Today we met a wonderful Family.  Today we met a Princess.  Today we adopted a Frog.

Earlier this month, Beth and I began our search for a lil French Bulldog that wanted us as it's Mamma & Daddy.  Beth had recently began volunteering for Cloud Nine Rescue Flights, which is a non-profit organization that fly’s down to kill shelters in the South, rescues the dogs, and fly’s them back up to non-kill shelters in the North.  We're flying buddies with the founder and Chief Pilot  and asked him for some assistance in finding a Frenchie that was looking for us too.

  Ted reached out to his contacts and within a day we had good leads.  We started our search on two websites:  The French Bulldog Rescue Network and the French Bulldog Village.  Both sites have lovely dogs that deserve a forever family and I just know they'd bring so many smiles to you and your family's faces.  We spent hours and hours reading bio's of these precious "Frogs" (as we learned they are sometimes called).  I'd walk in Beth's office to find a tear in her eyes after reading a tragic recount of a precious Bully's past life.  I wish we were in a position to rescue them all. 

About 12 hours into the search, we came upon a pretty little girl named Miss Eloise who was living in the Maryland/DC Metro area.  We both fell in love with her at first glance.  We read her bio, reread her bio, and then read it again.  I downloaded all of her pictures that were available on the site and began showing her off to everyone I knew and even some I didn't (if I had their email address in our computer).  She was perfect!  I filled out the online application, crossed my fingers, and pressed submit.  Beth and I sat together on the couch and reread her bio, looked at her pictures, and "saw" her playing happily there in the living room with us.  Soon it was time for bed and off we went.  "Good Night Little One, We're Coming Baby Girl".

The next afternoon, after we both finished work, Beth had gone downstairs to do one of those crazy P90X videos where she was kicking her legs up, punching the air, doing 600 pushups, and runnin' round with a Kettle-ball; I was havin' a glass of wine and watching the news.  My phone rang and the number wasn't familiar to me but I answered with a hello and heard the most beautiful words, "Shane, my name is Stacy and I'm calling about Miss Eloise".  My eyes teared up for joy and I lost my breath; I really did.  I tried to speak and ran downstairs to where Beth was and found her in some sort  of Lotus position with her left toe in her right ear or something.  She knew something was up and whatever it was, it was good.  Stacy and I talked for 20-30 minutes and I was grinning the whole time.  I'm sure the neighbors thought I had stuck a clothes hanger in my mouth with such a wide grin that I had on. The more Stacy told us about Miss Eloise, the more we fell in love with her.  Mind you that this was just an interview, but to Beth and I it was a sign that Miss Eloise was one step closer to coming home.

We ended our conversation and Beth and I fought each other to be first getting to the computer to look at this little baby girl again and blow kisses to her.  Beth won cuz she took her lotus foot and stuck it in my eye so I couldn't see which way to run.  Stacy had asked if I had any questions, but during the phone call I couldn't even remember my own name I was so excited!  Does she wear clothes, does she like treats, does she sleep in the bed, does she does she.... yes I had questions, tons of them once I regained a little sense.  "Do you think she'll like us", Beth and I asked each other almost in unison.  Sure she will, we'll make good parents to this little princess and she'll be very happy. 

Beth and I have each had dogs all our lives, but this would be the first one we'd have together.  Beth has had Labs, a ShitsYou, and Isabelle - her daughter Nicole’s' Corgi. I have had English Bulldogs, a German Shepherd, a Boston Terrier, and 2 Chow-Chow's.  We would make good parents and our Frog Princess would be spoiled.  Beth and I later discovered that we'd each been on the internet finding clothes and toys for her even though we didn't know her sizes and likes and dislikes.  We have them as spares, yeah that's it.  By bedtime, we'd ordered Miss Eloise a trench coat, a cheerleading outfit, a polo shirt, stairs (to get in bed), nylabones, leashes, harnesses, a blanket, and a Sunday School dress.   Had we lost it? 

Four months went by, ok ok,  3 days (but it felt like four months) went by and one evening we were sitting down watching My Name Is Earl and my phone rang. Another unknown number!?!?!?!  I answered the phone and this young lady said, "Hi Shane? My name is Christie and I work with the French Bulldog Rescue Network and I'd like to find out when I can stop by for a home visit for Miss Eloise?"  This meant that we'd made it further along in the selection process and I nearly shat a Polynesian Water Fowl!  "Uhm, TONIGHT!!!!!!".  She just giggled and suggested a few dates and times as to not conflict with work.  I was ready to take a month’s vacation if needbe .  Beth knew something was up by the fact that I was doing the "cabbage patch kid" dance in the living room and hoping that it couldn't be heard on the phone by Ms Christie. After nearly hyperventilating from excitement, we hung up and Beth and I wind sprinted back to the computer to reread Miss Eloise's bio and look and her pictures and send out a brand new batch of emails to all our friends and buddies on what had just happened.  We went online and bought some more clothes for her too!

"Honey, should we have the house painted, buy new furniture, plant some trees, put up new blinds, resod the yard?"  Beth had to remind me that our home is  new, our furniture is  new, we just finished painting the interior, we have a lovely garden and it really is kept very clean.  I had to chuckle when she brought me back to reality; perhaps I was just a little nervous.  "Uhm, what about Moses?"

During the Christmas Season, the "Trailer Park" (what we call us and all of our wonderful neighbors as a group) had a Chinese Pollyanna, and we each individually had to get a gift (up to $20.00) and put it in a pile. We'd then each draw a number and pick a present, open it, and wait for the next person to either "steel" it, or pick a new present from the pile.  We all had to laugh because when it was all said and done, we ended up with 5 Snuggies and a Fish, as well as a few other gifts.  I somehow got the pet fish and we collectively named it Moses.  I'd forgotten about "Moses" when I filled the application out and now I was wondering if I would be disqualified for failing to declare the existence of Moses, our pet Beta fish.  I would hide him in the woods when Ms Christie came!  SLAP!  Beth must have heard me thinking out loud and made me go apologize to Moses and then bathe him and then wash his bowl. 

When the day arrived for Ms Christie to come out, she called and asked if she could bring along a Foster Frenchie of hers named Hero.  We said “absolutely” and for the next 30 minutes, we peeked out of the blinds waiting for them to pull up.  When they arrived I nearly dove off the top stair rushing to the door.  Hero, Christie, and Josh (Christie’s Hubby)  came up the walkway and Beth and I were just beaming with excitement. Hero was too, as he peed on everything from the time he got out of the car till he got to my foot.  Bless his little heart, we learned that he had been paralyzed and didn't even realize he was tinklin'.  I didn't mind and wiped my foot on the back of Beth's pant leg when she wasn't looking.  SLAP!   Hero got a diaper put on him and inside we went.  You'd never know that he (Hero) had any issues whatsoever as he ran all over the place just as happy as he could be.  We were told that Hero himself isn't even aware that he has any disabilities either, which is a good thing.  We walked around the house and chatted back and forth with Christie and Josh.  Beth, the sane one, answered the majority of the questions while Hero and I played in the living room with a tennis ball.  Since Christie and Josh were Foster parents, I asked them if they were aware of the "Bark-Park" just down the road in the event they wanted to bring their Frenchies there.  They hadn't heard about it so after we finished with the home visit, we all rode down to the Bark-Park and hung out for a bit.  Hero hollered “Wazzzzzup” at some of the other dogs that were playing and they traded hello's and perhaps a few expletives too.  Christie, Josh, and Hero loaded up and headed home; Beth and I rushed back home, ran to the computer to reread Miss Eloise's bio, look at her pictures, email our friends, and buy her some more toys online. 

More months went by, SLAP!, I mean a few days went by and I couldn't stand it so I called Stacy back to see if she had any more interviews to conduct or if she'd heard anything else.  I guess she hadn't started receiving the unmarked $5.00 bills that I'd started sending to her and her Fiancé' to "assist" in making the choice as to who would be selected to become Miss Eloise's forever Mommy and Daddy, because she never mentioned it, nor the roses, concert tickets, plane rides, chocolates, dinner cards, etc.    You know I'm kiddin.         Maybe.

The decision hadn't been made yet and Stacy would be in touch when one was reached.  In the meantime, Stacy sent us some more pictures of the little Princess and said she was doing well and excited to soon be going to a forever home.  With no definitive word on if we'd been selected or not, I walked around the house pouting and decided to quit eating and bathing.  I was going to go on a one of them campaign's like when the sportscaster sits on top of a billboard and eats cheesettes for weeks until their team wins a playoff game or something.  Mine would be a little less dramatic though and I just stayed inside until I had to go to work.  Beth made me bathe and eat and then bathe Moses again and clean out his bowl.  I still wasn't gonna eat Cheesettes though.

The next Monday I was at work and had just finished conducting an energy management simulation on some of our operators when my phone rang showing "Miss Eloise's Mama" was calling.  I walked out into the hallway and nervously answered the phone with a "Hello Stacy".  "Shane, I just wanted to call you and give you some great news".  I must have gotten something in both my eyes,  cuz' they were both shedding tears so much I couldn't see.  I can't remember if I could even talk.  Stacy gave me the news although I'm not absolutely sure what she said as I was on Cloud 9.  She asked for suggestions on when we could meet and I offered to leave work right then to drive down to Maryland - although I knew that was unrealistic because everyone had to still work.  Stacy offered to meet in New Jersey at her Mom's house the following weekend since they would be up visiting.  Actually, I think both Stacy and her Fiancé' Ian (also a pilot, nice!) had been traveling for business and Stacy's Mom was caring for Miss Eloise.  The date was set and now all I had to do was keep myself occupied until that day came.  So we went online and reread Miss Eloise's bio, looked at her pictures, sent out more emails (many more), and bought her a raincoat. 

