Ohhhhhio

Planned Trip #2 of 3 for this year. Every year, hubby's grandfather attends a WWII battalion reunion. Grandpa's the general and has been the main speech pretty much every year. We all love seeing him and the other veterans we've grown to know and love each year. I've travelled to more places in the USA for this reunion than I've ever travelled. We've been to DC, Boston, Pittsburg, Orlando, Baltimore, and this year, Dayton, OH. Sadly, only 6 veterans were able to attend this year. Many have passed on, but those still going strong are an inspiration. I can only hope that when Hubby and I are their age, if we're blessed to reach that age, that we'll be as cheerful, friendly, and in love as the veterans and their wives.

It was a pretty eventful weekend. We drove up to Dayton on Friday and got there in time to have dinner with the family. Saturday, we got up in the morning to go to a place called Carillon Park, which is basically an outdoor museum. A bunch of old houses and antiques related to the area were brought in and decorated. Dayton was the home of the Wright Brothers of flying fame, so one large house was dedicated to the brothers, including replicas of their bike shop, workshop where they designed the gliders and planes, and the original motor-controlled plane that they flew just outside of Dayton. Normally it probably wouldn't have been anything more than a passing interest, but there was an old gentleman working there giving a tour and explaining everything in great detail. It was obvious that he absolutely loved what he was doing. Listening to him talk and show everything off made the whole trip for us.

Following the park trip, we had some time to get lunch and do as we liked before we got carted off to the Air Force Base for dinner and Grandpa's speech. We got stuck at the entrance to the base for some reason and held for a considerable amount of time. While we were there, we got a laugh out of an MP showing up for one reason: To pick up a pizza delivery. I tried to get a picture, and right then, my camera died! Ugh...

We finally got dinner, and Grandpa's speech was wonderful, as usual. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law volunteered to host next year's reunion in their hometown despite having a baby on the way. Hubby and I will do whatever we can to help them with their planning. Once dinner was done, we got shooed off to a concert at the Air Force Museum performed by the Air Force's Band of Flight and the Dayton Philharmonic. I can't say how excited I was - I love orchestra music and have never seen one live. Imagine my disappointment, then, we got herded into an auditorium in the museum where the music was piped in through a relatively poor sound system that kept breaking up, and the video was showed on a small screen. It wasn't very enjoyable for us, and I felt incredibly heartbroken. After a few songs, there was an intermission, and we realized that the members of our group who had come in ahead of the veterans weren't there, including my mother-in-law. So we decided to find them. We left through an open door to the side, followed the halls, and came upon a large crowd of people coming out of a hallway, including some from our group. We followed the way they came from, and there it was - in a hanger with old planes and helicopters hanging from the ceiling and all around the floor, the ACTUAL concert. We walked around and looked at the planes until the concert started again and found some empty seats in the back. SOO much better! The rest of the performance was wonderful. There's no comparing a sound system piping music from one speaker and a video feed to being surrounded by the music and seeing the orchestra's movements in time with the music.

We headed out the next morning and drove home. Virginia and West Virginia are beautiful to drive through. Beautiful farmlands and mountains. I would have taken a few pictures if I hadn't let my camera die. The worst part? We got home, and I found my charger...in the backpack I had brought. Whoops.

As for my Day Zero list, I dug into Christopher Moore's Fool over the weekend, adding another to #32 and #33. It's a comedic twist on Shakespeare's King Lear, and for the most part, I enjoyed it. There was a lot of gratuitous boinking, and it was a bit hard to figure out WHEN it was supposed to be taking place. It felt like the Old Britian 95% of the book, but then there'd be a random mention of the ancient civilization of the Mericans and various other small details which made me wonder what the heck was actually going on. Moore kindly explained after the book that he pretty much said "Screw it" and put that stuff in as he felt like it. Other than that, it's a very good read. I don't know a damn thing about the classic King Lear play, so I don't know if knowing the classic would have made reading it easier or harder. In any case, it was a very simple read, and I'd like to try a few other books of his. I also took several pictures to add to my A-Z photography list. I think I'm going to make a page just for my lists of completed things.