Back in 2012, I swore that I would visit the Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins before my brother moved out of that town. Obviously, that didn't work out. But I finally made good on that promise to myself and visited the museum a couple of hours before closing on my way back from Jacksonville.

The museum's exhibits are surprisingly accessible. You can walk right up to some of the most impressive aircraft in U.S. Air Force history, like the A-10 and SR-71. It's the only way to appreciate the scale and power of these vehicles you see so often in movies and video games.

Exhibits cover the history of military aviation and are divided among several hangers, mostly by era. Be forewarned that some of the exhibits are a little text heavy. If you want to learn something, be prepared to read.

It was totally worth the wait. I'll be going again, hopefully with more time to spare. One of the docents told us that there would soon be an Osprey on display. That's something to look forward to!

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Day 5, the final day of my vacation, was all about energy. Specifically the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and its associated bus tour.

Coop had found the Department of Energy's Public Bus Tour of Oak Ridge National Laboratories online and became determined that we should partake. A 3-hour tour of the Manhattan Project sites for the bargain price of only $5. How could I refuse?

The AMSE itself isn't very entertaining. Its displays are text-heavy, so the experience is more like walking through a textbook than visiting bits of history. The bus tour picks up the pieces. The tour visits the Oak Ridge "Secret City" sites Y-12 National Security Complex, the X-10 graphite reactor, the abandoned Bethel Valley Church, and the site of the former K-25 gaseous diffusion plant. If that sounds kind of cool, it's because it is.

The highlight of the tour is X-10, the world's first nuclear reactor designed for continuous operation. The reactor was added to the National Registrar of Historic Landmarks in 1966, only three years after it was decommissioned. Hard to believe that a giant pile of inert carbon was instrumental in ending World War II.

It was purely by accident that Coop and I later in the day passed the Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant south of Knoxville. It turns out that Watts Bar contains the most recent nuclear power generator to come online in the United States. From the country's oldest to newest reactors in one afternoon? What a vacation!

Find more info on the American Museum of Science and Energy at amse.org.

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The first day of my vacation was dedicated to travel, the second to animals, and the third to the amusement park. My fourth day of vacation was dedicated to architecture.

We had passed the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio, late on Tuesday, and on Thursday we returned for the full experience. Self-guided tours were only $9. That's a bargain to wander around a giant decaying prison unsupervised.

Opened in 1896, Mansfield has the world's largest freestanding steel cell block. The tour route takes advantage of this and leads you through the chapel to the top of the cell block stack where you get to descend six stories to the floor. It's a long walk, and more than a little frightening when you think that you are only being supported by century-old, decaying metal.

Periodic interactive displays on the tour describe the building's history. There's a heavy emphasis on Shawshank Redemption and Air Force One, both filmed here in the early 90s. Among other sights, you'll see the tunnel that Andy crawled through and the beam from which Brooks hanged himself. It's like visiting a studio backlot!

You can read more about the reformatory at www.ohiostatereformatory.org.

Next stop was the Union Terminal in Cincinnati. This 1931 train station has been converted into a museum center. We arrived too late to go to the museums, but the building itself was worth the visit. (You may notice a similarity between this building and the Super Friends' Hall of Justice. That's no coincidence.)

This was the second train station I visited in a 48-hour period. We had wandered through Tower City Center (formerly the Cleveland Union Terminal) on Tues. Tower City was significantly altered when adapted for use as a mall, but the Cincinnati Union Terminal maintains its original style (and many of the original fixtures). I don't think any photo can do full justice to its glorious Broadway-style signage or technicolor mosaics.

When looking at the harsh geometrical shapes of a deco-styled building, I'm always left wondering why buildings aren't made this way anymore. Everyone needs a little art in their life. They might as well have some in their buildings, too.

You can read more about the Cincinnati Union Terminal at www.cincymuseum.org.