Meeting Day!

“It's Time to go Shugah”.  Beth opened her precious little eyes, looked at the 1:45 a.m. showing on the alarm clock and told me I was nuts, then promptly went back to sleep.  I hadn't slept a wink and knew I wouldn't be able too.  I went downstairs and put on some coffee, washed Moses and cleaned his bowl.  I rewashed Miss Eloise's bowls and put new bottled water in her water bowl.  I showered, reread Miss Eloise's bio, looked at her pictures, sent out some emails, checked the online map, programmed the GPS, then programmed another GPS, then decided to watch TV until it was time to leave.  There is nothing on except infomercials at 2:15 in the morning.  I drank my coffee then decided it was time to accidently wake up Beth so I stood just outside our bedroom door and started fake coughing.  Nothing.  Fake sneezing.  nope.  So I vacuumed the bedroom and then underneath our bed.  SLAP!  Uhm, Beth's wide awake now! SLAP! SLAPPEDY-SLAP!

It's 4:00 a.m. now and we're both watching the clock and the infomercials and drinking coffee.  "Do you think she'll like us" again we asked?  We knew we'd show her all the love she could handle and that child would never want for anything.  "What if we leave now and just drive slow"?  Beth knew that she had to remain the voice of reason, but I was already in the car with it running before she unrolled her eyes to see that I'd left the room.  We had prepared the back of the car with blankets and pillows and toys and clothes and food and water.  We stopped by the Wawa just up the road and bought another coffee and a breakfast hoagie.  Both were good and we headed East.  Our agreed on meeting time was 8:30 am, but the GPS indicated that we'd be in their driveway by 5:30 am.  I do hope there is a Duncan Donuts somewhere we can wait?  I slowed down took the scenic view right through the middle of Philly.  Perhaps I exaggerated our times a little, but at 7:45 a.m. we found ourselves parking in the Duncan Donuts parking lot just a couple of miles away from Miss Eloise, and her Mom, Dad, and Granny.  We were both so excited! 

When it was time, we drove the last 2 miles and as the GPS lady was hollering that "You Have Arrived At Your Destination", we saw the most precious site. Miss Eloise was being walked out front and her little under-bitten perfect face looked up and I swear I read her lips as she said "DADDY!".  I nearly strangled myself trying to get out of the car before unlatching the seatbelt.  Beth wouldn't let me leave the car in the middle of the street so I had to park it and then I was allowed to get out.  We both approached Miss Eloise with big grins and opened arms.  She was absolutely gorgeous.  Nothing about this child I would ever change.  We were in love.    Realizing that I'd been rude and not introduced ourselves, Beth and I exchanged hello's with Stacy and Ian, then we all headed back in to Stacy's Mama's beautiful home.  We met Stacy's Mom Cindy,  whom is also a wonderful lady, and we all sat as Beth and I got to know Miss Eloise.  They laughed as they told tales of this precious little angel and relayed how much joy she'd brought to them.  I honestly felt sad because I knew they would be after Beth and I left with Miss Eloise.  We learned that they had started calling her Ella and she'd responded well so that's what we call her now too.  I think we stayed for over an hour getting to know Ella and her Foster Family, and then got to the business end of the adoption.  Beth and I are really impressed with the great amount of care that goes in to fostering and rescuing Frenchies.  This is no backyard operation.  They are professional caring and loving people that run and participate in the French Bulldog Rescue Network and I'm very happy that they are this way.  We finished up the business side and then Beth and I went into the living room so Ella and her Foster Family could all say "until we meet again".  It was really sad for all of us and Beth and I quickly wiped our eyes before we were caught crying on the carpet.  Stacy's Mom brought out a big bag full of goodies for Ella and it was just so precious.  These are really really good people.  Not only did Stacy and Ian foster Ella, but they also rescued another French Bulldog a few years ago for themselves.  JoJo is a beautiful little pudgy Frenchie that is precious as well.  While Ella went for a walk with her Granny (Stacy's Mama), JoJo came out and gave Beth and I some kisses and thanked us for taking Ella so she could have her whole house back. haha  On another note, Ella’s Auntie Melanie wrote us a special letter describing the incredible Princess that we were adopting.  Beth and I thought it was very touching what she had written and promise to keep everyone updated with Ella’s adventures.

After hugs and tears and goodbye's, Ella, Beth and I loaded up the car and headed back home.  Ella sat in Beth's lap and never moved the entire way home.  She looked out the window and watched me each time I shifted gears.  We felt a little sad for her because we knew that she was probably very curious as to what was going on and where her Mommy, Granny, Daddy, and Grandpa were.  We promised that we'd send pictures, video's, and even phone calls. 

About 30 minutes from reaching home, the "Trailer Park" started calling Beth and I asking where we were and when we'd be home.  I guess all the pictures We'd taken and sent from my Blackberry told 'em we would soon be there.  We pulled up and everyone was there to meet Ella.  Ella has a fan club called FOME, for Friends Of Miss Eloise.  The Trailer Park loved her and each wanted to hold this little princess. 

View Full Album

We took her for a walk around to stretch her legs and potty after the long trip home.  After a few more minutes and more huggin' and kissin', we introduced Ella to her forever home.  She walked around cautiously at first, smelling every nook and cranny, and then as she got more comfortable, ran from floor to floor, room to room looking all around.  We made sure she knew where her bowls were and offered her food and water but she was too busy exploring.  We wanted her to know it was her house so we didn't get in the way.  Every now and again, we'd see her fly by and she was enroute to another corner, another sniff, another adventure.  She must have done this for an hour or more before she trotted back into the living room and looked out of the window at the passers by.  The grandfather clocked chimed and she tilted her head as she looked at it wondering what it was.

We wanted to let her decide when she wanted to come to us and play and cuddle and stuff so we patiently waited. I was going nuts inside because I wanted to hold her and cuddle her and give her kisses.  Beth did too of course, but she is much better at acting sane than I am.  Finally it happened,  Ella walked over to the sofa and jumped up on it and sat beside Beth.  She looked around for a sec and then laid down.  She was home.

Later in the afternoon we took Ella down to the Perkiomen Trail, which is a paved path that sits along the shoreline of the Perkiomen Creek.  We took the camera with us and also the GPS because I'd seen some geocaches in the immediate area that we'd be walking.  We strolled along the walkway and then the GPS pointed down a little unpaved pathway that led into the woods.  Ella was ready, Beth was ready, I was ready and away we went.  Beth was navigating, Ella was sniffalating, and I was as proud as can be of my two princesses beside me.  Beth and Ella were following the needle on the GPS and soon discovered the hidden treasure that we had been looking for.  Ella's first geocache (as far as we know).  Coincidentally, the geocache name was Dog Leg Canal.  We walked for another mile and then headed home after a long day.   

We cleaned her feet up from running in the dirt and then took her shopping for some more goodies at the Petsmart.  We got her a new Bling Bling name tag, 2 more sweaters, another set of stairs, some extra treats, and a couple more nylabones.  We didn't stay long because the entire Trailer Park wanted to come over to meet/greet Ella in the evening.  We have great neighbors!  Later, everyone started coming over and Ella was the life of the party.  With each new introduction, Ella got more toys and clothes and goodies and now has more assets than Beth and I combined! 

I'm guessing the get-together lasted until around 10pm and then it was time for bed.   Beth and I knew we'd offer the bed to her but weren't sure if she'd be comfortable or not so soon.  No word of a lie, Ella ran up the stairs, went to the top of the bed, pulled the covers back, climbed underneath them, popped her little head back out and laid it on the pillow.  We just stood there with our mouth's wide opened.  She is amazing!  We thought that was the funniest thing ever.  I took a picture of her on my Blackberry of her laying down.   Honest Abe, she did it just as I described and was unassisted in every way.  She didn't move the whole night and slept right between us. 

I can't wait to see what the next days will have in store for us.  We'll take plenty of pictures and video's and keep the blog updated with new events.  We'll be taking her flying soon and will  post a blog entry for that one too.

Ya’ll Be Particular and Rescue A Precious Pup soon!    Shane & Beth

Detroit, with the 398 nautical miles and Lake Erie between us, seemed so far away. This would be our fuel stop between Wings Field outside of Philadelphia, and Oshkosh Wisconsin. I’d flight planned longer distances before but always ended up settling for a closer fuel stop.  I figured the Viking Witch could make it but knew I couldn’t without a nature break. Usually I have to go just after takeoff and upon entering the clouds and IMC (instrument meteorological conditions) as my luck always works this way.  I did, however, elect to go to Detroit this time because I found an empty tequila mixer bottle that I could bring along to tinkle in just after departure.  I wasn’t sure what Beth was gonna do; but I hoped she brought a bottle for her too cuz she wasn’t gettin’ mine!  SLAP!  “Pee in your own cup woman!”  SULLLLAP!

Following my normal preparedness techniques, I began packing at 4:00 am on Saturday, July 25, 2009, which was 2 hours and forty minutes before we were to get airborne.  I had filed for an 0640 departure and between now and then I had to find the tent, the tent stakes, my clothes, the cooler for the Yuengling’s I’d bought, and my brand new Flight Cheetah FL190 weather receiving GPS tablet computer.  Beth had followed her preparedness technique as well and went shopping everyday beginning two weeks prior and bought everything, in every store, from here to New York City and back.  She bought clothes for all four seasons using a week’s stay at Oshkosh as an excuse for all the things she’d bought. She’s crazy SLAP!, but very beautifully dressed.  Honey, have you seen my credit card?  When we walked out to pack the car to go to the airport, we discovered that our neighbors car had been wrapped up with all the other neighbors newspapers.  We had to laugh as we watched folks coming out looking for their newspapers.  I’m telling you what, if you want an exciting life, come move in the whacky neighborhood we live in!  It’s entirely a fun time, all the time!  At least it wasn’t one of  ours this time. Our block is affectionately called the Trailer Park.

