Vacation day 5.5

Today's itinerary saw us heading east into Ohio.  But before we take off, last night I tried the star thing again, with not such good results...

...other than a shot of Polaris...

And a reasonably cool moon shot...

...which in fact plays into today's trip.  Since Scrappy was going to spend another day as man of the house, I got in an early trip to the bark park.

...which included a pissed, big mouthed robin letting us know he didn't appreciate our presence for a half-hour...

...and Scrappy making a friend in 7-month-old Kaya (spelling approximate- "KI-ya.")  They had a grand time running, barking, and wrestling.  Back home again, we headed east.

Remember me mentioning wind turbines to the horizon on the last baseball trip?  There you go.  A quick Googling says there are 152 between Paulding and Van Wert Counties.  Us?  We've got too many NIMBYs to make a go of it.  As if one's gonna fall- or any bird, with supposedly superior eyesight, is going to fly into it without Darwin's blessing.  Grow up, Indiana!

Anyway, our goal was the Neil Armstrong Space Museum in Wapakoneta OH.  Now, google maps had the end of our path looking like this:

circled in red is an unnamed road, which had me worried.  Had I been smarter than the map and hit the "earth" button, I would have known before backtracking that...

... the "unnamed road" was actually a jog through a Lowe's parking lot, and I would have been better served just to stay on the street we were on for another couple of blocks until reaching Apollo Drive from where you're SUPPOSED to reach it (see red arrows).  Never the less, we reached our destination...

...no, wait, that's my foot...

...ah, there it is.

Some of the first astronauts.

A mural of the first seven astronauts:  L-R Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Indiana's own Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, and in the part made famous by Chris Ellis in Apollo 13, Deke Slaton.

First woman in space- not Alice Kramden, but Valentina Tereshkova.

Lots of models.  Rather like Bobby G's treasure room, less cluttered though.

The story went that after a while, they dropped the requirement of a military background, thus our hero Mr. Armstrong gets in.

And those two are one of the neater things, an inside look at a Gemini capsule.  The plaque mentioned it being roomier than a Mercury capsule, but IMHO, once you got two grown men inside, even farts would have to drift between toggle switches.

Neil's space suit

As I recall, the problem lie in not being able to release the doorlock from the inside.

And now, what you've all been waiting for...

...Cuisine d'Apollo.

I thought the chocolate pudding looked especially tasty.

And here's all the equipment needed to relieve oneself.

I especially enjoyed the part: "To defecate, an astronaut used a special bag with adhesive coating to the buttocks.  The astronaut then guided the waste into the bag with his fingers..." 

One of the unused flags from Apollo 13.

Neil's Mom collected news clippings from around the world.  Some of the highlights:

"Probably"?  Did they think Frank Sinatra beat him?

They had all the craters numbered.  I wish I had one a these!

From France's Le Figaro

This was a chest of some- repeat some- of the stuff he won for his first step on the moon.

The President speaks to them during their 17 days locked in decontamination.  I think he said, "Did you bury those tapes like I asked?"  No, wait, that came later...

Neil's moon strolling attire...

This was a hallway into the dome theater which told the story of the moon landing.

Scenes from the movie.

A space shuttle tire.  "...was inflated to 340 lbs...."

Space shuttle cuisine.  A big improvement, no?

One of those infamous tiles from Columbia.

Next stop:  A picnic at Grand Lake St Marys near Celina...

As you can see, the algal bloom is well at it.

On that subject, why is it out of the thousands of lakes in our area, all of them surrounded by farming, only two get algal bloom blamed on farming runoff- this one and Sylvan.  Makes me doubt whether farming runoff has anything to do with it.  Anyway... After a long walk to the shore, and a just-as-long battle to get into our "easy opening packages" of food (none of it Apollo food, BTW)...

The area was dog-dead.  We only had two boats come close,this one was closer.  It still took five minutes easy for the wake to arrive.

Here's the other- that's a Dowco bimini, BTW...

We spent a lot of peaceful time watching fish jump and this far-out object, speculating on its ID...

After further review, I'm saying dead fish.

Then we passed "The Lord's Church."  Never saw the devil's church, though.

Then we stopped off for at treat at what used to be Arnold's Drive In in Decatur, a 50's/Happy Days themed eatery.

Now it's Aunt Bees, same decor and food.  This is where my daughter works- what KC described after talking to her as "washing dishes one hour a night."

We didn't come home empty handed- you'll be seeing us in these shirts soon (hopefully without the hat-head):

Tomorrow- an OIL CHANGE!  You don't want to miss this one!