June 26, 2005 - Wilmington, OH
Remember last time I had a picture of some really bright green bugs? Well, a reader from Ontario, Canada wrote and told us that they're called Asian Long Horned Beetles. Pretty destructive guys, too, from what she said. Sure is fun to have people out there who know stuff for us, eh?
Well, the "midnight tour" was more than we'd expected. The deal is this: Barb will grab all the brochures about an area that she can, and then we'll figure out what we want to see, usually from those brochures. Sometimes we'll also look at our "Watch It Made In The USA" book to see if any factory tours are available that we might be interested in. In this case, both sources indicated a midnight tour of the local DHL Express sorting facility, out at the small Clinton County Airport. Well, why not. We've sure never done that sort of thing before. Barb called and made reservations, and after a couple of good naps, we were off. No cameras allowed, no open toed shoes, and no shorts. OK.
We were met by Jeff Fetters who is both a tour guide for the facility as well as a local farmer. Nearly 800 acres of corn, beans, wheat, etc. Claimed to be a "small" farmer. Well, that sure sounds like a lot to us. He said he had neighbors with over 12,000 acres in crops. But on with the tour. Jeff's been doing this tour thing for about 9 years now, I think it was. As it turned out, we were the only tourists, so I guess you could we had a private tour of the facility.
We watched some 2,000 employees streaming into the facility to get ready for the night's "sort" as we arrived around 10:30 p.m. As the planes came in, they off-loaded their containers of packages and overnight letters from all over the country. ABX Air is celebrating its 25th year of operation this year. That's a pretty good record for some airline most people haven't ever heard of, eh? Started as a part of Airborne Express, but is an independently traded NASDAQ company today. Recently (6/24/05) selected for the Russell 3000 index, which says something of its strength. The airline's main customer is DHL, and the planes were coming in from both east and west, landing on the two runways of this privately owned airport. Yup, that's right. ABX Air (or is it DHL?) owns the airport, so the planes can park places and go places they might not be able to if it were a public airport. Things like that are the sort of things we never even thought about. This entire tour, which lasted about two hours, was full of the unexpected. You know how we take so many things for granted? Well, it sure was fun for us to see what goes on behind the scenes of this express overnight mail/package operation.
After a brief walk around while we waited for the "sort" to get started in earnest, we went through the maintenance shop. I was duly impressed. They have a complete, and I do mean complete maintenance shop for any A&P work short of an engine overhaul. Their metal fabrication shop would have made son Doug, the one with the hotrod shop in St. Louis, drool.
From there, we walked around the several flight simulators they have. There are three different aircraft that the company uses. DC-8, DC-9, and the Boeing 767-200 wide body. While looking at the DC-9 simulator, the operator walked out, and Jeff asked if it was OK for us to come take a look. The operator (who's name I've either forgotten or in the excitement of the moment didn't even ask!) ushered us into the simulator. I sat in the pilot seat and Barb in the co-pilot seat. There were 4 more seats behind us for observers and the operator of the unit. Talk about thrilling. Even though it stayed in a static position (no motion) it was so realistic it was unbelievable. All the gauges, switches, and dials from an actual cockpit of a DC-9 were there, and all the windows had video screens, so no matter where we looked, we were sitting on a virtual runway in some airport DHL flies to. The realism was incredible. I had to look very carefully to even see much pixilation. The operator would change the scene outside the window for us in the blink of an eye, and once there was even snow on the ground. Barb asked about the snow, and the operator made it snow for us! And then changed the direction of the wind and we watched the snowflakes swirl about in the other direction. As far as we were concerned, this was indeed the highlight of the tour, and as good as any "E" ticket ride at Disney. So, not only did this "little" airport have full maintenance/repair facilities, they have the ability to train and qualify any pilot for these three aircraft. The word "incredible" was constantly on my lips.
In 2004, ABX Air had 8,386 employees flying and taking care of 115 aircraft. And there's that word "incredible" again. Today, there are more than 240 aircraft! And this little airport handles about 200 arrivals/departures during each night of operation. They pump about 6,000,000 gallons of aircraft fuel each month! They recycle an average of 500,000 pounds of paper, cardboard & metal per month.
Then it was off to watch the sorting procedure taking place. The containers are dumped (unloaded by hand) onto one of 3 conveyer belts, determined by a part of the code on the label. These three in turn are further broken down by region and area, all by somebody picking up the package and looking at whatever code on the label their station is concerned with. They sort nearly 1,200,000 packages per night (averaging 2,890,000 pounds) in three different buildings, with another being built. The new building will be more highly automated, and will include the sort currently being done in Cincinnati. This sorting facility has about 625,000 square feet under roof, with about 1,240,000 square feet of usable sorting floor space, and contains over 15.5 miles of conveyors. And in spite of all this, Jeff never once came close to getting us lost. Matter of fact, his son who is a teacher, is working there during the summer and we "spied" on him a couple of times while he was doing his sorting.
