Nuclear Power and Nuclear Missiles

The following morning, we got ready quickly and hit the road towards Cuyahoga Valley National Park just south of Cleveland, OH. We stopped first at Horrocks again to grab some fresh fruit before continuing down the road through Ann Arbor, Toledo, and to Cleveland. We passed through many fields, forests, towns, and past some neat nuclear power plant cooling towers. We drove down into Cuyahoga Valley and to a visitor center where we got some information about the place. Turns out, the park was primarily established to protect the Cuyahoga River, which was one of the most polluted rivers in the US. From what we saw, they did a great job cleaning up as the river looked nice and clean. We took a few mile hike to see some falls that were hardly trickling given the area’s lack of rain. It was quickly getting late and the local shops and visitor centers were closing for the day, giving us little time to see more of the park. We hopped out to snag some fresh food at a grocery store before making dinner back in the valley. We found a lovely little picnic area to prepare our ground beef and peppers at and hang out for a while until nightfall. We had a parking spot in mind for the night a bit down the road, but we didn’t want to arrive too early and have anyone bother us. With the sun quite below the horizon, we passed out pretty quickly into an uninterrupted night of sleep.

The next morning, we finished our drive south out of Cuyahoga Valley and back into the Ohio farmlands. The park was certainly pretty, but, similar to Indiana Dunes, is not on our short list of National Parks. We made our way through Columbus to Dayton and to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the location of the National Museum of the Air Force. I love airplanes, aviation, and almost anything that goes into the sky, so this was to be our celebration of my birthday a few days away. We spent the rest of the afternoon until the museum’s closing hour going through beautiful and interesting aircraft from the beginning of aviation until the Cold War, not anywhere near the entire museum. Afterwards, we went out to a local Mexican restaurant for an almost-birthday dinner before hanging out in a Cracker Barrel’s parking lot for the rest of the evening and through the night. Unfortunately for us, that night hardly cooled and instead increased the relative humidity into uncomfortable levels. The result was a rather restless night that we mostly spent trying to move as little as possible and stay in the air from our little fan. This prompted a rather quick awakening in the morning, and we headed to a nearby cafe as soon as they were open. We sat, had breakfast, and hung out for a while before heading back to finish the museum once it opened for the day. The last few hangars held a variety of Cold War, modern, and presidential aircraft along with a host of ICBMs. We eventually meandered our way out and back onto the road south towards Lexington, KY. The drive through the rest of Ohio and into Kentucky was uneventful until we hit some sporadic sun showers on our way to Costco. We stopped in to see what samples they had (None!!!) and took a peek at their extensive whiskey collection before finishing our drive to Lancaster, KY, a town just south of Lexington where Faith’s great-aunt and family live. We got there in the mid-evening and spent the rest of the night catching up with and, in my case, getting to know Sheila and Geoff. We had a very enjoyable dinner at a local middle eastern restaurant with them before heading back to their house and eventually to bed.

Stats

• ~250 miles of driving
• 1 National Park
• Countless historical aircraft
• 1 cockpit sat in (so cool)

Animals Seen

• Squirrels
• Seagulls