National Museum of the USAF - Or, F'N ASUM!

It was a magical time of year. The Big Game. OSU v. Michigan. The whole city of Columbus, Ohio turns into a scarlet-and-gray-clad mob of ravenous football fans. Beer is poured, nachos are cheesed, and Lynn and Timmy head out of town!

Our destination: The National Museum of the United States Air Force. It was to be our most ambitious staycation of the season, nearly 70 miles from home. The mini-backpack was prepped, the car gassed up, coffee purchased, and we were on our way!

The first gallery in the museum contains aircraft and artifacts from the earliest days of manned (and unmanned) flight. Every step of man's journey into the sky is laid out, from Orville and Wilbur Wright up to the beginnings of military flight. Some of the more interesting items were wooden wind-tunnels used to test new designs for aircraft, early bi-planes (Sopwith Camel!) and early military "aerial torpedoes."

Moving on, we saw planes and artifacts of the second world war. The classics of the Army Air Corps were all there... P51 Mustang, Supermarine Spitfire, Lockheed P38 Lightning... the list goes on. It was absolutely astounding to see first-hand the war machines that dominated the skies of Europe and the Pacific theater. On the other side of the trenches, there were many Axis planes present as well, like the Mitsubishi Zero, Messerschmidt ME-262 and even V-2 "Buzz Bombs" and V1 rockets used in the firebombing of London.

Far and away, though, the most impressive aircraft in the gallery was Bockscar, a Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber. Without knowing its place in history, many would assume it to be another aluminum behemoth in a crowded hangar. But that simple view belies the awesome effect that this single aircraft had on the course of World War II. This beautiful machine, Bockscar, dropped the "Fat Man" atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

Exiting the Air Power gallery... it was time for a break. We took a brief detour back to the entrance, and spent some time in the strangely antique cafeteria. Beware! They do not take credit cards. Bring cash! Also, get the cole slaw and tater tots... they're delicious.

After recharging our bellies and resting our tired tootsies, we went back out for round two. Next on the list of exhibits was the Modern Flight gallery, with the jet fighters and bombers of the Korean and Vietnam war eras. MiG fighters, huge bombers (B-52!), cargo planes and all kinds of awesome snazzy stuff.

All in all, the USAF museum is awesome fun. There is tons to see, from wood-and-canvas planes from the first days of powered flight all the way to the latest stealth fighters. Every kid or kid at heart will find something to marvel at.

Lynn - The United States Air Force Museum

Apologies for the delay, the staycationers have been a bit busy lately. We did have one week that had to be skipped, there was just too much stuff going on. Last week, we did make a journey, but it has taken me until now to get anything blogified.

Blogification it is! Last weekend, the destination was the United States Air Force Museum. He denies it, but I think Tim mislead me ever so slightly in order to get me to agree to come. I was anticipating mostly spacey type exploration, NASA and the like. Tim told me this was the "OTHER BIGGER BETTER space museum," the "space" part is the less than accurate part. I wasn't too upset, but honestly... isn't tim ever so clever.

The museum was set up as a tour from the beginning of aviation history to recent aircraft. The place is mega enormous, consisting of three hangars with various other attached buildings. There is even an IMAX theater (the one part of the museum we didn't experience).

Because the museum is a national museum, it has a lot of stuff that is quite intense to look at. We saw the plane that acutally dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, which was crazy to see. But with all the planes, at first you are like oh whatevs, this is a plane, but thinking about where they have been and situations they were involved in, the people who flew them, the people they aided in killing... Its pretty intense.

I was also quite intrigued by all of the actual pieces of clothing/personal equiptment that we saw. In the WWII area, they had uniforms from most of the countries involved in the war, and it was interesting to see the elements of differing cultures put into uniform (Tim was rather excited about the Japanese display which included a sword.

Besides the hangars, there were a few more exhibits in between. There was a hall devoted to the people of the holocaust, a section about Bob Hope and his lifetime of bringing comedy to the soldiers over decades, and a section about the science of flight. Not as wide, but definitely TALL was the final room, the space exploration room. It housed several ridiculously huge rockets, and several small displays relating to the air force's involvement with space. By the time we got to the end of the museum, my dogs were barkin. Its hard to describe just how huge the place is, but look at it this way, a blimp only took up a corner of one of the hangars, and it was atleast 20 feet overhead. Or, going up an entire floor to look at the rockets only took you to about 1/4 the height of them.

Tim has assured me that we will go to the other Ohio space museum soon to check it out. I do look forward to that, and now that we are members of the Ohio Historical Society, we can get in for free, an automatic boost is those tricky staycation ratings. Speaking of which:

STAYCATION RATING:
Funness: **** - Pretty fun, but quite a hike. Bring a power bar, or a wheelchair.
Educationalness: ***** - Basically, you've got the history of the United States through planes.
Cheapness: **** - Free admission, but the giftshop was pricey.
Journeyness: **** - A bit of a journey, but not so long that it became painful
Busyness *** - It was pretty damn busy, and there were a million lil boyscouts everywhere.

Overall **** - Make sure you see this place someday!

Lynn - Alpacafest!

What could I do when Timmy sent me a link to the upcoming Alpacafest event? What could I do but squeal and frantically agree to go asap. It was only a few blocks away, and it was free, and it was ALPACA BASED! I mean, cmon!

And many-an-alpaca there were. The first building we went in to was almost entirely made up of gated in grass plots for the fuzzy ones. I was very excited to see them so close up, but I was also a little disappointed that there weren't any alpaca themed festiveness like shops or booths. It was all "Alpaca" and no "fest." This first tent was devoted mostly to the alpaca beauty pageant. Several stood in the central ring with their owners and were donned with shiny ribbons. They all looked equally cute to me. I never realized just how calm and pet-like they were. None of them seemed frightened of flashing lights or strange people walking by, most of them just sat in alpacaloaves and chewed their grass, lettin' their fluff blow in the breeze. One in particular let pretty much whatever blow in the breeze:



Timmy informed me that there was a second building of Alpacafest, which we arrived at through a circusy looking tent which connected the two buildings. Behold! the fest! This building was MUCH bigger and had plenty of booths for the sale of alpacaness. I wanted to buy pretty much everything. I let myself get a few things, because admission was free, and I figured I had some leeway. Timmy and I both got some mloves.. or glittens... whatever you wanna call them. I really wanted one of these lil mini alpacas -made of alpaca fur and wearing alpaca knitted hats.

Despite feeling a bit like we should have been alpaca breeders to attend, the whole thing was pleasant and fun. Once woman at her shop asked if we were alpaca owners and I told her, "Nope, we just think they are cute," and she seemed annoyed. Oh well, perhaps someday we will be in the elite world of owning a furry alpaca. Until then, I'm just gonna shave the cats and knit some sweaters for everyone.

STAYCATION RATING:
Funness: **** - how could you not have fun surrounded by giant loaves?!
Educationalness: **** - I feel like I actually learned a lot about what owning an alpaca would entail, and a lot about their temperament.
Cheapness: ***** - I suppose this is two-fold, though. The event was free, but alpaca fur is NOT.
Journeyness: **** - See below, considering it was right across the street from the Historical Center
Busyness **** - There were a lot of people there, but they were tending to their own alpacas most of the time.

Overall **** - It was pleasant and enjoyable. If you like alpacas, you're good!