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Mom won 4 tickets to visit Cedar Point during the 2013 season in a Coca-Cola sweepstakes. She gave the tickets to me, and I gave the tickets to a friend as a wedding present on the condition that he take me along. He decided not to use them. His loss. My friend Coop and I decided that we weren't going to let good tickets go to waste, so we jumped in the car and made a week long road trip of it.

My last two Cedar Point trips were in 2012 and 2010. My first was in 2000, before I had a blog. This trip lasted 2 days longer than that one, but because of the free tickets, I think I spent about the same. I'm not getting older. I'm getting wiser!

This sign in Cartersville, Georgia, looked terrible. (But effective. We immediately stopped for a 6-pack of Coke.)

Dublin, Ohio, is serious about public art and water fountains. Ballantrae Park has both. (Better pics and details here).

This polar bear reflects on global warming as he spends a 90° day at the Columbus Zoo. Not an iceberg in sight!

Why a 2-hour detour to the Hard Rock Cafe in Cleveland, Ohio? Because we didn't have anything better to do.

The T-Rex at the front gate of Cedar Point is another year older and another year shittier.

Gatekeeper is the new ride at Cedar Point for 2013. It gets its name because the track goes over the ticket booth.

Gatekeeper steals the headlines, but the important change in 2013 is that you can now get a Coke at Cedar Point! Whoo-hoo!

That's just the first 3 days. More to come.

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Of course, the whole reason Trey, Leslie, and I went to Ohio was so that Trey could attend a professional soccer match between the Columbus Crew and the visiting Chicago Fire.

I have to admit that I had more fun at the soccer game than I had thought I would. The atmosphere was enjoyably electric, and even the soccer match was unusually exciting so far as soccer games go. (The first goal was scored within the first 9 minutes, preventing the 0-0 tie I was expecting.) The Columbus fans were friendly and reasonably well-behaved, the exception being their children. Those little bastards went largely unsupervised and seemed to enjoy throwing their Pepsi cups and other trash between sections. Clearly, they are future Ohio State University students.

Naturally, with no preference between teams, I chose to root for the Crew. Trey claimed to have no favorite MLS soccer team, but Leslie insisted that he is secretly a Chicago Fire fan. The Chicago fans made the Columbus children look like amateurs, throwing smoke bombs and bottles on the field. There was even a fire in the parking lot after the Fire lost, an event I don't consider a coincidence. I'm sure that Trey felt like he was attending a Philadelphia Eagles game.

So that was my first soccer game. Would I do it again? Yeah. Maybe next time, we can go to a stadium that serves Coke.

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After leaving Sandusky, Trey, Leslie, and I headed south to Columbus. With some time to kill before the soccer game would start, we decided to follow a lead provided by our party planner, Brian. We headed directly towards the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, or as Brian described it, "Jack Hanna's zoo." This nickname is a little misleading; as I was disappointed to learn, you won't find Jack Hanna in any of the cages.

It was well over 90° in the midday sun, and most of the animals were smart enough to be lounging in whatever shade they could find. Naturally, our first objective was the polar bear enclosure.

Surprisingly, the polar bear was one of the only animals in the zoo that seemed completely indifferent to the heat. Perhaps that's because they had their own water park, fully stocked with toys and snacks. The other bears at the park, including the sun bear (seen below), had to settle for water misters. Personally, I'd take a swimming pool over a Willy Water Bug any day.

The zoo was full of exotic animals I'd never seen before, but from the pictures I took, you'd think it only had bears. There are red pandas, Asian lions, West Indian manatees, and Komodo dragons, to name just a few. But really, the highlight of the zoo was the great apes, the gibbons, gorillas, and bonobos. Many of the zoo's primates are very human, some making a sincere attempt to communicate with the visitors, while others just pointed and laughed. Generally, I'm no fan of the ape, but I have to say that the Columbus Zoo's apes acted more human than some of the visitors.

Even with every creature great and small napping, the visit was still very much worth the time and expense ($15 per person, plus $7 parking). In hindsight, I wish we had more time to spend.

