and the boys behaved for the most part. The GPS navigational system in the Land Cruiser rules. Might have to get one of those.

We went to Tipp City, Ohio and stayed in a Holiday Inn Express. First thing you notice in the hotel is how many smoking rooms there are and how much they smell up the rest of the floor. The next thing you notice is the unbearable heat. Turns out the people in Ohio hate the cold more than southern folks do.

Friday, I and the boys, with Judy's Walt and Paula's uncle John went to the Air Force Museum in Dayton. It's really three huge airplane hangers loaded with just about every kind of plane the Air Force has ever flown with some rockets thrown in for good measure.
This picture is just to give you perspective on the size of these hangars. We are standing in the middle looking left. There is a whole other half to this hangar and two more this size.

That's right. An old plane circa WWI and Luke with his hands down his pants.

Luke strikes a pose in front of the models, which the boys seemed to like more than the real thing. Go figure.

This was taken inside one of the bombers. The boys are standing in the bomb compartment. I told them to look scared of all of the bombs. The tube at the top of the photo was for crewmen to slither through if they needed to get to the back of the plane. That way they didn't have to go near the bombs. Pretty smart.

Just a cool photo of a fighter.

We learned that day that Paula's Uncle Michael, who had also come up for the wedding, was a tailgunner in a B-24 over Europe during World War II. He didn't really talk about it much and that was okay by me since he seemed haunted by the experience. Here are some pictures of the B-24 that is in the museum.

This is a B-24 Bomber.

That's the tailgunner's position where Paula's uncle flew over Europe. He said he flew six missions which, "was six too damn many."

This is Uncle Michael, with his wife Helen, who is Paula's aunt/Judy's sister.

Saturday was the wedding. After the wedding party had all entered, just before the bride was to walk down the aisle, one of the wedding party picked up a large roll of rice paper and began walking it down the aisle toward the back of the church as it payed out. The only problem was that apparently they hadn't tried it before the actual ceremony and the paper ran out not even halfway down the aisle much to the surprise of the guy assigned the duty who just keeps going with the empty spool. Meanwhile the jagged end of the paper starts to turn up and then roll itself up in slow motion. Everyone on the aisle, including myself was transfixed on the image as it steadily marched back up toward the altar. A man jumped out from a pew (I was in the back of the church too far away to be a wedding hero, of course) stopped its progression and folded it under. I believe that I will start crashing weddings for the comedy.

Here are some pictures from the reception.

Judy and the boys. Don't they all look sooo-a-nice.

That's Paula's Grandmother Lois, her Aunt Carolyn, and Paula. Aunt Carolyn's daughter was the one that got married. Ben took this picture.

Luke cuts a mean rug with his Nana. He was a machine and had to be dragged off of the dancefloor.

Ben dances with Mommy. Check out Paula's expression. That's right, she's all mine.

At some point in every party the table decorations end up as hats. This was that point.

Overall, not a bad trip. We had a lot of fun.