Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Day 70, September 19...Cloverdale, IN to Mansfield, OH

Well, I do remember complaining a little about the 110 degree heat in Phoenix...now I can complain about the rain.  Rained continuously from Cloverdale to Dayton, Ohio, about 160 miles.  I hit Panera Bread for lunch, hoping the rain would out-run me...no dice.  Then, I decided to duck inside the Air Force Museum, which I was debating whether to visit or not...that worked.  Weather cleared out for the remainder of the trip to Mansfield.

The Air Force Museum is really something special, with a lot of displays from the very early days of flight to the present day.  


The museum is housed in four inter-connected hangers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, just east of Dayton.  You're probably tired of seeing pictures of airplanes, so I'll just show two.

This is the "Hanoi Taxi", an Air Force C-141 that flew the Vietnam Prisoners of War out of Hanoi and to freedom:


And this is the first jet-powered Air Force One, a converted Boeing 707 Airliner.  It is also the airplane that carried President Kennedy from Dallas back to Washington after his assassination:



Like I said, some very significant displays and well worth the visit.

I'm in Mansfield, Ohio tonight and headed home tomorrow morning.  Been a great trip, but it's time to go home!

Miles today:  293
Total to date:  15,294