Category: Motorcycling

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Touring aviation history with a passport

Dayton-Aero-NHS-33I knew the National Historic Site was there, but I had never visited. And, I can’t explain why. But, with a day available for motorcycling, I decided it was time. Armed with my National Parks Passport, I headed to Dayton, Ohio, to the Wright Brothers Visitor’s Center to see where aviation as we know it all started.

Officially, it is the Wright-Dunbar Interpretive Center, just one of five sites in the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historic Park. That’s how it is listed in the Passport and accompanying map of all parks and historic sites.

Most people know about Orville and Wilbur Wright and their efforts towards the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. The Dunbar of the interpretive center is Paul Laurence Dunbar, an African American writer and poet known to the Wright Brothers. Dunbar and Orville Wright were in the same graduating class of Dayton Central High School, 1891, and the Wright Brothers published Dunbar’s newspaper in their print shop.

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The complex is in the historic section of Dayton on 3rd Street at South Williams. A 30-minute film provides a lot of information as a docu-drama detailing the efforts to build an airplane and then learn how to fly it.

The Wright Brothers operated several businesses, including a printing business and the bicycle shop. A park ranger said the restored Wright Cycle Co. building is the actual location and building number four of five locations they occupied. The Wright family home was just down the street on South Williams. The ranger also verified that the Wright family home and bicycle shop #5 are at the Greenfield Village, Henry Ford Museum in Michigan. Ford bought the buildings and moved them to his museum for preservation.

After touring the bicycle shop, I motorcycled to the Wright Brothers National Memorial near the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Also at the site is the Huffman Prairie interpretive site. The Wrights perfected their airplane using Huffman Prairie as their test site, and hence, it is officially the first airport.

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It was a great day for motorcycling. Get your own NPS Passport and start planning your adventures and destinations. Passports can be ordered online, or you can buy one at the many National Parks and get it stamped while you’re there.

See you on the highway.

Brent

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Home delivery of the weekly free newspaper

The dually-wheeled pickup truck pulled out of the side road with plenty of safe distance, but then failed to accelerate to highway speeds. Following at a safe distance on the motorcycle, I soon realized why it was going slow and would continue to go slow.

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At every driveway, he was flipping a rolled up newspaper in one of those plastic sleeves out of the truck. Although there was a passenger, the driver was like a robot, throwing to the left and then over the cab of the truck to the driveways on the right.

Because of the double yellow line, and the curves, I was content to follow and watch, but then, I had little choice. He rarely missed. Oh sure, there was an occasional paper in a tree, and one missed the driveway and slid into a gulley. That one will probably lay there for a while. Maybe a long while.

We have the same method of delivery in our neighborhood. The other day, while I was rolling the motorcycle out of the garage, and had it parked at the end of the drive, a delivery driver rolled by and threw our paper forcefully to the side of me. I will give him the benefit of doubt, because he did wave. I picked the weekly flyer up and properly disposed of it in the recycle bin. I never read them. But I am absolutely sure that all those papers thrown out on Middleboro Road delivered by that driver in a dual-wheeled, heavy duty pick up truck were read cover to cover. Well maybe. Okay, maybe they were recycled like mine.

The one aspect of this brief encounter that I am still wondering about is why anybody would use a heavy-duty, dual-wheel pick up truck to deliver newspapers. That thing probably gets 10 miles per gallon! Even the guy in my neighborhood is using a small car. Maybe the truck owner thought it would be a good way to deduct mileage and therefore write off the truck expense, and he would own a truck that could pull heavy duty equipment. Yeah, maybe that’s it.

Or, maybe it’s just a truck thing.

See you on the highway.

Brent

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Semi-trucks and campers prohibited

With the weather improved, I went back to my ABCD photo location to grab another photo and show why semi-trucks and campers are prohibited. It took a 15mm fisheye lens to be able to show the whole picture. It’s a good road for motorcycling.

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See you on the highway.

Brent