Visiting every state takes a bit of strategy, and Ohio became our Fourth of July trip almost by accident. I had originally planned to visit in the fall, but plans changed.
In the end, Ohio turned out to be exactly what we needed.
Our daughter has loved airplanes and spaceships since she was little, so the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force had been on my list for years. Columbus offered one of the country’s best science museums, and Hocking Hills promised a day in nature before ending the trip with a stop at Indiana Dunes National Park.
There was just one problem.
The Midwest decided to have one of its hottest weeks of the summer. Daytime temperatures climbed into the 90s, nights barely cooled below 80°F, and I worried most about hiking at Hocking Hills.
As it turned out, the heat wasn’t our biggest challenge.
A flat tire changed our carefully planned first day before we even reached Ohio.
Looking back, the flat tire wasn’t what defined this trip.
I don’t remember every airplane we saw or every exhibit we visited. I remember the little moments between them—the ones we never could have planned.
Those were the moments that made this trip ours.
A Road Trip That Didn’t Quite Go as Planned
My husband likes leaving before sunrise whenever a road trip takes us through Chicago.
I negotiated.
Panera opened at six.
That was early enough for me.
We grabbed breakfast, packed enough snacks for the drive, and were on the road by 6:20 a.m. Traffic gradually eased, and our GPS confidently predicted we’d reach the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force around 1:30 p.m.—plenty of time before the museum closed.
A few hours later, somewhere beyond Indianapolis, I heard a loud bump.
The interstate was under construction, and at first I assumed we’d hit another rough patch.
My husband immediately looked concerned.
“I think something’s wrong with the car.”
Within moments we were pulling onto the shoulder.
Flat tire.
The Flat Tire That Didn’t Ruin the Trip
While my husband checked the tire, I switched into planning mode. I called our insurance company, arranged roadside assistance, and searched for nearby tire shops.
Meanwhile, our five-year-old quietly watched everything unfold.
“Are you scared?” my husband asked.
She looked around, shrugged, and kept watching.
Children often take their emotional cues from the adults around them. Because we stayed calm, she never seemed worried.
The technician arrived quickly, replaced the tire with the temporary spare, and sent us on our way to a nearby Discount Tire. Two hours after pulling onto the shoulder, we were finally back on the highway.
The delay meant our original plan was gone.
We had hoped to watch the museum’s space movie before exploring the exhibits, but by the time we arrived it was already starting. Spending our only hour before closing inside a theater no longer made sense.
Sometimes the best travel decision is simply accepting that the original plan no longer exists.
National Museum of the U.S. Air Force
💡 Travel Tip
If your schedule allows, spend the night in Dayton and visit the museum when it opens the next morning. We enjoyed much lighter crowds than later in the day.
Arriving Late Had One Advantage
The parking lot felt like an oven when we reached the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force.
Ironically, almost everyone else was leaving.
Instead of fighting crowds, we walked into a surprisingly quiet museum. Rather than rushing through the aircraft exhibits, we took advantage of something we hadn’t expected—almost no wait for the simulators.
Our first stop was the motion theater, where our seats tilted, shook, and blasted air as we flew through space. It wasn’t quite Disney, but it was still a lot of fun.
My daughter loved it.
So did I.
My husband… not so much.
Motion simulators have never agreed with him. After surviving Star Wars at Disney years ago, he wisely skipped the VR experience and volunteered to become the family photographer instead.
My daughter had never tried virtual reality before.
Together we launched into space, walked on the Moon, and flew through the cliffs of Mars. Even knowing we were standing safely inside a museum, it was surprisingly convincing.
The only simulator we skipped was the fighter jet experience. Neither of us had much interest in spending the rest of the afternoon trying not to get motion sick.
Why We Chose Dayton
Our daughter has loved airplanes for as long as I can remember. Before she knew what rockets looked like, she pointed excitedly at high-voltage transmission towers and proudly called them “rockets.” They looked enough like the ones in her picture books that we never bothered correcting her.
Even today, they’re still rockets in our family.
Some days she wants to be a pilot.
Other days she wants to be an astronaut.
That alone made Dayton an easy choice.
As the museum closed for the evening, we wandered beneath some of the largest aircraft I had ever seen. Standing under their enormous wings made us feel tiny, and no camera could capture their scale.
We had barely scratched the surface.
Fortunately, we had planned to spend the night in Dayton, giving us an uncrowded morning to return before driving to Columbus.
The Engineering Behind the Airplanes
The next morning we headed straight for Hangar 4.
Most visitors come for the airplanes.
I found myself drawn to the engines.
My first engineering job was in the aircraft engine industry, and early in my career I spent a week taking a jet engine apart piece by piece. Standing in front of those engines brought back memories I hadn’t thought about in years.