At the risk of wearing out the word, we were impressed. And to top it off, when we turned in our fancy shiny visitors belt and pass, we got a mouse pad (not the norm) and a sheet with some of the above statistics so I wouldn't mess my numbers up too bad. Most the tours are given to major customers and potential customers. The end result of us being given the tour is that because we now have a more intimate knowledge of DHL, we'll be more inclined to use their services when shipping things.
And the next day it was "Old Time Music Festival" time. The very first thing we did was listen and join in on some great acapella singing of church music. Different people would lead the singing, all from the "Sacred Harp Music" books that were available. The leader would usually give the tones for each of the four part harmony, and then we'd sing the notes only without words (as in doe, ray, me, fa, so, la, te, doe) once so everybody could see what their tune was, and then we'd sing it through with the words. Strong male voices up front and sung loudly, so it was pretty easy for me to fumble through my bass part.
Workshops were a part of the festival, and different groups would be scattered throughout the Pioneer Village. On the left appeared to be an impromptu group working on some technique, and then the guitar group there on the porch of the general store.
The gazebo stage was the largest of the two stages, and naturally would have the larger groups playing. It was here that we enjoyed the old time fiddler contest as well. The contestants were divided into three groups. Juniors, up to 16 yrs old, adults 17 to 60, and then the seniors from 61 and older. Great fun and good fiddling, too! The story on Pioneer Village apparently goes something like this. The Army Corps of Engineers was assigned to turn this area into a park; in the process of clearing the land and removing old buildings, they discovered that under the clap-board exterior of the Lukens house, was a log cabin. Some quick research determined that the Lukens built the place in 1807. Bingo! Historical site! This area of Ohio apparently had a bunch of old cabins in various states of disrepair, and many of them were dismantled and rebuilt here, forming a neat historical area, as well as a beautiful park. For once, the government got it right, eh?
There are a couple of things that will make me drag Barb off to festivals like this. First, I simply love festival food! I'll eat things at a festival that I'd never even consider someplace else. Today for example, I had a bone-in pork chop burger, among other things. And another reason I like these festivals so much is gawking at the goods offered by the vendors. These mountain dulcimers were beautiful! And the people who built them (for the most part) are the people selling them, and they're without exception friendly and full of good information.
More great stuff for sale, and Barb staying in the shade. One of the more unpleasant occurrences as we have more birthdays, is the physical changes that occur. For Barb, her love of the sun (she used to be a lifeguard) has diminished. Actually, it's her skin that doesn't like the sun much any more. So I get to wander off with the camera while she guards the chairs, or I get to pick the strawberries while she "shoots" me from the shady places.
The Lukens cabin/house and this old barn are the only original buildings on this property. That's a "Soft Frozen Lemonade" stand there by the corner of the barn, and you can bet they got some of our money. The guy is the red apron was responsible for my bone-in burger. Yum!
The first place we ever saw the old John Deere hit-'n-miss engines making home-made ice cream was in Quartzsite. Since then, we've seen several of them. The distinctive sound of the engine is a big draw for me, to say nothing of the fact that we both like the product! Different recipes are used apparently, because this one wasn't as good as some of the others we've had. I didn't know what wasn't quite right about it, but Barb said it wasn't as creamy. And those two buildings are attached with the fireplace between them. In the smaller one you could buy all kinds of herbs for all kinds of reasons. Cooking, health, air purification, etc. In the larger building was a lady playing the hammer dulcimer (beautifully, by the way) and selling her fresh bread. See the smoke? Despite the heat and humidity, she was baking bread over the coals.
The main stage going full steam ahead, and an old building with its newer "shed" alongside. This was the only building not open for the public today for some reason. No signs anywhere that I could see, just a closed door and curtains drawn over the windows.
Inside the larger of the two connected buildings, with the lady playing the hammer dulcimer (well, actually she's answering questions at the moment), and her "oven" hard at work making bread. Period clothing was the thing, and nearly every building on the place had some volunteer dressed up and ready with explanations about the building and the village.
I got a kick out of this building that is apparently in dispute with its foundation. See how the logs are running upward between the window and the door? And this group was getting their hammer dulcimers set up. There was a violin (fiddle?), a banjo, and a bass fiddle in the group as well.
Another volunteer explaining something to the ladies, and then a clothing vendor. I loved the casual way of displaying the goods. Something for everybody, eh?
Moving from one venue to another. While this was a three-day festival and open from 10AM to 7PM, after about 3 or 4 hours, the heat and humidity got to both of us and we headed back home with grins on. Is this a great lifestyle or what??????