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For the Memorial Day weekend, Trey took Leslie and me to Ohio. Our first stop was Sandusky's Cedar Point amusement park, still the most awesome place on Earth. Trey and Leslie had never been before, and I'm sure they enjoyed themselves as much as I did. For the record, I'm not getting too old for this.

As I did for my last visit to the park in 2010, here's a trip summary in postcard-sized chunks:

The new "ride" in 2012 is "Dinosaurs Alive!", the old riverboat retooled with dinosaur animatronics replacing animal animatronics.

Magnum heads up its lift hill into the clouds.

The Midway as seen from a shady picnic table behind the Dodgem pavilion.

New since last visit: Pink's on the Midway.

A last look at the Millennium Force before nightfall.

Passing by the remains of the Wildcat. The space is being cleared for an outdoor "Luminosity" laser show.

After we left Sandusky, we headed south to Columbus, Trey's real destination. More on that later.

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My mother and I just returned from a trip to Savannah, GA. We arrived in town on Saturday along with the rain, which dampened any hope we had of doing much outdoors. Determined, we set out on a two-and-one-half hour self-guided tour of Savannah's northern squares. Ninety-six degrees and one hundred per cent humidity later, we might as well have gone to a sauna.

Shortly thereafter, an argument broke out about where to eat. Mom wanted cheap, and I wanted no crowd. We both lost. On the upside, we discovered that Uncle Bubba's Oyster House has some fantastic cornbread. Highly recommended.

The next day, we set out for the beach at nearby Tybee Island. I was hoping for this:

Instead, I got this:

But even those crowds weren't enough to detour us. The heat was, though, and Mom had us retreat to the car earlier than I would have liked. She did get a bit of a burn on her delicate Southern features, so I have to concede that maybe mothers do know best.

Before returning home, we dropped by Forsyth Park in Savannah. I'm pretty sure when Yankees think of the South, they pictures rednecks and scenes like this.

The park's beauty is unparalleled, but it's not really what I wanted to see. I had been promised a trip to some cemeteries in Savannah. While the Park's Memorial to the Confederate Dead is impressive, it's not what I had in mind.

It's been 20 years since I was last in Savannah, and the cemeteries were there then. I sure hope they'll wait around another two decades when I schedule my return trip. Don't get impatient, dead people. I'll be back.

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Welcome back, those of you who avoided Superman Month. You're just in time for a slide show of my summer vacation!

Wait, come back! I can't afford to lose any more readers! Fine, no slides! How about if I just post some pictures I took of Cedar Point instead? You can pretend that they are postcards! Ok? Whew. Crisis averted.

In case you are unaware, Cedar Point is an amusement park on the Ohio shore of Lake Erie. Cedar Point is the second oldest existing amusement park in America, and it is home to more roller coasters than any other amusement park in the world. This year's semi-annual pilgrimage marked the 10-year anniversary of my first trip to the park for the unveiling of Millennium Force, at the time the tallest and fastest coaster in the world. I would like to hope that I have aged as well as that coaster.

Giant Wheel and Wicked Twister define the shore of Lake Erie as seen from Space Spiral.

Millennium Force crests its second-tallest hill as seen from the Cedar Point & Lake Erie Railroad.
(Footnote: This image was taken by my friend Michael Foster, though it was my camera so I am taking credit for it.)

Max Air proves that good parks don't need 6 flags.

View of Dodgem bumper car pavilion with inset of sign lit for night.

Sky Ride passes by Raptor as seen from the Midway at dusk.

Composite view of Wildcat, the greatest little coaster in the park.

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Back from Ohio. The Top Thrill Dragster is all it's cracked up to be. Damn. If you get a chance, go for it; it's quite a rush. (Once you get past the recurring technical ''reasons'' and LONG lines, I mean.)

And the Matrix was excellent. I've said it before and I'll say it again: keep your expectations low and you won't be disappointed. It was the best action film ever. (In fact, we decided that it's the best JLA film ever made.)

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