Airstream, Armstrong, Ancestors, Anniversary (AAAA)

Airstreams, Airstreams --- All in a Row

Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum

Roger here...  After three days of driving we eventually arrived in the midwest.  East central Ohio was good to us.

Airstream...

Our site at the Airstream "Terra Port"

We intended to arrive in Jackson Center, Ohio before 2:00 p.m. on a Friday so that we could take the factory tour before the weekend.  Due to some "issues" (no hot water, no working bathroom fan), we called to make a service appointment.  They could take us Friday morning, so we changed our schedule and arrived late Thursday afternoon. 

Our free (due to service) full hookup site at the Airstream factory was surrounded by silver.  Airstream trailers and Airstream owners were everywhere!

Dianne and I gathered by a large tree in the Terra Port and made new friends who were also having their trailers serviced --- friends we will probably see again.

We decided that buying an Airstream is much like joining a cult.  Airstream owners seem to be avid enthusiasts of their RVs.  We may need to join the owners' club :-).

The great news is that all of our problems were corrected on Friday morning.  We now have a new circuit board for the hot water heater and our bathroom ceiling fan has been repaired.  We also now know how to operate our awning.  We know that our entertainment system does not operate blue ray discs (no big deal).  We think that a problem with our trailer brake has been solved by sealing the lines to prevent invasive moisture.  At the moment we are fully operational and feel that our early glitches have been solved --- all under warranty.  

Since the service work was done expediently, I was able to go on the 1 1/2 hour factory tour.  I learned quite a bit of new information.  The company founder, Wally Byrum, was in the aviation industry (thus the aerodynamic trailer designs).  He started in the RV industry by selling plans for building your own RV..The gold trailer in the photo above was Wally's.  He led caravans all over the world from this trailer, including one from Cape Town, South Africa, to Egypt.  

Every Airstream product is sold before it is built.  All the trailers are built by human hands.  There are no standardized assembly lines.   There is a backlog of 2500 orders.  Delivery on new orders takes about five months.  A new assembly plant (double the current size) will be completed in a few months.  Business is healthy.

Armstrong...

Since the weekend arrived and the service bays were idle, we decided to stay in the Terra Port for a couple of extra nights.  It was during that time that I discovered that we were only 17 miles from Wapakoneta, Ohio --- Neil Armstrong's hometown.  I also discovered that there was a very cool Neil Armstrong museum in the town.  What!!!?  Purdue graduate, Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, was a hero of mine.  I had to go see it.

The museum exceeded my expectations.  It was a chronicle of Neil's life and of NASA's space program up to and including all of the Apollo flights.  A bronze statue of Neil as a boy holding a model airplane greets all the guests outside the museum.

Another bronze statue depicts Neil as a test pilot aviator.  After graduating from Purdue, he attended UCLA where he majored in astrophysics.  He flew jets for the Navy during the Korean War before becoming a test pilot (a very dangerous undertaking).  He became the first non-military man selected to be an astronaut.  He was the first astronaut to complete a space docking.  And, of course, he was the first person to walk on the moon.  He also played in the Purdue All-American Marching Band.

The modern museum had a variety of hands-on activities and visually intriguing displays.  

It also showcased actual artifacts.  The picture to the left shows the space suit that Neil wore when he walked on the moon.

This is one of the moon rocks that Neil collected during his historic voyage.

This was the garb that Neil wore as a fighter pilot in the Korean War, and....

... this is one of the Navy jets from that conflict.









As my exploration of the museum ended, I entered a theatre to see fascinating footage from the Apollo 11 launch.  It was so inspiring to hear and see Neil speak.  It gave me chills. I also learned that the isolation chamber upon the return of the astronauts was actually a modified Airstream.

Before the film, I walked across a darkened catwalk to the theatre labeled the infinity room.  It truly was fascinating, and difficult to photograph.  Using points of light and strategically placed mirrors, the starlike room seemed to never end.

Looking Up

Looking Down

Ancestors....

It was a two hour drive to our next RV spot just south of Dayton, Ohio (an important stop for Dianne).  Our campsite at the Lebanon KOA was spacious, quiet, and somewhat isolated.  Perfect.

The purpose of this stop was to allow Dianne, genealogist extraordinare, a couple of days in Dayton to find my long lost 4th great grandfather.  This was Dianne's second on-site visit to Dayton.  Armed with new clues --- off she went to the Dayton Court House, the Dayton Library, and a cemetery.  Did I really have a fourth great grandfather, or was my family dropped at Wright Patterson Air Force base by aliens (my theory)?

Off to the Records Archive and the Library!

I was the designated dog sitter during this time.  I did not have a car.  The weather was that midwestern hot and humid that I know so well.  What to do?  The Airstream does have air conditioning.