Armed with our brand new NexRad weather receiving GPS, off we went towards our first stop of Detroit. Although we overflew parts of Canada, we never saw it because we were right smack dab in the middle of the clouds. The ride remained very smooth and Beth was able to enjoy her Duncan Donuts coffee and muffin without interruption; I was able to get one (1) donut hole and a spoonful of coffee before departing because I knew I’d have to go; and did.  Soon, I had to ask Beth to take control of the airplane because I needed to aim into an empty tequila bottle and hope to not fill it.  We were in the clouds and on instruments and I quickly gave Beth the crash course (no pun intended) on instrument flying before giving her the controls so I could aim.  I could sense the airplane entering a right roll and now I’m aiming with one hand, holding the bottle with the other, throttling back with my right foot and rolling back to the left with my left foot while still watching my aim cuz it wasn’t about to “stop” on command.  Wings level, still peein’, and back on course – I finally finished and all was good.  I really need to send her to the Pinch Hitters course!  Just after leaving the shoreline at Erie, the GPS lost it’s mind and decided to shut itself off – along with the “weather awareness” it had been providing!  I was looking forward to evaluating the approach features of the new GPS but didn’t have time to reboot the thing and troubleshoot what had gone wrong before being cleared for the ILS 33 approach  in to Detroit.  We broke out of the clouds about 500 feet and the runway was right where I’d planned on it being – in front of us!  YAY. Four hours and 6 minutes after takeoff and we were on the ground and I had just completed my longest leg ever in the Viking Witch, N8388W.  
There are two fuel facilities at Detroit. One is owned by the city and is a self-service pump that sells aviation 100LL fuel and the other is an FBO (Fixed Based Operator) named Signature that has fuel trucks that will come and fill up your tanks for you.  The self service pumps have no on-field employees there to assist you. Signature has several very nice employee’s and one wicked witch of Detroit Michigan. Ho! SLAP! Ho! SLAP! After landing we taxied over to the self-service fuel because the price of the fuel was half that of which Signature was selling theirs for.  We filled up and instead of getting our flight plan clearance for the flight from Detroit to Oshkosh, we decided to taxi over to the Signature parking area so Beth could use the ladies room; I had already gone in the weeds so I was good.  After parking, a Signature fuel dude drove up to see if we needed anything. I told him we just wanted to run in to use the restroom and he smiled, pointed the way, and bid us a safe journey to Oshkosh.  All was good.  As soon as we walked in to the terminal, the Ho! SLAP! Ho! SLAP! lady yelled that I “owed” her $28.50 for services.  “What services”, I asked.  She demanded, “Well Who Parked You!!!!?”  I did, I replied.  “Well, Who Filled Your Gas Tanks!!!!!!!!?”  I did that too, I replied.  She then said again that I owed her $28.50 for services and I let her know quite loudly that I didn’t owe her anything and I was absolutely prepared to discuss that with her manager or whomever else she wanted to call.  Beth finished and as we were walking out, the Ho! SLAP! Ho! SLAP! lady said “Well, be sure to stop here on the way back from Oshkosh for fuel since she let me “slide” this time.  I laughed AT her and said whatever. 
During all this time there had been another pilot paying for his fuel and watching the whole show of this lady riding her broom stick around the terminal building.  He stopped me before getting in the plane and asked how much I’d paid for my fuel.  When I told him and he realized that I’d paid less than half of what he paid, he said he’d never be back to their again either.  We chatted for a little bit and discovered that we were both from Southeast Pennsylvania, less than 12 miles apart. He is from Doylestown Pennsylvania and is the owner of Underwater World (a SCUBA shop); I also SCUBA dive so he’s definitely a good guy. “Mike” is also the owner of a really nice Piper Arrow.   What a small world huh?

The Flight Cheetah FL190 had been rebooted and all appeared normal.  We’re flying along V510 from Muskegon Michigan to Falls VOR in Wisconsin, right about the middle of the lake.  The altitude on the GPS shows 8440 and we had just started our descent out of 10,000 feet.  We could hear a little bit of traffic on the radio but since the actual event wasn’t starting until Monday, there was still a lot of aircraft that hadn’t left to come out to Oshkosh yet.  The picture below shows Oshkosh as we approach from the East.  We would be parking down on the left side of this runway (runway 27).  See how open it is on the right side of the runway.  That whole area would be full by Sunday night!  We broke out of the weather after descending through 3400 feet and cleared for the approach in to Oshkosh.  We were cleared to land runway 27 on the Green Dot and soon we were on the ground.  We were at OSH!

For my pilot and controller buddies, our clearances were as follows: 

I nailed the Green Dot with the main gear touching down right in the center of the green circle, slowed down a bit and turned off the runway into the grass and began following the marshallers that would be directing us to our parking spot.  The marshallers are all volunteers that come in to see the airshow too.  They volunteer their time for a day while they are there and are taught a job for that day.  It sounds really fun to do and I think one day we’ll volunteer too.  I hope Beth doesn’t get a plane director’s role because there will no doubt be a traffic jam!  SLAP!  I can see the headlines now “Crazy Woman Causes Pile Up At The Oshkosh Aircraft North 40 Campground”, SULLLLAAAAAAP! Like Stevie Wonder shootin’ skeet; everybody would be running in different directions! SLAP! About the time I earned that arsh whoopin, it started to rain!

We still had to set up the tent, find ice for the beer, unpack Beth’s shoes, SLAP!, find something to eat, and do it all in umbrella’s and poncho’s!  Lucky for us, the rain only lasted about 10 minutes and it took us that long to taxi to our camping spot.  There were airplanes everywhere and it was only Saturday – 2 days before anything started; except of course the drinking!  As we were taxiing to our spot, Mother Nature presented us with a beautiful rainbow.  This would be a recurring gift from the HO! SLAP! because she would make it rain Saturday through the morning of Tuesday.
We got the tent set up before the sun went down and I was able to get a few photo’s of some of the planes in our immediate area.  We found out quickly that one of our neighbors to the right of us was also from Doylestown.  It’s pretty wild meeting two people out of 800,000 in attendance that live right down the road from you.   

The Viking Witch Below (From the Front & Back). The GAC in the windows stands for General Aviation Camping so the marshallers would know where to direct our taxi. 

Finally we got the tent set up and Beth’s shoes inside.  Beth spent the next hour and 1/2 setting up the inside with all the “roughing it” gear we’d brought along to include a Koehler faucet, chest of drawers, closet, vanity mirror & lighting, dirty clothes basket, air mattress, sheets, and space pillows.  I’d have settled for a sleeping bag on the grass and a stick to brush my tooth.  I didn’t mention it to her yet, that during setting up of the tent, I kinda, sorta, perhaps split one of the poles that holds the whole tent up.  I knew if the wind blew, the tent was going to collapse so I was going to sleep on the East side of the tent – furthest away from the possible fall line.  Even more so, if it rained and was windy and collapsed, I’d not get wet or clobbered by a falling tent. Yay!  SLAP!


There would end up being over 11,000 smaller aircraft and 800,000 folks in attendance for Oshkosh Air Venture 2009.

We spent the rest of the afternoon meeting the neighbors and then went over to Friar Tuck’s Pub, which was just outside the airport fence, and had dinner and the local beer.  I guess we were more exhausted than we realized because just after 7:00 PM CST, we found ourselves almost falling asleep in our plates and both appeared to be in a daze from the “prop lag” that we must have been experiencing. 

We paid the check and walked outside just in time to see the 2nd rainbow of the day. We could hear it storming outside as we were eating and kinda waited until it settled down.  As we were standing outside waiting for it to totally quit raining, we ran into our Doylestown SCUBA buddy, Mike, again.  We chuckled at how slim the chances were that we’d run into each other again amidst the hundreds of thousands of people already there. 

A few minutes later we walked back over to the airport and around the runway’s edge towards our tent.  Each one of these trips we would make on foot was over a mile each way so we’d end up walking and jogging almost 37 miles during the week.  We have the Garmin GPS watches that we use for jogging so we knew the 37 miles was accurate and since I was exercising so much I’d get to drink more beer!  YAY.  

Sunday morning came early and after almost 10 hours of sleeping, I woke up to the sound of sprinkle on the tent ceiling and Beth shrieking at the fact that her side of the tent had somehow collapsed and soaked her sleeping bag! hehe SLAP SLAP SLAP!.  I acted like I was still sleeping while Beth “discovered” the numerous holes that we apparently have in our tent.  I’m not sure how they got there but we’d let the youngens borrow the tent a time or two so they must have drove stakes through the tent. Little turds!  SLAP! I’m gonna shave the boys head when I see him.  After Beth dried the tent out and got all of her shoes elevated enough to not get wet from the small stream that ran through the West side of the tent, we grabbed our toiletries and walked up towards the showers that were 1/2 mile up the taxiway.  Beth is lucky she’s a girl (me too) because there are only about 1/20th the amount of women at Oshkosh so the ladies showers were a lot less packed than the fella’s showers.  There are 32 showers on each side and there is probably never less than 50 dudes in line to wash their parts.  On the outside of the entire shower building there are numerous wall plugs so you can charge your phone, camera, and aviation scanner, oh and the ladies hair dryers.  The entire community of folks there seem to be quite honest as nobody seems to worry about the expensive gear they leave plugged into the outlets whilst they go shower.  That’s a nice feeling to know that there are so many honest people out there; many more than we probably realize.  After everything was washed, teeth brushed, whiskers shaved and hair dried, we walked back over to the tent to drop off our shower stuff and then began our long walk, 2 miles this time, to Target and Starbucks.  There was a shuttle bus that ran back and forth to Target, but it wouldn’t start until Monday – the official start date of EAA Air Venture.  We picked up a few things from the store and also got a large cup of coffee.  Oh, I was able to get a big bag of ice for the cooler and even managed to get it back over to the tent before most of it melted.  I learned a 20 pound bag of ice weighs a helluva SLAP! lot more than 20 pounds after carrying it for 2 miles. After feeling came back to my arms and the beer was on ice, we grabbed our breakfast that we’d bought, chairs, camera, scanner, and coffee and walked over to the runway to watch the conga line of aircraft arriving at Oshkosh.  Although there are tower air traffic controllers “in” the tower, there are also a bunch of controllers on trailers beside each runway where they are also controlling arriving aircraft too. 

