On the second day, the inventors’ father, Bishop Wright, gave the invocation preceding the presentation of medals to his sons. One medal that had been ordered by act of Congress was presented by General James Allen, chief signal officer of the Army; another, by the Ohio legislature, was presented by Governor Harmon; and a third from the city of Dayton was presented by the Mayor. The Wrights were alongside of 2,500 school children, dressed in red, white and blue, to represent an immense American flag. Patriotic fervor ran high. The home folk knew now that the Wrights could fly; they knew, too, that international fame had not changed them. They were the same unassuming pair they had always been. Before the celebration was quite over, Wilbur and Orville took a train to Washington. The time for completing those Government trials at Fort Myer was approaching and there was much to be done. Orville made his first flight on June 28, and finished on July 30. One of the most memorable of the flights in this series was on that final day when Orville, with an Army officer, Lieutenant Benjamin D. Foulois, for passenger, made the first cross-country trip yet made in an airplane, a total distance of about ten miles to Alexandria and return--without any suitable landing spots if trouble had occurred. This was the speed test. The machine now used was capable of about four miles an hour greater speed than the one in the tests the previous year. The turning point in Alexandria was at Shuter’s Hill, where a Masonic temple now stands. A captive balloon floated above the hill, and a telegraph line had been run to the top of the hill where an operator was stationed to give a signal when Orville had passed that point. But a strong wind that day blew down the telegraph line and also kept the balloon so close to the ground that Orville could not see the turning point in advance and covered more than the required distance. As the plane passed out of sight for a time on the return trip, the crowd feared the worst; but when it reappeared, headed back toward the parade ground, the honking of automobile horns and excited cheering indicated that everyone knew they had all seen an extraordinary event. The time for the ten miles was fourteen minutes, or just under forty-three miles an hour. Thus the Wrights got a bonus of $5,000 more than the basic price agreed upon--ten per cent for each complete mile per hour more than forty--and they received $30,000 for the machine. Almost immediately after the Fort Myer trials and formal acceptance of the machine, on August 2, by the United States Government, Orville Wright, accompanied by his sister Katharine, set out for Berlin. Orville would start training a flyer for the German Wright company immediately after giving the exhibition arranged for by Captain Hildebrandt on behalf of the _Lokal Anzeiger_.