I’m in the middle of a career change, and I hadn’t expected a museum to remind me why I became an engineer.
Instead of walking past the displays, I found myself explaining compressor stages, turbines, and different engine designs to my husband and daughter.
To my surprise, my husband was just as interested. His father had spent his career repairing car engines, and although aircraft engines are completely different, there was enough familiar ground that we lingered far longer than we had planned.
It wasn’t the airplanes that kept me there.
It was the engineering behind them.
The Story of Flight
One of my favorite parts of the museum wasn’t filled with giant bombers or modern fighter jets.
It was the beginning of aviation.
The earliest airplanes looked unbelievably fragile. Pilots sat exposed to the wind with little more than wood, fabric, and wires holding everything together. Standing in front of them, I couldn’t help wondering what it must have felt like to climb into one for the very first time.
These pioneers weren’t chasing speed or military superiority. They simply believed humans could fly, and they were willing to risk everything to prove it.
As we continued through the museum, that story unfolded naturally. Small wooden airplanes became larger, stronger, and faster, eventually crossing oceans, reaching the edge of space, and carrying presidents around the world.
My daughter admired the airplanes.
I found myself thinking about the people who imagined them.
One exhibit let visitors walk through several generations of Air Force One. My daughter was excited simply because she could step inside a presidential airplane.
I noticed something much smaller.
A deck of playing cards sat neatly on one of the tables.
Today, most travelers carry phones, tablets, or laptops.
Years ago, a simple deck of cards helped pass the time.
That tiny detail stayed with me.
When Engineering Meets History
As much as I admired the engineering, I couldn’t ignore what many of these aircraft had been built to do.
One bomber sat with its bomb bay open, rows of enormous bombs hanging beneath it.
Standing underneath, I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened after those bombs left the airplane.
Engineering has allowed us to fly across oceans, explore space, and connect the world.
It has also given us the ability to destroy.
Those two truths quietly coexist throughout the museum.
At one point my daughter looked up at one of the bombers and asked,
“Why do we want to bomb people?”
I paused.
I didn’t have a good answer.
Rockets… or Missiles?
One moment stayed with me even longer.
Before entering the space exhibits, we walked beneath a soaring gallery filled with towering missiles.
Without reading a single sign, all three of us happily called them rockets.
That seemed perfectly reasonable.
We were on our way to see spacecraft.
My daughter pointed excitedly.
My husband agreed.
Even I assumed they were rockets.
Then I stopped to read one of the information panels.
They weren’t rockets waiting to explore space.
They were nuclear missiles once designed to wait underground for a launch order.
I quietly mentioned it to my husband.
I never told my daughter.
At five years old, I was content to let her keep seeing rockets instead of weapons.
Looking Toward the Future
The museum also celebrates another side of aviation.
Hangar 4 focuses on research aircraft and space exploration, and it quickly became one of our favorite sections.
Watching my daughter run excitedly from one spacecraft to another reminded me why we had chosen Ohio in the first place.
Not because of military history.
Not because of famous airplanes.
But because curiosity begins somewhere.
Sometimes it begins with a child calling power line towers “rockets.”
Sometimes it begins with walking beneath a giant cargo plane.
Sometimes it begins with a first virtual trip to the Moon.
By late morning, the museum had filled with Fourth of July visitors.
We were grateful we had spent the night in Dayton. That one decision gave us an uncrowded morning before the easy drive to Columbus.
The Air Force Museum celebrated the history of flight.
Our next stop would celebrate curiosity itself.
COSI: A Museum Built for Curiosity
Before the trip, I bought a membership to our local science museum so we could use the reciprocal admission program. That gave us the freedom to visit COSI more than once instead of trying to see everything in a single day.
We had only a couple of hours before closing that first afternoon.
Normally, I’d study the map and plan the most efficient route through the museum.
Traveling with a five-year-old doesn’t work that way.
Within minutes, my daughter made her choice.
The children’s area.
For the next two hours she happily became a doctor, climbed into an ambulance, and put out imaginary fires.
I realized we didn’t need to see everything.
Watching her play was enough.
While she was busy saving imaginary patients, my husband wandered off to watch a dinosaur dome movie.
Everyone ended up exactly where they wanted to be.
Childhood Comes Full Circle
The next morning we explored the rest of COSI.
One exhibit immediately transported me back to my own childhood.
Suspended high above the floor was a bicycle riding along a cable.
I remembered seeing a similar attraction decades ago at a science museum. I had wanted to try it so badly, but the line was too long, and we eventually had to leave.
This time, I encouraged my daughter to go first.
Unfortunately, she was still too short to reach the pedals.
So I climbed onto the bike instead.