View Full Album

The wind had continued to be as strong as it was the day before at around 18 knots with gusts to 28.  Fortunately, the direction from which it came was within 30 degrees of heading right down the runway so most pilots were able to land without too much dancing down the runway.  There were a few that did go around to try again; which was the safest move for them to do.  I’m glad they didn’t think they “had” to land with so many folks sitting along the runway watching. That peer pressure has no doubt been a contributing factor to many of mishaps in the past.  We sat and watched arrivals for a few hours and recorded some of it. 

Click on the “play” button to hear a couple of minutes of air traffic controllers working the arrivals in to Runway 27.  Here is the Arrival Procedure the aircraft were following. Remember, the show hadn’t even started yet, so these controllers weren’t even busy yet.  During the peak arrival period, the controllers would work for about 20 minutes before being relieved by another controller.  After a couple of days, we’d start to recognize voices and new which ones were good and which ones were, uhm, less gooder.  That’s when we’d all get together and watch the airshow!  Nobody scratched paint although sometimes we weren’t sure how!  

It was recommend that we take the free shuttle over to the Oshkosh Museum, so we walked over to the bus stop and caught the shuttle to the Oshkosh Museum that we honestly didn’t even know existed.  We were certainly happy we did go over as this is a really fun place to visit.  Lot’s of aircraft on display, movies playing all the time, helicopters rides in progress, and a huge store filled with goodies.  They even have a full motion simulator. I tried to get Beth to go in it, but unfortunately SLAP! she saw it in action and realized it went upside down.  I can’t fathom the arsh whoopin SLAP! I’d have gotten if I’d been able to get her in that thing and did a barrel roll or two!   We spent a couple of hours there at the museum and then caught the bus back over to the vendor area to have a look around at what would be open during the week.

The bus park is only a couple of hundred feet from the main show area which is situated just West of the Tower. There are four large hangers and tons of other displays from each aircraft, avionics, and gadget company aviation and/or speed related.  I say speed because there were boats, race cars, motorcycles, and souped up golf carts all around.  The vendors were still setting stuff up but we were able to find something to eat for lunch and a place to sit.  Here is one of the “speed” things we came upon while walking around. I had to splice this picture together as it was too big (and not enough room behind me) to get the whole truck and trailer in one picture.  Those are jet exhausts just behind either side of the cockpit.  We saw later that the truck cap lifts up and two wide screen displays come up from each side of the bed and plays jetboat.

We walked around for a bit longer looking at all the setup activity going on and then headed for the aircraft parking area to look at the various aircraft that people flew in.  There were probably already 4,000 aircraft on the field at this time and everyone was busy setting up their campsite, polishing up their aircraft, watching the arrival airshow, or watching everyone else do those things too, as we were.  By the time we got back though, the thunder clouds had moved back in and rain was threatening to come down upon us once more.  Beth barely got inside the tent before the bottom fell out of the clouds and thinking quickly I turned around and told her I was going to restroom.  Why?  Because I knew once the tent started leaking she would be losing her mind SLAP! and there was no way that I wanted to be within striking SLAP! distance and in an confined area during crazy time!  After running over to the porta-potty, I stopped back by the neighbors who were out standing underneath their wing drinking Southern Comfort on the rocks. Not wanting to be a bad neighbor, I quickly accepted the offer of one for me too.  An hour and 25 minutes later, I saw Beth down the row of airplanes with a flashlight calling me by name.  She must have thought I’d got lost and came out of the tent and turned left to go look for me.  If she’d have turned right, she would have found me one plane over with another Southern Comfort on the rocks in hand.  I knew I was in big trouble so I just giggled while I could SLAP!. 
Having not eaten in an hour of so, everyone started talking about dinner and where everybody else was going.  We ended up going as a group to this little kitchen right across the street from the airport that was a secret to all besides the locals.  We walked up, waited for a couple of booths, and proceeded to have an awesome home cooked meal that was fantastically delicious.  We all agreed that we’d be back to this place again and with full belly’s, we all headed back towards the airport and the North 40 tent city.  There was an opening night celebration back at the “theater in the woods” so Beth and I walked all the way back past the main event area and took our seats just as the guest speaker was coming on stage. Dennis E. Fitch walked out and looked at the crowd for a moment.  When he began speaking, there wasn’t a sound being made.  See, Dennis was the instructor pilot who was riding (deadheading) back to his home base aboard the ill-fated DC-10 over 20 years ago that crashed in Sioux City.  Dennis wasn’t in the cockpit when the trouble started, but certainly had a major part of lessening the loss of life on that plane.  His recount of the incident took an hour and we all gave him our undivided attention.  I’m really happy we were able to listen in.  Afterwards, we walked back in the dark towards our campsite.  It was late when we reached our tent so we wished everyone a good night and went in for the night.  As I lay on my dry side of the air mattress, SLAP! I was nice and shared the covers that she’d shared with me and we slept soundly until the next morning. 

We woke up Monday morning to the sound of aircraft engines running.  The field opens up at 6:00 am for departures and arrivals an hour or so later.  I found it odd that folks were already leaving but learned later that many flights come in on Saturday like we did, and then during the week will go on short flights to surrounding areas for sight seeing and then return to fly the conga line Ripon-Fisk arrival back into the airport.  We watched a few departures then Beth had a terrible idea and made me get dressed to go running.  I threw myself at the ground to fake an injury and tripping, but it was soggy and now I was just wet, muddy, and standing there in my shorts & running shoes dripping.  Damn! SLAP! We must have run a couple of hundred miles around the airport even though my GPS only said less than 4 but I’m thinking it was in err since it wasn’t calibrated for Oshkosh terrain (Beth is looking at me like I’m crazy and reminds me that there is no such thing as calibrating for Oshkosh terrain).  Whatever; she’s crazy and I’m not.  SLAP!  After barely pulling together the strength to go and shower, shave, and SLAP!, we headed over to the Target and Pick and Save to get coffee and a muffin and probably lots of stuff we didn’t need.  We’re good at that; we’ll go in for Q-tips and come out owning most of the store. Sl……. (she knows it true so she just warmed up a little).  I was starting to come to life right around 8:00 am when we got back from grocery shopping and walked over to the main vendor displays.  John Deere is one of the sponsors and there are bunches of John Deere Green Tractors pulling everyone around the airport in wheeled trolley’s.  Each tractor has a driver of course, but there is also a “volunteer” that sits in the very back of the trailer and hollers at people for sticking their arms out the window or climbing over the seats and being bad in general.  They also get to holler at the driver when it appears safe to drive away from the loading and unloading zone so they are given their own microphone and loudspeaker.  You know I’m volunteering for that role one day.  “Lady with the Blue Hair,  Please Sit Down!”  SLAP! I’m all over it!  If they let me drive a tractor we’re going off-roading until they catch me.

We walked over to the ultralite area and got to watch a bunch of cool aircraft that were doing their own little airshow. Many of them were home made, some one-of-a-kind, and some didn’t even have sides – just bars.  Very cool and I know I would love to have a coupla-three of them too. There are certain restrictions on the aircraft to allow them to participate in certain “categories” of aircraft. Each category has its own set of rules to live by including weight, speed, fuel capacity, and a few other particulars.  I saw that there would be a presentation the following morning entitled “Introduction to Powered Paragliders”. I would absolutely be attending that one for sure as I want to learn how to pilot the powered paragliders and fly around the backyard for a bit. We stayed for a while and then headed for the center of the vendor area as it was time for a bite to eat and a look at the homebuilt composites. I figured lunch would be about as expensive as movie theater meals.  I was right.

About the same time we left the ultralites, a large flock of aircraft flew overhead and around the surrounding towns leaving a trial of smoke behind.  They kept a nice tight and clean formation throughout their demonstration.  There was also a four ship that screamed by in front of them and entered a midfield break for the overhead pattern – smoke on the whole time as well.  I was listening in to my scanner and heard a controller giving traffic on White Knight II so we boogied up to the flightline quickly to watch the arrival of the space delivery vehicle called White Knight II. We had heard it was coming in today and the first glimpse we got of it really looked cool and showed a very odd looking twin tailed aircraft. 

 
What a cool aircraft.  The theory is, they attach a spacecraft in the center of the wing and carry it to a high altitude where the spaceship then starts it’s engines, and blasts off in to space.  It looks like such a fragile aircraft but the word is, it’s terrifically strong!  It would be my luck to have the left side shoot off to the left somewhere and the right, to the right.  Actually, the cockpit is on the right and the windows on the left are actually only painted on and don’t  really exist at all.  We watched the arrival show by the WhiteKnightII for a few minutes and then started looking at some of the aircraft parked all about the airport. 

View Full Album

So many cool aircraft were in every direction we looked.  The new Army Medical Helicopter and the cool looking Duetsche Push/Pull Prop, and Duggy (a/k/a Daisy by the crazy one, SLAP! ) the yellow smiley faced DC3. The official airshow hours are between 3:30 – 6:30 CST but with the awesome amount of arrivals and departures, its pretty much an airshow all the time.  It was getting later in the afternoon and the beer had been on ice for quite some time so it was time to go have a swaller or two to make sure it hadn’t gone off.  It didn’t. 