The three of us discovered that old reruns of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air were actually kind of funny :-).

Anniversary...

Our last day near Dayton fell on our 47th wedding anniversary.  I am planning to fix dinner tonight as part of the quiet celebration.  In honor of our years together I am posting some of our favorite photos, thus far, of this year's four-month trip.

Dianne's Teensy Weensy Trailer Tip

What to do when you only occasionally need a larger container but have no space to store one?
I made two of mine do double duty.   When I don't need them for cooking, they live in the bathroom and serve as a caddy for an extra roll of toilet paper.  (It's amazing how fast those RV rolls go empty).   

The toilet paper fits into the smaller container, which nests inside the slightly larger one.  

I have used these containers for making cole slaw and other salad type side dishes.  Here is a photo of another tip, using these same containers: 

The refrigerator is so small that I usually put leftovers into zip-lock bags to save space in the fridge.   However, I don't like trying to serve slaw or similar items from a bag.   The container comes to the rescue by acting as a holder for the refrigerator bag to make it easy to serve from it.   Our storage tanks are so small that I do all I can not to have many dishes to wash!
Our next few posts will be from "Back Home in Indiana." 

Pet Picture of the Day....

Poquita was so happy to see me when I finally returned home after all day at the library that she melted into my lap and wouldn't leave.

Adventures in Genealogy (Subtitle: Roger is such a good sport!)

Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio

Hi all, Dianne here.  Roger told me I have to write this blog entry, about our short stay in Dayton, Ohio.  Roger humors my genealogy hobby, but he has absolutely no interest in it.   Therefore, our side trip to Dayton, Ohio was all about me.  He's such a good sport!   

How I spent my summer....

I'll try to keep this short and leave out much that would be boring to anyone but me.  Therefore, there are no photos of me surrounded by local history books and scribbling notes at the library.  I did spend a lot of time using the microfilm machine to view old Dayton newspapers, and found the 1893 death and funeral notice for Roger's 3rd-great-aunt Harriet Norris Snyder.   That gave me her address, which I also found in several years' worth of old city directories.  By comparing the city directories over the years, I found three addresses where Harriet and her family lived in Dayton.

Harriet Norris Snyder's former Home

I'm glad I tried to find her houses on my way home from the library.  The first two addresses I found are no longer single-family homes.  But, during the last ten years of her life, Harriet lived in the historic Oregon District of Dayton in a lovely 1850 home that still stands and is now on the historic register.  

Gazebo in Park near Harriet's Home

 The next day, while searching for Harriet's  tombstone in Woodland Cemetery in Dayton, I came across some interesting graves:

Erma Bombeck's grave...

I have always been a big fan of Dayton native Erma Bombeck.  I knew that she had an unusual gravestone.   This 29,000-pound rock was brought from near her home in Arizona, where she spent the last 25 years of her life.

There are more than 100,000 Dayton citizens buried in Woodland Cemetery.   Here is just one of the large, grand monuments I saw while there:

Must have been a very important man....

I also found Orville and Wilbur Wright's family plot:

Orville, Wilbur, their parents and little brother (who died young) are buried together here.

The most poignant stone is shown in my opening photo of the boy and his dog.  Little Johnny Morehouse was the youngest son of a local cobbler whose shop was located along the Dayton canal.  While playing near the canal with his constant companion, his dog, Johnny fell into the canal.  His dog pulled him from the water, but he had already drowned.   Local legend says that several days after the burial, the dog appeared next to Johnny's grave, staying by it morning, noon, and night.

The 5-foot-tall marble monument shows details like Johnny's top, his ball, his mouth harp and his little cap, all items which were found in his pocket when he drowned.

(Above info from cemetery literature)

While Woodland Cemetery is a local tourist attraction complete with tours...

 ...my purpose there was to hunt down Harriet Norris Snyder's grave, which I finally found (with a little help from the cemetery office):

Harriet and her husband John Snyder's stones have toppled over and are lying on the ground next to a large tree.  

While it was exciting for me to find Harriet's home and grave, the highlight of my trip to Dayton was finding Roger's 3rd-great-grandfather's grave.   George Norris (Harriet's brother) was born in 1805 and died young, around 1834.  There are no existing Dayton newspapers for 1834 to tell me how he died, and no remaining log cabin or homestead to try to find with my GPS.  I spent a whole year just figuring out who Roger's 2nd- and 3rd-great-grandfathers were.  I have spent so much time researching George and his family that I was determined to find his grave.  

