Tag Archives: house

Ohio

Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park

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Overview

Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park preserves Orville and Wilbur’s bicycle shop and explains the development of air travel at a museum next door and several other locations on the Aviation Trail.  The brothers opened a flight school at Huffman Prairie where an interpretive center on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is run by the National Park Service (NPS).  We recommend you try one of the flight simulators at the two sites; they are free and they help you understand yaw.

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Highlights

Museums, historic buildings, flight simulators, National Museum of the U.S. Air Force

Must-Do Activity

In addition to learning about the Wright Brothers, the NPS also has an exhibit on Paul Laurence Dunbar, a local African-American poet whose home is occasionally open for tours.  When Orville Wright ran a print shop in high school, he published his classmate Dunbar’s work.

Best Trail

The Aviation Trail is not a walking trail, but it is mostly free, including the Parachute Museum and the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Instagram-worthy Photo

The NPS museum across from the bike shop has a replica of the 1902 glider that the Wright brothers took to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

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Peak Season

Open year round

Hours

https://www.nps.gov/daav/planyourvisit/hours.htm

Fees

None, except at the Wright Brothers Aviation Center and Hawthorn Hill mansion.

Road Conditions

All roads paved

Camping

None

The sales counter for the Wright brothers shop
Ranger-guided tours are the only way to get inside the Wright Cycle Company building.
The prices were a little shocking
Bicycles were expensive in 1895!
In a remade grocers of the time
Frank Hale’s grocery store has been restored in its original 1900-1917 location in Dayton.
A catapult like this replica helped with airplane liftoff
Huffman Prairie provides information on the Wright’s post-1903 experiments and flight school.

A memorial to the Wright Brothers

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Try a Wright flight simulator; we were told the one at Huffman Prairie Interpretive Center is easier.
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Tiff holds up her certificate saying she flew the Wright Flyer for 3 minutes without crashing.

Explore More – How many winters did the Wright brothers spend in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina perfecting their gliders before their historic flights on December 17, 1903?

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New Jersey

Thomas Edison National Historical Park

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Overview

American inventor Thomas Edison still holds the record with 1,093 U.S. patents awarded during his lifetime. Most of those came while running the massive laboratories in West Orange, New Jersey from 1887 until his death in 1931. After perfecting the incandescent lightbulb in 1879, it was here he employed hundreds to work on improving his phonograph, motion picture camera, alkaline storage battery, and Portland cement (one of his most profitable ventures). The park also includes the family estate, Glenmont, located one-mile away (a tour ticket is required to enter the house).

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Highlights

Historic laboratories and workshops, inventions on display, house tour

Must-Do Activity

The multi-story Main Laboratory is handicap accessible and contains 400,000 artifacts from Edison’s prolific career. On display are some of the world’s first electric coffee-makers, waffle irons, and toasters marketed by his company Edicraft in the 1920s.

Best Trail

A self-guided walk around the grounds of Glenmont includes Edison’s gravesite.

Instagram-worthy Photo

At the West Orange laboratory is a replica of “Black Maria,” the world’s first movie studio originally built in 1893 on a track that allowed it to pivot for better lighting.

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Peak Season

Open year round, but not every day of the week

Hours

https://www.nps.gov/edis/planyourvisit/hours.htm

Fees

$15 per adult or America the Beautiful pass

Road Conditions

All roads paved

Camping

None

Entrance to the park

Tiff in the heavy machinery lab

Inside Edison's office/library

Tiff at the West Orange lab

Tiff with Thomas
Edison famously said “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

Explore More – On the day of Thomas Edison’s funeral, how was homage paid nationwide?

 

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New Hampshire

Saint-Gaudens National Historical Park

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Overview

The only site in New Hampshire administered by the National Park Service (NPS) is dedicated to Augustus Saint-Gaudens, an Irish born immigrant that studied art in Paris and Rome.  On this country estate he utilized beginning in 1885, he converted a barn into his sculpture studio.  Other artists flocked to “Aspet” until his death in 1907.

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Highlights

Home and sculptures of famous 19th-century artist, sculptor-in-residence program

Must-Do Activity

A tour ticket is required to enter the house and is included with your admission fee.  While you are waiting, explore the many marble, plaster, and bronze castings of Saint-Gaudens’ work located around the property, including his famous Shaw Memorial whose original can still be found in Boston.  A new cast of one of his Abraham Lincoln statues was added in 2016 during the NPS Centennial.

Best Trail

The quarter-mile Ravine Trail starts at the Ravine Studio, the workshop of the sculptor-in-residence.  Blow-Me-Down Trail runs 2 miles between the Temple and a swimming hole.

Instagram-worthy Photo

Take a photo of “Aspet” house from the porch of Little Studio framed by the vine-draped arbor.

View of the house from the patio of the studio
Find this photo and others for sale on Imagekind

Peak Season

Summer as exhibit buildings are closed November through late May

Hours

https://www.nps.gov/saga/planyourvisit/hours.htm

Fees

$10 per adult or America the Beautiful pass

Road Conditions

All roads paved, but parking is limited.

Camping

None at this park, but Mt. Ascutney State Park is short drive away across the border in Vermont.

Covered bridge connecting New Hampshire and Vermont
Covered bridge connecting New Hampshire and Vermont
Scott with a huge honeylocust
Scott with a huge honeylocust tree

Tapestry inside Saint-Gaudens house

This historic cast of Abraham Lincoln by Saint-Gaudens was installed in 2016

Shaw Memorial can also be seen in Boston Common
The Shaw Memorial took Saint-Gaudens 14 years to complete.  This cast was completed in 1997.
Tiff in the studio with a Diana sculpture also found on Madison Square Garden
Diana sculptures like this top Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Victory

Explore More – Why does the gift shop sell a stuffed animal goat named Seasick?

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Connecticut

Weir Farm National Historical Park

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Overview

Weir Farm National Historical Park is the only National Park Service site in the state of Connecticut.  It is built around the art studios of Julian Alden Weir, an American impressionist painter that were later utilized by the Mormon sculptor Mahonri Young who made the This Is the Place monument in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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Highlights

Free guided tour, free use of colored pencils/pastels, Artist in Residence program

Must-Do Activity

A unique opportunity the park provides is the use of colored pencils and pastels for each visitor to create their own artwork when they visit.  In this way they continue to allow the farm to inspire artists to capture the landscape in their own way, regardless of age or ability.

Best Trail

Pick up a self-guided walking tour pamphlet at the visitor center then walk (1.5 miles roundtrip) to Weir Pond, where the family loved to spend time in the summer fishing, swimming, and, of course, painting.

Instagram-worthy Photo

Get into the artistic spirit by posing with your face to the window like Weir’s wife did for a portrait in the family’s living room that you can see hanging inside the house.

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Peak Season

Open year round, but this was Weir’s summer home because that is the nicest time of year here.

Hours

https://www.nps.gov/wefa/planyourvisit/hours.htm

Fees

None

Road Conditions

All roads are paved, but Nod Hill Road is steep and narrow which may be difficult for RVs and other large vehicles.  The small parking lot cannot accommodate large RVs.

Camping

None

Sketching at Weir Farm

These bison cutouts were painted and posted around the farm

A outside view of the sculpture studio

One of the other artists that lived here was a sculptor

On the porch of the Weir Farm House
Scott waiting on the front porch for our ranger guided tour inside the painter’s house.

Explore More – Julian Alden Weir studied impressionism in the country it was founded in, where is that?

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WONDON WAS HERE

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