The ride began by rolling backward before I pedaled across the cable. Even though I’m generally comfortable with heights, I still had one moment of looking down and thinking,
This is higher than I expected.”
Somehow, after all these years, a childhood wish I had nearly forgotten quietly came true.
My husband watched from below.
Unlike me, he has never enjoyed heights.
He was perfectly happy staying on solid ground.
Science You Can Touch
One thing I love about science museums is that they invite people to experiment instead of simply reading about science.
Outside, one exhibit let visitors lift a real car using a giant lever.
A few weeks earlier, my daughter and I had read a children’s book explaining how a lever could lift something as heavy as a lion.
Now she was pulling on one herself.
Of course, lifting a car still required help from Mom and Dad.
But suddenly the idea wasn’t just something from a book.
Nearby, two giant dishes faced each other across an open courtyard.
We whispered into one.
The person standing at the other heard every word.
It felt like magic.
Of course, it wasn’t.
It was science.
Those are my favorite museum moments—not because they surprise us, but because they make us curious enough to ask why.
Curiosity Comes First
As much as I enjoyed reading the explanations, my daughter was busy pushing buttons, turning wheels, and trying everything she could touch.
For a while, I wondered how much she was actually learning.
Then I realized I was asking the wrong question.
Maybe a five-year-old doesn’t need to understand every scientific principle.
Maybe it’s enough for science to feel fun.
Curiosity comes first.
💡 Travel Tip
If you have young children, don’t worry about trying to see everything in one visit. The children’s area alone can easily fill half a day, and COSI’s reciprocal admission program makes repeat visits especially worthwhile if your local science museum participates.
Hocking Hills State Park
The weather had been on my mind since before we left Wisconsin.
The Midwest heat wave was still in full force, and Hocking Hills would be our only full day outdoors.
Originally, I considered renting a cabin near the park. It sounded nice in theory, but in summer, cabins mostly make me think about mosquitoes.
Instead, we stayed in Columbus and drove about an hour that morning.
Looking back, I think we made the right decision.
As soon as we stepped onto the trail, I realized Hocking Hills felt completely different from the open countryside we had driven through.
The paths wound through deep sandstone gorges beneath a thick canopy of trees. Towering rock walls shaded the trails while small streams flowed quietly below.
Even though it was around 90 degrees outside, it felt surprisingly comfortable.
Nature had quietly solved the problem I had worried about for weeks.
One of the Most Family-Friendly State Parks We’ve Visited
One thing I appreciated almost immediately was how easy the park was to explore.
Instead of hiking several miles to reach the main attractions, each major area had its own parking lot.
- Old Man’s Cave
- Cedar Falls
- Ash Cave
- Whisper Cave
- Rock House
Each stop was only a short walk, making it easy to see a lot without exhausting a five-year-old.
Experienced hikers can connect them all on longer trails, but for us, driving between trailheads meant everyone stayed happy.
Sometimes the best itinerary isn’t the longest one.
It’s the one everyone still smiles through.
💡 Travel Tip
Families with young children don’t need to hike the entire trail system. Driving between trailheads lets you experience all of the major highlights while keeping the day enjoyable.
Whispering Through Whisper Cave
My daughter’s favorite stop wasn’t the biggest waterfall or the tallest cliffs.
It was Whisper Cave.
As soon as she learned its name, she decided the only proper way to visit was by whispering.
The entire walk.
There…
and back.
Questions.
Observations.
Completely ordinary conversations.
All whispered.
I still don’t know whether she thought it was a rule or simply thought it was funny.
Either way, it became one of those little family memories we’ll probably laugh about for years.
When we reached the cave, another visitor suddenly began singing.
He had an amazing voice.
For a few minutes, the sandstone walls turned into an unexpected concert hall.
It wasn’t something anyone had planned.
Sometimes travel gives you gifts like that.
Dry Rivers and Small Waterfalls
It had clearly been dry for quite some time.
The streams were low enough to step across, and the waterfalls were much smaller than the dramatic photos we had seen while planning the trip.
Normally that might have been disappointing.
Instead, it meant my daughter could safely hop across rocks and explore the streams without much difficulty.
She was almost always several steps ahead of us.
It was one of those hikes where parents spend more time saying,
“Slow down!”
than,
“Keep going.”
As an engineer, I couldn’t help stopping at one trail. The boardwalk steps were designed using the Fibonacci sequence, subtly changing the rhythm of your walk. I never would have noticed if I hadn’t read the sign.
A House Made of Stone
If I had to choose one favorite stop, it would probably be Rock House.
Unlike the other “caves,” which are really giant recesses carved into the cliffs, Rock House feels like an actual room inside the rock.
Large openings create natural windows, making it feel more like an ancient stone building than a cave.