 As opposed to the manicured Woodland Cemetery with its castle-like entrance, the Old Greencastle Cemetery where George lies is neglected, overgrown, and now in a bad section of town.   Roger didn't want me to go there on my own.  I knew he certainly wasn't looking forward to taking me there, so I stopped by the cemetery on my first morning in Dayton, on my way to the library, just to scope it out.

   The cemetery was kind of scary-looking, surrounded by tall fencing with a barbed-wire barrier on top and in a sketchy part of town.  Some of the grass and weeds were taller than my knees.   "Just in case" though, I had brought my hiking boots, shaving cream, mosquito repellant, a plastic scraper and towel (to wipe off shaving cream).  

My cemetery "kit"

When I saw utility workers in the cemetery I decided to "go for it" and look for George.   My library research in Salt Lake City had told me that he was buried in row 11, and that his daughter Catharine was buried next to him, and that her stone was right next to the fence. That narrowed my search.  I had no idea where to start counting the row numbers, or which side they were on, so I started walking the perimeter of the fence.

Catharine's broken, neglected marker face-down in the weeds

 I found Catharine's stone first, now broken and lying face down in the dirt.  I brushed off the debris and smeared it with shaving cream so that I could read what was left of the engraving.

The dates are broken off now, and submerged in the ground, but I already knew from cemetery records that she died at age 19 in 1847.  

George's stone was still standing, and I again used shaving cream (gently removing it with the plastic scraper), to read his stone and photograph it.  I hope wherever George and Catharine are now, that they know at least one person in the world still thinks about them.

While I was doing my own thing in Dayton, Roger stayed behind with the dogs at our spot at Cedarbrook Campground in Lebanon, Ohio.   He didn't really have much choice, since I monopolized the car for two very-full days.  Right about the time he was thinking about putting things away for us to get ready to leave the next morning, I decided to check my genealogy maps to see if there were other relatives who might have lived nearby.

 I saw that my Robison and Parks relatives had once lived in Warren County.  When I checked my on-line family tree on Ancestry.com, I realized that both my 5th great-grandfather Joseph Parks and my 4th great-grandfather James Harris Robison were buried in a cemetery only 6 miles from where we were camped!  To me that meant only one thing:  hop in the car and find them before it got dark.  

I carefully broached the subject to Roger, assuring him that I wouldn't be gone long and that he could stay behind and finish what he was doing.   He wasn't buying that at all; after hearing about Old Greencastle Cemetery, there was no way he was letting me take off alone to another cemetery, especially when it was already 6:00 and nearing dusk.  He definitely wasn't happy about it, but being the awesome hubby that he is, we postponed supper and hopped in the car to find Dick's Creek Presbyterian Cemetery in Turtle Creek Township.

I'm so glad we did!   I had no idea so many Robisons and Parks were buried there.  It is a very, very old cemetery and in bad shape, but extremely interesting.   My 5th gr-gr Joseph Parks had donated the land for the church and cemetery.   The church is long gone, but here are a few of the stones we found:

My 5th great-grandfather Joseph Parks, Revolutionary War Veteran

First we found Joseph Parks' marker.   It was easy to spot because there was a new marker in front of the original (unreadable) one behind it.   We searched and searched for my 4th great-grandfather Robison's grave, but never did find it.   He would have been buried near the Parks graves, because he married Betsy Parks, Joseph Parks' daughter, and was also buried the same month as Joseph Parks, among the earliest graves.

 There were several Parks and Robison markers  with death dates of April of 1814.  They all died during an epidemic of the so-called "cold flu", which actually was epidemic cerebral spinal meningitis, brought to the area by returning War of 1812 soldiers.   Both of my direct great-grandfathers, (5th) Joseph Parks and (4th) James Harris Robison, succumbed that April of 1814, as well as several other sisters, brothers, husbands and wives.

Who said genealogy was boring??  Certainly not me!   Here are a few of the very old stones we saw, most in bad condition at Dick's Creek Presbyterian Cemetery:

   

   

Robisons, Robisons
everywhere....

We never did find James Harris
Robison, although he is listed
among those buried at Dick's Creek.  


We saw several broken stones, and others piled 
and stacked.  No way to tell which one was James Harris Robison.

Is this his?

Or this??

James Harris Robison fought in the War of 1812; his grave deserves a small flag and a new marker like Joseph Parks', but his location is lost to the ages. 

My imagination was running wild...what was it like to live in frontier Ohio in 1814?  Or, for that matter, in still-frontier Ohio in 1834 like George Norris?   I feel more research coming on.   Google is my friend!

From Southeastern Ohio we are heading to Arkansas to visit three Arkansas state parks on our slow ride back to Texas.   

To end this blog entry on a lighter note, the pet picture of the day is one of this summer's favorites of Tequila, my quirky little girl.

Just gotta rest my head....