We noticed that the clouds were starting to build again and so I grabbed another beer. I had a great idea that if it rained hard, I’d wash the plane using the rain water to rinse her off, so I had another beer.  I prepped my washing supplies so I had a washing glove on one hand, wash soap sitting on the tail, I was wearing a $1.47 poncho that I bought from the Wal-Mart, and grabbed another beer in my other hand.  When I heard Beth holler that the tent was leaking SLAP! I knew it was time to start washing.  I squirted some soap on my glove and started washing like a crazy girl on the price is right.  I was able to get about 2/3s of the plane washed before the rain became a drizzle and not quite enough to rinse her off sufficiently.  I had bought two gallon sized water jugs but used them to finish rinsing off the suds instead of trying to finish up.  I knew it would rain again so I’d have more opportunities to wash her nose off before departing for Wings Field later in the week. By the time I got everything put away, it was time for another beer and the sun was getting way low on the horizon.  We walked back over to Friar Tucks for a great fish sammich and local wheat beer.  Both were delish and filled our bellies.  The field closes to arrivals at 8:00 pm, so the walk back to the tent was quiet of aircraft engines, but all throughout the camp, I could hear other crazy women SLAP! hollering about the rain water soaking their sleeping bags and clothes. I’m so glad that I brought plenty of clothes right honey?  Honey? SunuvaSLAP! I swear I saw a grin in her eyes when she relayed that it didn’t appear that the pile of boxers she’d reminded me to pack actually got packed in my bag that I was responsible for packing.  I knew it was gonna be an early morning because I was bringing my shorts with me to the showers and I was gonna take over the place to get some clean drawers! SLAP!

Tuesday morning did in fact come early and by 5:45, I had already washed me and my drawers in the shower facility and had them drying on the prop.  I knew it would take a while for them to dry so my plan was to get over to the show area as quickly as possible so everyone wouldn’t see the hillbilly who owned them.  I wasn’t too worried though, because Beth didn’t know that I had hung them out so she was just hanging out and everybody around us thought she’d done it and she was the lil redneck girl.  hahaha!  Lil Red!  SLAP! ouch.  Today was going to be a way cool day.  The A380 would be arriving, we’d get to see a helicopter do loops, and we were be going over to the sea plane base for a look at their operations.  First stop:  The Seaplane Base!

In order to to get to the sea plane base, we had to take a bus as it was about 5 miles away down country roads with live wild dogs, snakes, and crazy people.  The lake is only 1 mile short of Rwy 27 approach end, but the seaplane base is offset to the South a bit.  The seaplane base has quite a few vendors set up too. Mostly there are seaplane salesman, float vendors, and a bunch of life preserver dudes selling their latest models. 

View Full Album

The bus ride took about 10 minutes and dropped us off by the edge of the woods.  We could hear stuff going on down a trail so everyone on the bus became lemmings and followed the first dude in the line.  Glad he didn’t take a wrong turn.  About 1/4 of a mile down the trail, the woods opened up into a beautiful cove along the shoreline.  There were seaplanes everywhere! I could smell corn on the bbq and it smelled delish!  BTW, that’s the only way we eat it!  Soak corn in water (under water is best) for about an hour while it’s still inside the shuck.  Don’t cut any shuck off!!!!!  After it soaks for an hour, throw it straight on the grill just like that and roll it over after 10 minutes and cook it for 10 on the new side.  It’ll be hot when you shuck it now, but it’ll also be the best corn you’ve ever eaten!  Nice! Anyway, sure enough there was bbq’ing corn and burgers and dawgs and taters.  We walked around for about an hour looking at all the planes and watching a few take off and land on/from the water.  It’s really neat to see.  We looked at the booths that were setup and they were lots of water-related “stuff” as expected.  Click on the pics to see them up close. We got smart before we left for the seaplane base and filled up a small cooler with ice, water, fruit, sammiches, cheese curds, snap peas, and chocolate.  It was just after 11:30 am by the time we finished walking around so we sat down at a picnic table and unpacked our big lunch and ate and ate and ate.  We finished up with some fresh fruit and headed back to the bus stop to get back to the airport in time for the A380 arrival.  We barely made it!

After jumping off the bus and trotting over to the trolley, we were enroute to the flight line when we saw a huge thing hanging in the sky.  It was, of course, the arriving A380 in slow flight.  It appeared just to hang there in the sky but was actually probably moving over 150 miles an hour, at a minimum. They would be giving tours in this heffer and yes, I’d be standing in line to go aboard.

We weren’t close enough to the runway to see it actually land, but apparently, it was a very VERY hard landing and the pilot pretty much flew the aircraft into the runway and the wings bent quite a long ways down and there were a lot of post landing inspections that had to be completed over night.  If you look on YouTube, you can probably find a video of it if you search for A380 Oshkosh.  I saw the video and it was kinda surprising that they pretty much crash landed.  We watched it taxi in to parking and soon heard the crackle of the intercom announcing the beginning of the airshow!  First up, the Red Bull Helicopter!

View Full Album

This dude is crazy.  I’ve never seen a helicopter do what this fella could do with it.  Very graceful in flight and he did maneuvers that put g’s on the rotor blades.  I was definitely impressed.  Here’s a whole album of just his show.  Click on any one of the pics to bring up larger views.  During the show he was taking questions and providing answers as he did loops and rolls.  Really a great show! We stayed on the flightline of runway 36, which was the airshow active runway, for about two hours and then headed back to the tent to get ready for dinner, drinking, and watching/listening to the arrival train of hundreds of aircraft that were in holding outside of the towers airspace.  Every afternoon about 30 minutes before the airport reopens (after the airshow ends), airplanes start showing up at holding points Southwest of Oshkosh airport.  It is quite fun to watch the conga line trek its way to the airport.  We have a scanner that we listen to and watch all the aircraft react to the instructions that the tower is giving to them.  If you missed the short 2 minute audio up top, have a listen, it’s pretty cool!

We filled up the cooler, grabbed the chairs and camping table, scanner and sunglasses and headed out to the runway’s edge of runway 27, which would be the arrival runway for the daily arrivals of aircraft into Oshkosh.  As the aircraft land and exit the runway, there are a bunch of volunteers waiting along side of the runway that I was telling you about earlier.  The “topgun” marshallers get to ride mopeds around the field and “taxi” the aircraft to their parking spots.  It’s quite busy and you can see in the picture to the right that the moped dude ain’t watching where he’s going so it must be a lady driver SLAP!SLAP!SLAP!SLAP!.  JUST KIDDING.  He intercepted this aircraft and directed him to parking just 3 planes down from where we were.   Beth wants to drive one of these mopeds next year and all I can say is I’m glad I’ll already be parked when she starts directed running aircraft!  SLAP! 

After the arrival of aircraft ended for the day, we walked back over to the tent and sat outside for a bit and laughed and cut-up and told story’s with the neighboring aircraft owners.  It was fun and we made some good friends. Speaking of which, each day dozens of presentations, how-to classes, workshops, and seminars took place on a multitude of topics dealing with everything from building aircraft to interpreting the weather.  There were a bunch of topics in between as well, like Aerial Photography. We wanted to attend this class and gained some good information from the presentation.  Coincidentally, one of our North 40 tent neighbors we met is a professional pilot and actually owns his own aerial photography business, http://www.americanaerialphotos.com.  Real nice fella and full of laughs. Beth, Dick, and I went to breakfast together the following morning over at the Hilton just outside the perimeter fence of the airport.  I think I asked him 11, 428 questions about photography and airborne picture taking.  We love to take photos of our journeys and any pointers we can get helps us that much more.  Dick  is also putting together a training course that teaches not only the fun part of his business (snapping photos), but the necessary part as well - the business end.  He's good people and we hope to see him again at a future Oshkosh.

Going Home Early

There are weather briefers at various locations around the airport. These are manned by meteorologists and they provide pilots with current and forecasted weather patterns and such.  The weather along our route from Oshkosh to Wings Field in Philadelphia wasn't going to be pretty over the next few days but our best chance of a no thunderstorms flight would occur on Thursday.  We had planned on leaving Friday because we wanted to attend our neighbors wedding on Saturday; same neighbors whom caused us to become volunteer fire fighters last Superbowl Sunday.  Anyway, the weather patterns indicated a better flight day to be Thursday so we made plans to return a day early and make a long weekend out of it back at home. 

Since today would be our last day at Oshkosh, we wanted to make the best of it so we walked around looking at everything we could take in.  We spent a lot of time in each of the four large vendor hangers looking at all the neat stuff that was coming out.  Things like inexpensive HUDs (Heads Up Displays) for general aviation, IR technologies, NVG's (Night Vision Goggles), and other cool video gear that enables you to see the airport in pitch black conditions.  Lots of airplane parts, paints, and procedures as well.  I could have stayed in there all day but didn't want to miss that other stuff left to be seen.

Tours were being giving in the Airbus A380 so Beth and I headed up to get in line and get our chance for a peek inside.  Ironically, the A380 pilot had flown the world’s smallest twin engine aircraft in to Oshkosh 20 years ago and had now flown the world’s largest passenger aircraft in this year.

One thing that I was surprised about was the fact that most of the interior of the airplane was open with wires and stuff hanging out.  Once explained though, it made sense.  The A380 is still not "in production" if you will.  Numerous tests are still being completed and several configurations of test gear are shuffled between flights.  There are large water buckets to simulate the weight of passengers in each row with only a few real seats strewn about.  Actually, the seats are for the testers and not representations of what the real seating will look like.  The tour started on the top floor and we worked our way to the back of the aircraft, down a wide staircase, then back towards the front.  The cockpit was closed to visitors but I was able to take a picture of a picture to give you an idea of what was behind the doors. It was pretty impressive and makes me wonder how the B787 will compare. 

