Three More Sites To Go Until I Earn Wilbear Wright

 I will never get over how weird it is to say that the National Museum of the United States Air Force is the most underrated museum I've ever visited.

I've been there twice now, and I still haven't seen half the museum.

I was told before I visited the first time that it's better than the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and it IS.

I guess if you're the US Air Force, you've had a good, long while to collect some cool stuff!

What's even better is that the museum actually hosts TWO Dayton Aviation Trail stamps, as they treat the Aviation Hall of Fame inside the museum as a separate site. So my partner and I dutifully saw more early flight exhibitions and Wright flyer reproductions (I think we're up to about 20 at this point, and we'll have hit at least 40 before we're through)--

--and then before you know it, the Wright brothers have their plane business up and running and it's time for World War 1!

Check out Snoopy's plane:

I really like how colorful planes got to be before they were standardized:

I had to text my kids when I came across this poem on display:

I knew I'd required one kid to memorize that poem while the other kid had to memorize Dulce et Decorum Est, but which was which?

It was this one, and she still remembers it!

Fun fact: the big kid had actually had a choice between memorizing "Dulce et Decorum Est" and "Boots," but she thought "Boots" was too scary and she liked shouting "GAS! GAS!" in "Dulce et Decorum Est." 

The museum moves chronologically into World War 2--

logbook from the only American pilot killed in action during the Battle of Britain

--and then the Cold War:

the Mark 6 was the first mass-produced nuclear weapon

I'm so interested in all the Cold War spy stuff, all the normal bits and bobs of luggage with their secret compartments full of mysteries.

Yet another nuclear bomb, because I guess why not keep upgrading them until you're quite sure you can blow the entire planet to smithereens?

Mark 7 nuclear bomb, first produced in 1952

The last years of the Cold War are when my partner and I were impressionable kids, and so, of course, we both have our favorite planes from that time. Mine is the SR-71 Blackbird:

--but because he's a bad boy, I guess, his is the MiG:

But we both have the same favorite Desert Storm plane, the F-117 Nighthawk!

We only had time for a couple of exhibit galleries before we really needed to get back on the road (college move-out appointments do not wait for parents who are distracted by sightseeing!), but on the way out I did spy this cool exhibit of women's flight suits. Yay for strong female role models!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!