Happy Birthday Bob!

It was Bob's birthday on Saturday, and it wasn't just any old birthday.  He turned 60! I wanted to plan something special for him so I started planning some time ago.
First I talked to his boss, and arranged for him to have a vacation day on Friday.  His boss went along with this, left his name on the schedule and told everyone not to say a word.
So - Friday morning when he got up to go to work, I told him he could go back to bed, because he had the day off and we were going to do something fun!  He went back to bed, but of course not back to sleep and we were soon up for the day.  I had him pack a bag and we were off.
After driving for about 3 hours, we saw this old cemetery on a side road and decided to make a little stop.

 It was very old.  The big stone here was from 1891.  There were graves of civil war soldiers and many others that weren't readable.

The brown stone was the newest one we saw and it was from 1982.  The sad thing was the condition of most of the stone.  Most were tipped over.  The grass was mowed, but it appears no one takes care of the headstones.

After 2 more hours, we arrived at our destination - Dayton Ohio.
I had reserved a room at a Holiday Inn Express there and it was supposed to be a suite - 2 queen rooms and a sitting room. We usually just get the standard room, but because of another surprise I had planned, I got this bigger room. Well, this room was probably the nicest room we ever stayed in.  Not only did it have 2 queen beds, and a sitting area, it also had a kitchen with a full refrigerator, a dishwasher, a table, dishes, 2 tvs, 1 1/2 bathrooms and a washer and dryer!  We didn't really use any of that, but it sure was nice!

Around 5pm there was a knock on the door and the other surprise arrived.

 It was Andy!  He drove up from Kentucky to spend the weekend with us.

After Andy arrived we went out to get supper.  We went to a Chick-fil-A, which was a first for us.  We don't have any very near to us and always wanted to try one.  The food was good, but as we were eating it started to rain.  We found there was a severe thunderstorm warning, and reports of hail and high wind.  When the rain slowed, we made a dash for the car and headed for the hotel.

The next morning, I had a little prank gift for Bobs birthday, that could also be shared with Andy.

A while back, Bob had his DNA analyzed and one of the things it said, was that he had Viking ancestry.  Well, I saw these crazy beard and Viking hats and had to order them.  So, here are Bob and Andy in their full Viking glory!  :)

That morning we left the hotel a little after 9 and went to the Air Force Museum.  Bob and Andy both share a love of aircraft of any type.  Andy spent 8 years in the army working on the Apache helicopter and still works on a base, as a civilian working on them.
I figured it was going to be a long day for me, tailing behind those two as they ooohed and ahhed over these aircraft!

I took over 300 photos here, so I had a hard time finding just a few photos to share.  :)  I picked out just a few of the things that stuck out to me.

 Have you heard of the Red Baron from WWII?  This is a replica of it.  The original crashed with the Red Baron in it.

 There was an exhibit on concentration camps that was very interesting and so sad.  This is an actual uniform from one of the camps.

This is the actual Memphis Belle - a B17 bomber that inspired 2 movies.  It was restored and only unveiled here 3 weeks ago.

 This is the Bockscar - the actual plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki.

 This is Apollo 15 - the fourth mission to land on the moon.

And this is Air Force One.  This plane carried Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush and Clinton. We were able to tour it.  We also got to tour the planes of President Roosevelt and Truman.
We arrived at the Museum at 9:45 and left around 4, so it was a long day, but very interesting!

We went back to the hotel, where it started raining again, along with hail and another severe thunderstorm warning! After it settled down, we went to the Olive Garden for a birthday supper.
Sunday morning, we had to say good bye to Andy and head back home.  It was a wonderful weekend!