View Full Album

Afterwards, we decided to mosey back to the tent and begin packing up our stuff.  We would get as much ready as possible and pack what we could in order to leave around 8:00 am.  I had filed an IFR flight plan and had reserved a departure slot for the same time. If departing VFR (visually), we wouldn't need a slot time and could simply follow the marshallers out to the runway, wait for clearance for takeoff, and then head east - however the (forecasted) weather wouldn't allow for that so we filed IFR (instruments).  By the time we finished packing what we could, the Viking Witch looked like Sanford and Sons truck with all sorts of stuff crammed in. It's a good thing we had the chairs we never took out!  SLAP! Dick had already packed up (he didn’t have the chairs and shoes to deal with, SLAP! ) and headed back home and our immediate neighbors Rob and Bob, whom I had had a swaller of Southern Comfort on the rocks with were packing up too.  Rob owns a Cherokee that is also parked at Wings (we didn’t know each other prior to Oshkosh), and Bob owns a beautiful V-Tailed Bonanza. 

After most everything that could be packed up was packed up, we headed over for a bite to eat, a sip of local beer, and then off to bed for an early rise.

Thursday Morning.  “Honey, it’s raining”.  We woke up early and went and showered while the line was still short so it wouldn’t take so long to get ready to get airborne.  Afterwards, we caught the bus over to the Pick & Save to get some Cheese Curds for our buddies Annette & Allison & Brandon & Rob and ice for the cooler to keep them from spoiling.  I was beginning to worry about making our slot time, but there weren’t a lot of people and traffic out since it was raining, foggy, and reduced visibility.  We got everything back to the plane and packed in the cooler before taking down the tent to put on board the plane.  I’m not sure how we did it, but we got all the shoes, makeup, hairspray, blankets, pillows, snacks, and necessities aboard the Viking Witch and was still able to close the door. tap tap tap.  Rob and Bob got airborne just a few minutes before we did and were headed south to Chicago before heading East towards Philadelphia. 

I couldn’t believe it but the weather broadcast was stating the field was under VFR (visual) flight conditions.  I called Clearance Delivery and picked up my IFR clearance to Ashtabula Oh, which is just outside of Erie Pennsylvania by 10 miles.  The controller told me not to start engines yet and to wait for her call because Milwaukee was delaying departures due to weather.  Five minutes later I called back and got another 15 minute delay.  This happened twice more and then I asked if I could keep my IFR open, but depart VFR and pick up the actual clearance overhead Lake Michigan.  The controller did some coordinating and approved my request.   I immediately cranked up the engine and we began taxiing at the direction of the Marshallers and was soon airborne.  My IFR request had delayed us by an hour while my VFR request got us airborne in less than 5 minutes from the time we started taxiing. 

After getting airborne we turned to the North until leaving the tower’s airspace before turning back to the East and starting a climb up to 7500 feet.  We weren’t able to climb straight to altitude because we left under visual rules and it would be our responsibility to see and avoid other aircraft and to remain clear of clouds.  As soon as we received our instrument clearance we would then be allowed to enter the clouds.  We dodged clouds and other aircraft for about 40 miles and then in the center of Lake Michigan on V510 I called Muskegon approach and received our IFR (instrument) Clearance.  We descended to 7000 and immediately entered the clouds to not see the ground again until 10 miles off-shore of Lake Erie descending into Ashtabula County airport.

After landing in Ashtabula, I taxied up to the fuel “pit” to the self-service pump and stopped short to allow another Piper in front of me to finish fueling his aircraft. “Honey, isn’t that your Scuba friend from Doylestown?” No Way!  Sure enough, it was and completely unplanned.  This is the same fella we had met up with in Detroit and again at Friar Tucks. We had to chuckle a bit and then laugh at the slim chances that could have happened yet again. After Mike departed, I pulled the Viking Witch over and filled her tanks, than pulled her over to the main parking area and tied her down.  We’d filled up the cooler with sammiches and waters for the trip home and now we enjoyed lunch and stretched our legs a little bit before jumping back in the plane to continue our trip home.  That leg had lasted 3.6 and covered just under 400 miles.

The weather was showing signs of higher ceilings to the East so I never did call for my next clearance and instead elected to fly the last 2 hours VFR with flight following by the air traffic controllers.  We took off and began a climb up to 7500 feet to take advantage of the 25 knot tailwinds that were up there.  We still had to dodge the clouds and we did so by dancing between, above, and below them (ahem, while still maintaining separation requirements).  It was a smooth and fun ride home.

We were almost able to fly directly to Wings but you can see the occasional jaunt to the left to avoid the clouds.  After we contacted the controllers, they requested we climb to 9500 to avoid an arrival corridor so we did and gained another 5 knots of tailwind.  Soon the Philadelphia skyline came into view and a few short minutes later we were on final to runway 24 at Wings.  The cargo area had a full load and I was able to aero-brake like a fighter jet and kept the nose off the ground for 2000 feet down the runway; even got an “attaboy" by a Citation taxiing out for departure. It took us about an hour to unload everything, but we finally did then tied down and covered the Viking Witch and headed home.  All in all, a wonderful trip and I know we’ll go again.  Looking forward to it! 

We met a bunch of really neat folks and hope to see them again too.  As Oshkosh 2010 approaches, we’ll have to start coordinating to meet up at Friar Tucks for a beer.  Last one there buys! 

Ya’ll be safe and call your mama’s and tell ‘em you love ‘em.  Be Particular. 

We’re almost ready to depart for OshKosh 2009, the Worlds Largest Airshow lasting from July 24 – Aug 2, 2009.  Here is our tentative schedule of events that we’ll be having a look at.  It’ll probably change 27 times before and after we get there.  When we return, I’ll be sure and post a journal about the trip.

Smooth Skies!

We took a quick flight today and had the camera sitting in the back seat recording our flight. Hope you enjoy it! 

For our flight, we took off of Wings and the shot a touch and go up at Pottstown Limerick Airport. Next we flew over to Butter Valley for a touch and go and nearly got taken out by a golf cart, then down to Morgantown to look at the Paragliders and then back home.  Initially I had just the arrival video in to wings, but I was able to get the departure from wings, arrival into Pottstown, arrival in to Butter Valley, and arrival back to wings.  The quality is a little reduced to avoid the file getting toooooo large.  Hope you enjoy it.   I do have higher quality footage that I can publish is smaller chunks, so just lemme’ know if this is too small.  The temperature today was about 74 and gorgeous. After Beth made me go to the gym this morning and go through an aerobics class after running 118 miles, I finally put my foot down (from across the room) and demanded we go flying.  I won!  Yay

Ya’ll Be Particular!

Good Morning and Happy Valentines Day Ladies.  Fella’s, yer on yer own! 

Yesterday after I got home from work, I came in the house limping, using a cane, and wearing a sad bulldog face.  Beth took one look at me and her eye-brows drawed up next to one another at sharp angles and gave me the “GET YOUR GYM BAG” look and I knew that I wouldn’t win.  She took my wrapping paper cardboard tube roller upper onner cane, and threw it away and pinched me by the ear and marched me upstairs to get my gym clothes.  I then faked a phone call as I discussed project time lines and the budget.  All was going well until the dad-gum phone rang when I was supposed to be talking on it and I was busted.  Instead of waiting around to be counseled and beat about the legs, I ran down the stairs and out into the street where everyone could see me and come to my assistance should crazy lady follow me out of the house. 

We did go to the damn SLAP! gym and although I was playing it off, I could tell all the other crazy ladies there were talking about tomorrow (today) and all.  I acted like I was completely oblivious to what national holiday was coming up and went about my business of using up more energy to not workout, than to simply work out and expel only half that energy.  Whining burns fat by the way.  Every time Beth would go to a new machine, I’d go somewhere close but behind her and do a lot of grunting and exhaling loudly.  Every now and again, I’d splash my face and navel with water so it looked like I was sweating.  Me and the rest of the husbands were all doing the same thing. Heck, if we could have snuck beer in the gym, I’d go twice a day!

After we finished lifting weights, Beth declared it was time for “us” to go jogging.  SonuvaSLAP! (splash).  I felt like a boxer cause sweat (bottled water) flew off me in beads going in every direction. It looked like a Rocky movie when he was getting hit in slow motion and his bottom lip wrapped up around his neck and sweat went all over the building.  I ran to the treadmills and tried to get the treadmill on the far end next to the lady who obviously works at that famous place known for their chicken wings and they also have an airline, but Beth was quicker than I and made me use the machine right next to her so we could go running together.  I pouted and stuck my finger in her water bottle then started running.  After 30 or 74 miles (I’m sure), it was finally time to finish this gym thing up, so we went and showered and then met back outside in the lobby.  I was still sweating and panting and whining and being a cranky baby in general and I suggested that we go have a “light-dinner” and then we’d relax for the evening.  Beth said that sounded good and it was my choice.  HELLO ALE HOUSE.  I put the hammer down and a few minutes later we arrived at the Audubon Ale House.   My light dinner started off with 20 half priced BBQ’d chicken arms.  Since there were half priced, I could eat twice as much right?  The sauce was hot so I had to drink frequently to keep from burning my lips off my head.  It was happy hour and I was pretty damn SLAP! happy.

