Cleveland to the Father of Flight's Flat

The bittersweet end of our time in Cleveland had come. I had hoped to visit Ark Encounter, the life sized Noah's Ark in northern Kentucky on the way home. Brandon got scared and said he didn't want to go. Rather than make him wait in the car while I laughed at animatronic Jesus riding a pterodactyl for hours on hours we just headed home. Luckily Zeus provided us with another, much cheaper, roadside attraction in rural Hagerstown, Indiana: the birthplace of Wilbur Wright co-father of the airplane!!!! You should have seen my passengers' faces light up when I informed them that they'd essentially won the chance to learn about early airplane technology for an hour or more. Hagerstown is not to be confused with Hangrytown, which is where Lydia lives.

Mmmm rural

These are the kind of businesses that I genuinely feel good supporting. The guy in the visitor center said that they were closed, that he was just cleaning or something, but that we could go in anyway. I think living in a city makes these folksy encounters give me even more of the warm fuzzies.

There was a fun sign that compared the 1903 Wright Flyer to a 1955 F-84-F. The Flyer's top speed was 35 mph while the jet's was 600.

The history of the birth home was kind of sad. The state bought it in 1929, didn't take care of it, then razed it in 1955. In 1973 the state built a replica house trying to look as much like the original Wright Home as possible. In 1988 the state wanted to move the home due to low attendance. In 1995 the state deeded the property to the Wilbur Wright Birthplace Preservation Society. The state is kind of a jerk. Indiana has long been my least favorite state in the union so this did not come as a huge surprise.

This thing was frigging awesome. It was like a like a carpenter built a video game from scratch. It was a Wright Flyer simulator and you had to pull all the levers and pedals just like you were flying the real thing. It was also very hard like flying the real thing, with lots of crashes.

Of course I overcame adversity and then sent a telegram to all the haters announcing that I had conquered gravity. I rule STOP You drool STOP

The museum was also doing its best to keep Christ in Christmas.

I can't relate to you here the unspeakably horrible things that Brandon reached in and guessed what.

It was a nice end to a nice trip.