Day 1 & 2 - Dayton, Ohio

Day 1 - We weaved our way through Virginia and Maryland before the heavily laden Dodge Grand Caravan was slowly chugging up the mountains of West Virginia and flying down the other side. The hazy day took away from some of the commanding views, but the very comfortable 80°F weather was welcome. Three hours into the trip we were heading west and suddenly trapped on the highway in standstill traffic due to a car accident. The impromptu one hour break was earlier than we planned and the very long line of cars and trucks quickly cleared when released. We were stopped so long that a number of folk just went for a long walk to stretch their legs - it was funny driving around seemingly abandoned cars when we did move. Roadworks and detours through Pennsylvania and Ohio added more time to the trip and ten hours after we started we arrived at the home of some other Australians in Xenia (just outside Dayton) - whose water tower proclaims it as the 'Bicycle Capital of the Mid-West.'

Day 2 - Dayton Ohio is the home of aviation and where Orville and Wilbur Wright lived and operated a number of bicycle stores before their first flight at Kittyhawk in North Carolina. Dayton is where they trialled, perfected and later taught flying. Having just driven a day to get here, I'm pretty impressed that in the first few years of the 1900's they moved themselves and their aircraft to North Carolina - another five hours drive south of DC - for that first successful flight! That's would have been an effort.

The National Museum of the United States Air Force which is located within the rather large Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton is a great place to visit - certainly mid-Sunday morning when the locals are at Church - so visitors like us have the Museum to ourselves. It is an impressive facility with a great range of early aircraft through to space craft and a missile silo.

The Wright Bros had a series of bicycle stores in Dayton. The fourth of their five stores was open from 1895-1897 is a delightful visit and shows the different bicycle parts that they used on the Wright Flyer.

A lovely dinner in a Turkish Restaurant was followed by a brilliant lightening show as a huge thunder-storm passed overhead. The rolling clouds were enormous and reminded me of those sci-fi movies just before an alien spacecraft hovered over a city.

Next stop is Springfield Illinois - Home of Abraham Lincoln.