Valentines stuff was all over the walls and folks were talking about it, so I couldn’t fake like I didn’t see it any longer.  “Honey, when Valentines Day gets here next month, we should go out for dinner or something”. It was real quiet for a minute or two and then Beth said, “Yes Dear, that sounds nice”.  I could tell by the tone, that she really thought I didn’t know that Valentines Day was next weekend, the 21st. We ordered salads and I ordered another beer just in case my salad had hot sauce on it.  During dinner, I learnt that we would go and pick up the dawg, pick the boys up from a high school dance, stop by and see Joy & Matt & Beth’s Mom & Joey & William & Zipper, and then we could relax.  I figured that would be about 3 in the morning cause Matt and I are fond of beer and all. SLAP!  Dinner was delish and away we went.  After we got back to the house, I relaxed for about 6 seconds and the next thing I knew it was morning.

We were supposed to go back to the gym this morning, but after Beth had fallen asleep (in 4 seconds) last night, I turned off the alarm clock and would worry about the punishment in the morning.  We woke up about 7:50 this morning and neither one of us could figure out why the alarm didn’t go off. “Those things are so unreliable and all”, I said. We would no doubt miss the 8:00 a.m. workout class that I so much wanted to go to.  I turned around and Beth was just smiling at me with those “Do You Know What Day It Is” eyes.  “Uhm, Hi Honey, you ok?”  I thought she was still a little sleepy perhaps.  I told her I would be right back as I had to go get something.  I recall she smiled brightly at those words and I still didn’t know why.  I went and grabbed the newspaper and headed into the bathroom.  Her smile wasn’t quite as big as it had been.

Oh Sheeeeeeeeeeet!  The front of the news paper said Happy Valentines Day!  I quickly dropped the kids off at the pool and then started formulating my next plan.  “Uhm, Honey!, hehe, uhm,  I gotta run up to the Wal-mart to pick up, uhm, some, starch. I’ll be right back!”, spoken all from behind the door. I opened the door and there before me was crazy-ninja-psycho-woman in a house coat, rollers, and slippers. “DO YOU KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS MISTER?” Gulp, “Honey, now do you really think I didn’t know today was Valentines Day.  Do you think that I could have forgotten and would stoop so low as to not have ANYTHING for you at this particular moment in time, as we stand here, in the bathroom, and, uhm, honey, put that rolling pin down, and, need to sneak off up to the Wal-mart to find some carnations” SULLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLAP!    Her nose began to exhaust smoke from each nostril and fire was dancing in her eyes. “HONEY, I meant Daisy's, uhm, Tulips?, Roses (she nodded), yeah Roses,  uhm yellow ones, white ones, red ones (she nodded), yeah, Red Ones, with little weeds in them, uhm Posey’s. Don’t they sell roses up at the 7/11?”  SLAP!!!!!

I jumped in the Vibe and double clutched that lil car until I had made it to Daisy’s R Us up in Limerick. On the way, I got stopped at the intersection and Marcel was selling a dozen roses for $11.45 (economy special)  with only a couple of discrepancies.  First off, for being a dozen, there were only 8 flowers in all.  Of the 8, only 2 of them were remnants of roses and the other 6 were yard weeds. I almost bought it to save time but I didn’t have exact change. He had a much better selection last year and I think the weed to flower ratio was much closer.  Poor Marcel, just trying to make a buck so he can brush that one remaining tooth he has.  I went in to Daisy's ’R Us and bought a dozen tulips and a dozen roses and asked them to put the little white weed things amongst them but since I was as late as one could be, their weed selection was way down too.

I was able to find the heart shaped vase that I bought in a panic last year at this same time and filled it up with water and stuck the roses, tulips, white lil weeds and plant food.  I shook it a little to mix up the plant food and one of the tulip heads fell off!  By the time I got them all spread out and set up nicely, I had sacrificed 4 tulips, and dripped water all throughout the house.  I put the sacrificed tulip petals in the kitchen on the floor.  I thought it would be so romantic until we came downstairs later only to learn the damn SLAP! dawg ate them.  Now she’s gonna have purple dookey-sticks for a week!  SLAP!

This is the card that Beth gave to me. She’d bought her cards months ago.  I bought mine 12 minutes ago.

I actually bought two, and lucky I did, as she did too.  One I bought, was a Bassett Hound and then I got in trouble cause our dawg ain’t a Bassett Hound, it’s a German Shepherd with short legs; some folks call them Corgi's.  That’s why the dawg is getting to sit in her lap and not me!  Next year I’m buying flowers in November so I’m ready for Feb 15th.   I hope ya’ll had very Happy Valentine’s.

Be Particular!

In General, folks frown on burning down houses, especially when they are situated between two others, attached permanently, and providing no means of escape. Had we lived in a trailer park, we’d have hooked up the dog and drug our house down the road a bit or two.  But, since we were stuck, we decided to throw a party instead and prepare to roast marshmallows. 

Lemme’ back up a bit and give you a play by play of what really happened.  Earlier in the day, I had come up with a great idea to get out of running.  I had poured ketchup on my sock and screamed loudly from downstairs acting like I had dropped a tool on my toe and received multiple compound foot fractures and would, no doubt, be unable to go running or work out this day.  My plan was working until I got caught dipping my egg biscuit on my sock and eating it.  Now, looking at Beth like a deer does headlights, I did all I knew to do; I started crying, and then quoting made-up Bible verses, “eh Plurabus Forgivethneth, for-ith I-ith hav-ith madith a-ith mistakith and-ith pleadith temporaryith insanityith and-ith I-ith wantith to-ith go-ith runningith so-ith badith”. She didn’t buy it and I took off running by her and heading upstairs screaming “ouch” “ouch” all the way even though she’d never made contact; I’m sure she was trying to knock me in my damn head though,  SLAP  I mean damn eye,  SLAP,  head.  I made my second mistake as I reached the top of the stairs. “Go ahead, give it your best shot, I dare you!” Slapityslapityslap!  “No No Wait till I’m ready”.  I took a step backwards, “Now I’m ReaSLAPdy”. “You’re lucky I have a compoundly fractured pair of feet”.

I reminded Beth that her Mama had called and needed assistance setting up her new TV.  I’d no doubt broke many electronics and knew I had experience with this model too.  Oh Oh, and I reminded her that we had to buy a drill bit for another project that I was working on, and some super glue for another project that I was re-working on, plus we still had to go to church, eat lunch, prep for the ball-game, walk the dog, and so many other things that would fill up our day.  Not thinking about it and realizing that the run and gym would only be 2 hours and all the other stuff I’d reminded her of would be atleast twice that.  I should have taken the gym, jog, and tv behind door number one, but instead picked door number 2 that (unbeknownst to me) had gym, jog, tv, drill bit, dog, super glue, mini-blinds, garage shelves, house cleaning, rotisserie yard-birds, car washing x 2, laundry folds, bathroom cleaning, food shopping, and snow shoveling. Damn!

SLAP

After all was said and done with door number 2, I stepped outside with beer in hand to say hello to our friends next door;  the ones who would soon be burning down the neighborhood.  They have a 4 legged son named Mossi, or maybe Mossie, or perhaps Mossy – whatever, it starts with MO.  The picture here is about a month old.  He has doubled his size and weight in the last month but still preciously clumsy and equipped with a mouth full of needle teeth.   Beth and I have declared ourselves his Auntie and Uncle; he loves me the most! He’s a Piranha with legs!

Brandon (Mossi’s Old Man) and I had been outside for about 2 minutes when Brandon asked if I knew where the alarm was coming from that he’d heard and I hadn’t.  I opened our door and it wasn’t us. Beth had stepped out for a few minutes and I was there alone rotisserie-ing two dead chickens but hadn’t set nothing on fire.  Brandon then opened his front door and the alarm was very loud and we both knew it was coming from there. He quickly ran around the house sniffing for smoke while Mossi lost his mind and thought it was time for tag and went flying through the place like the Tasmanian Devil causing a wake of furniture and DVD’s to follow behind.  Annette (Mossi’s Mama) had just bought a brand new skillet and was wanting to try it out but Brandon said that she was in the shower and not cooking right now.  He noticed that the alarm was both smoke and CO2 so we went back outside and he decided to call 911 to ask if someone could check it out but would specifically tell them it wasn’t an emergency. He dialed the number, identified himself on the phone, turned around and noticed through the window Annette flying down the stairs butt naykid (she’d been in the shower and hadn’t heard the alarms), and he panicked and hung up the phone and ran in to stop her before she tore off down the street full monty hollering “fire!”.  Well, 911 didn’t have a clue what was going on because he hadn’t yet told them it wasn’t an emergency so they took immediate action.  Off in the distance we heard the fire siren go off and we knew we were in deep doodoo. I thought about that commercial where Southwest asks “Want to get away?”.  I could run in my own house and act like I didn’t know him, but poor little Mossi would be scared of the big trucks that were on the way and what if Annette was gonna run down the street naykid & hollering?  Somebody had to stay back and guard the place while Brandon chased after his honey through town.

Just before the crews had showed up, Brandon asked if I could put Mossi in my house because of all the traffic in the road and the fireman running around the house.  I said sure and brought Mossi over, gave him a treat, and walked back outside closing the door behind me.  We didn’t know it then, but do now, that Mossi is scared of the sirens.  I counted 22 puppy turds and figured there were 22 instances of siren activity in the front yard.  Each time a siren would go off, Mossi would pinch off a turdlett wherever he was at the time; stairs, foyer, living room, kitchen, hallway, it didn’t matter, he was fair to the whole house!

