to boldly go

A few weeks ago, Joe and I took a quick trip to Toledo to see Mike Birbiglia perform. We dropped Max off with my parents on Friday and left earlyish on Saturday to begin the drive. We had plenty of time, since we didn't really need to be anywhere until the show started at 8 that night, but we wanted to leave time to do fun stuff we might run across on the way. To say nothing of the MANDATORY scheduled stop at Bowling Green, so Joe could eat his beloved stuffed breadsticks at Pollyeyes. It sounds like I'm making fun, but I'm really not. Those breadsticks are delicious.

The extra time turned out to be precious, PRECIOUS I TELL YOU, because we randomly decided to stop at the Neil Armstrong museum in Wapokaneta. I think, in the back of my mind, I knew that Neil Armstrong was from Ohio and we've driven by this museum about a million times, but never stopped. We almost didn't stop this time. According to Joe, our decision went something like this:

Joe: Hey, do you want to stop at the Neil Armstrong museum?
Me: UGH BORING.
Joe: It could be fun.
Me: FINE.
[five minutes later, pulling into the parking lot]
Me: OMG I DIDN'T KNOW THERE WOULD BE ALL THIS SPACE STUFF HERE! THIS IS AWESOME.
Joe: You...didn't realize there'd be space stuff...at the Neil Armstrong Air & SPACE Museum.

Which...yeah, is probably accurate. I don't know what I thought would be at the Neil Armstrong museum if NOT space stuff but such is the wonder and non-logic of my mind. Honestly, I would have been happy not even going inside the museum, since this was outside:

I'm in the window...BECAUSE I'M AN ASTRONAUT

The museum itself was interesting, though. Along with learning about Neil Armstrong and becoming super best friends with him (that comes with the ticket price), we discovered that Joe is too tall to be an astronaut and, thanks to a capsule docking video game, we discovered that neither of us is patient or coordinated enough to fly spacecraft. Which. Duh.

The museum went in a giant circle (LIKE THE MOON) and eventually led to a movie theater, where we watched a movie that I'm pretty sure was from the 80s but guess what STILL INTERESTING. I know I take the fact that we walked on the moon (well, not like, we as in you and I, but we as in THE HUMAN RACE) because it happened so long ago and now we're on Mars (sort of) and junk but YOU GUYS it's pretty fantastic that an actual human person has stepped foot on the moon, right? Someone ran around on that giant cheese-filled ball and lived through it. THAT IS SO AWESOME. When can we move there?

Anyway, the movie was great and all, sort of like time traveling back to a time we thought we'd have some sort of space station on the moon by now, but the best part was the hallway leading into the theater. IT WAS FULL OF STARS.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I know it was just all Christmas lights and mirrors, but I didn't care. For a minute or two, it felt like I was walking through space, no suit, no ship, just me. So thanks, Neil. BFF 4EVA!!!