A group of pigeons had already claimed it as their home, their cooing echoing softly through the chamber.
The closest comparison I could think of was Wisconsin Dells.
Both surround you with sandstone cliffs that make you feel wonderfully small.
But Hocking Hills feels bigger, deeper, and more dramatic.
As we left the park that afternoon, I realized Hocking Hills wasn’t really about checking famous landmarks off a list.
It was about slowing down.
Walking beneath towering cliffs.
Listening to echoes.
Watching a five-year-old whisper an entire trail simply because of its name.
It was the perfect contrast to the previous two days.
Hocking Hills reminded us how peaceful nature can be.
Little did we know, the trip still had one final surprise waiting on the drive home.
Indiana Dunes National Park
The Last Day Didn’t Feel Like the End
Vacations always seem to end too quickly.
On our final morning, we packed the car, checked out of the hotel, and started the long drive back toward Wisconsin.
My daughter was unusually quiet and disappointed because it was the last day of vacation.
Then we mentioned one more stop.
“We’re going to the beach.”
Her mood changed instantly.
The Best Memory Wasn’t Planned
Originally, Indiana Dunes National Park was simply a convenient stop on our drive home.
We had planned to visit during our Indiana trip the year before but never made it. Since we were already driving past, spending a couple of hours there seemed like an easy decision.
To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much.
Living in Wisconsin, we’re spoiled with Lake Michigan beaches. I assumed Indiana Dunes would feel like another version of home.
I was wrong.
Even on the Fourth of July weekend, the beach was surprisingly uncrowded, and admission happened to be free that day.
After nearly five hours in the car, stretching our legs beside Lake Michigan felt wonderful.
Then we stepped onto the sand.
It was unbelievably soft.
Almost no rocks.
Almost no shells.
Just fine, powdery sand.
I told my husband and daughter to take off their sandals.
“You have to feel this.”
Within minutes, all three of us were walking barefoot along the shoreline.
The water, however, was another story.
We stepped in…
…and stepped right back out.
Even after days of summer heat, Lake Michigan was freezing.
Swimming was out.
Playing on the beach sounded much better.
One Hole Became Two
My daughter immediately began building with wet sand.
I started digging.
The deeper I dug, the wetter the sand became until water slowly seeped into the bottom of the hole.
Interesting.
So I dug another one.
Then I wondered whether I could connect them.
Before long, a small tunnel joined both holes, and water slowly flowed between them.
My husband wandered over.
“I have an idea.”
He pointed toward the lake.
“What if we dig a trench?”
Now we had a mission.
Instead of building sandcastles, we were building our own miniature water system.
My daughter happily joined the construction crew.
The three of us dug a narrow channel from Lake Michigan toward our tiny underground lake.
Every few minutes a wave rolled toward us.
We stopped digging.
Held our breath.
Watched the water rush down the trench…
…and stop just short.
So we dug a little farther.
Another wave.
Still not enough.
Dig a little more.
By now we were completely invested in a project that hadn’t existed fifteen minutes earlier.
Then it happened.
One larger wave surged farther up the beach.
Water raced down our trench…
…flowed into our little underground lake…
…and all three of us erupted into cheers.
Anyone watching probably wondered why three people were celebrating a puddle of water.
To us, it felt like we’d completed a major engineering project.
💡 Travel Tip
If you’re visiting Indiana Dunes with young kids, don’t underestimate the beach itself. We spent far longer digging, exploring, and simply playing in the sand than we expected.
Looking Back
When I think about Ohio now, I don’t immediately think about airplanes.
Or COSI.
Or Hocking Hills.
I remember moments.
My husband recognizing the flat tire before I realized anything was wrong.
My daughter experiencing virtual reality for the first time.
Standing beside aircraft engines that reminded me why I fell in love with engineering.
A five-year-old whispering through Whisper Cave simply because of its name.
Finally riding the high-wire bicycle I had wanted to try since childhood.
And three people laughing together while digging canals beside Lake Michigan.
Those aren’t the stories you’ll find in a guidebook.
They’re the stories that made this trip ours.
Why We Travel
People sometimes ask why we spend so much time visiting museums, state parks, and taking road trips with a young child.
Will she remember them?
Honestly…
Probably not all of them.
She may forget the names of the airplanes.
She may not remember which cave was Ash Cave or Old Man’s Cave.
She may not remember how a lever works or why sound travels across two giant dishes at COSI.
But I hope she’ll remember something more important.
That the world is full of interesting places.
That questions are worth asking.
That science isn’t just something found in textbooks.
That nature is worth exploring.
And that the best part of a vacation isn’t always the destination.
Sometimes it’s simply digging a hole in the sand with the people you love.