The fireman thoroughly inspected the entire house for the existence of C02 and hidden fires and gave the house a safe rating.  Apparently there was sheetrock dust in the alarms and caused the problem. These houses are all brand new and the dust associated with cutting the sheetrock must have worked its way in to the alarm system.  The Fire Chief was telling us all this.  This is about the same time when we all declared our intention to become volunteer fireman and women. I said (and it was a bad choice of words), “Are ya’ll real professional firemen or just volunteers”?  I immediately realized what I had said when it got really really quiet all around me; the individual conversations ended, the sires stopped, the neighbors gasped, and I said “I mean, can we volunteer to join you?”  The Fire Chief looked at me and said “I assure you, we have all the same certifications!”  I think he ended it with dumba$$, but I’m not sure.  Annette, clothed now, joined in the conversation and told us that she had long since been a volunteer firefighter.  Brandon and I knew there was no way out of it now and we were Oaks/Phoenixville’s newest Firefighter Recruits.  I didn’t stop there, I followed up my first question with, “Hey, do ya’ll have one of those beer halls attached to the back of the firehouse?”  Again, the Fire Chief looked at me as if talking to a volunteer policeman and said, “NO we don’t”.  I didn’t ask any more questions.  Brandon and I were each given an application and have to get in shape as we were told for the first two months, we’d have to run to the fires until we earned the right to ride in the truck.  Damn!  SLAP

Our other Neighbor, Tim (and Cory),  came driving up during the peak of all the activity just saying to himself, “not our house not our house”.  It was.  But all ended well and nobody hurt.  On a side note, Tim has made it up to the higher rounds of American Idle. We went to listen to him play at the Epicurean the other night and this dude can sing ya’ll. I’m probably better and all SLAP, ok ok, I’m kidding.  This dude is awesome and if ya’ll come over soon, I can probably get him to sign your shirt or forehead or something because when he get’s famous he probably won’t like us anymore; especially if we keep having our friends drive their firetrucks up in the yard and all.

So you can see that our Super Bowl Sunday was pretty exciting even before the game got started.  It was perfect timing though as this incident was terminated right before 6:00 pm so the Fire Folks were able to get back to the multitudes of fire houses that they’d come from (we had a bunch) and get back in front of the telly in time to see the opening kickoff!  I hope the Fire Chief (the same one that I’d unintentionally insulted, twice) isn’t my fire putter-outer trainer because I know he’ll make me run up stairs carrying hoses and people and kits and stuff “just for practice”.  I wonder if he’ll believe me if I say I’m injured and I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.  Beth will probably tell him I’m full-of-it or Brandon will say I’m lying and I’ll have to do pushups or crunches or something awful like that.

I wish I could have followed the firefighters as they went through the house. Everyone had masks on sounding like Darth Vader.  Brandon remained a bright red as the lights continued to strobe and more and more neighbors came out.  Annette, well she was pretty cold because she was still pretty much soaking wet from her interrupted shower.  Me, after a while I just hid behind this tree and decided to keep my mouth shut before I somehow joined the French Foreign Legion.  As quickly as the last fire vehicle left, Beth came driving up and said “Why is everyone standing around outside, what is there a fire or something”.  “Silly girl” I said, “we’re waiting for you honey. Be careful going inside, there are baby turds growing in there.”

It’s been a full day.  I did take the Viking Witch out for a minute or two today as well.  I had to run down and shovel snow from around her parking area and couldn’t resist taking her for a quick spin.  Its not good to let her sit there for too long, as she needs to fly and get a good work out fairly frequently.  As the weather is starting to warm up a bit, we’ll begin again our flying adventures and write a line or two about them when we do.  Ya’ll be particular and remember – don’t hang up on 911 cause they know where the hell you live SLAP. “Honey, check the chickens! Are they on fire?”

Played: 732 | Download | Duration: 00:00:00

All the peanut butter in the world wasn’t going to stop me from going to see my Mama!  Beth and I had been trying to get the same time off for a year now to fly down and see my Mama and we finally worked it out and were going!  We had made big plans last year for Thanksgiving to fly over to Columbia Missouri to my baby Sister’s house to spend Thanksgiving with them, but icing conditions prevented that from happening.  My Mama and older Sister were both there too and we’d all be getting together.  The morning that we were supposed to take off in the Viking Witch unfortunately turned nasty and icing conditions existed in layers between 4,000 and 11,000 feet so we wouldn’t be going via private air. I checked on commercial air prices and they were soaring past $800 return so I pouted for a bit and shaved the dog.

	Click on Any Of These Photo’s for a larger look and what our crazy friends did next door in an attempt to try and get me to give birth.   I shat SLAP a moose shortly after opening my front door to a VW sized chicken!  We were late for the airport and I had to now go and take my 2nd shower of the morning!

We’d awaken the morning of the 6th of December at 3:00 am for the drive down to Philadelphia International Airport to catch our 6:00 a.m flight down to Pensacola Florida, by way of Memphis Tennessee. Unbeknownst to us, our friends next door had devised a way to make me doo doo on myself before leaving for the airport.  I opened the front door to go out and start the car and this  large, big-headed bird shot into the door at me and nearly caused me to give birth to a live Shetland pony. I could have sworn at the time that whatever it was, was coming in to get me and my whole life flashed before my eyes, including the time that I had gotten beat up by a girl in elementary school for commenting on her mustache.  Click on the “View Full Album” to get a larger view of the big ole creature.  My “backside” locked up more water tight that a duck’s behind!

After changing my clothes, I ran back downstairs and started the car, moved the Amazon Penguin back over into their doorway, loaded the bags into the car, plugged in all their outdoor Christmas lights, hollered for Beth to “C’mon Shugah”, and finally, we headed down the road.  “Honey, did I unplug the curling iron?” 

Our initial departure was late out of Philly, something to do with a baggage door being stuck up (perhaps by a curling iron cord), so we landed in Memphis with only 20 minutes bixteenst our next flight.  Because of this, we unfortunately didn’t have a chance to load up on some Southwestern Tennessee BBQ. I know it would have been good though because I saw a bunch of people eating it that didn’t even have teeth.  They’d just smile and say Gmornin’ to you as you walked by drooling bbq squeezin’s down there toothless chins.  No doubt it was falling off the bone!  Lou Rawls and Ray Charles used to sing a song about “Save The Bones For Henry Jones Cause Henry Don’t Eat No Meat”.  I think I saw Henry this morning. 

We made it onboard our next flight with a Starbucks in hand and we settled in for the quick flight down to Pensacola airport, just 45 minutes West of where my Mama lives in Shalimar.  Lots of bad weather was coming up out of the Gulf, so we flew a southerly route out of Memphis and then flew Easterly along the shore at about 25,000 feet.  It was purty, but I’d have much rather been doing the flying myself; lower and slower and wearing flip-flops and Bermuda shorts.  Soon we landed, found our bags, rented a car and away we went.

We had brought the camera along with us and I was taking pictures of the coast like a hillbilly paparazzi  at a celebrity panty-raid. This new program I found allows me to consolidate a bunch of photos into one panoramic view so the photo above is actually 6 that were taken at different angles.  Look at me making a wide screen shot and not even knowing how to load film!  I’m special! 

About 20 miles outside of Shalimar we saw a sight that was beauty to my eyes – it was the largest Wal-Mart I’d ever seen. I thought I was at the Wal-Mart Mecca.  I grabbed the change in the car ashtray and wind sprinted for the front door.  I then wind sprinted back and got Beth. SLAP!  “Sorry Dear, I’s a little bit excited.  LOOK!, they are having an overalls sale!”  I was able to wiggle my way out of her clenching grip and hurdle the buggy aisle and entered Thee Wal-Mart.   They had everything from false teeth to nice suits on sale for $4.00.  I was grinning so much I looked like I was a plastic surgery project gone wrong.  I wanted to sing but I knew that even being in Thee Wal-Mart wouldn’t get me any “delayed beating credits” meaning I’d get whooped now and not later.  I ain’t afraid of that crazy damn SLAP woman, uhm, yes I am.  She’s lucky I’m seatbelted in this buggy now.

Look at all them Wal-Marts!   Clickable Map

After buying all kinds of sports apparel and a suit for $11.00, we continued on our journey to Shalimar.  We weren’t all that far out, we just didn’t want to get there too early as we had told them we’d be there around 1:00 and it was just a bit past 12 now.  We could every now and again see some  construction going on that was a replacement project from the massive Hurricane Ivan that came ashore September 16, 2004. Mom and Jim’s home had received a bunch of damage and it took forever for construction crews to become available to fix anything as they were so busy everywhere!    I’d rather walk through a lions den wearing a pork chop jacket than take on a hurricane.  No thanks!  We arrive in Shalimar and run in to see Mom and Jim and their new 4 legged boy Lewis.

I couldn’t wait to get in the door and nearly got my clothes caught on the door handle. That  would have caused me to arrive in the foyer naykid which wouldn’t have been a very proper way to introduce Beth to my Mama, Jim, and Lewis.  Jim had stepped out for a lil bit as work had called and he was needed, so we got to sit down with my Mama and Lewis and chat for a bit.  They had already put their Christmas tree up and it sure was purty.  Ours isn’t up yet, but I’m sure that event will most probably make it’s way to the blog somehow.   Mom and Jim have been living in Shalimar for, oh must be about,  10 years I’d guess by now.  They have a gorgeous home it’s just as purty & groomed on the outside as it is on the inside.  Mom loves to cook and does always with excellent results.  Jim loves the yardwork side of it (as do I) and their hard work definitely shows in the beauty of their home. Mom had every burner on the stove going and the oven was full too.  She’d made a feast for lunch and I was salivating like a bulldog at a hotdog eating contest.  It was lunchtime and I had a spoon in my hand.    I tried to get recipe’s but my Mom always says, “oh just throw a little bit of that in there, and a touch of this, and don’t forget that too if you want to spice it up a little”.  I’ve no idea the volume of a “this” or “that” so that’s why I keep my cooking outside on the grill.  If “this” or “that” falls through the grates on the grill, then it wasn’t meant to be.   Lunch was scrumpdiddlyicious and although my Mama offered, I just couldn’t do fourths.  “Honey, we’ll go jogging in a little bit to work it off.”  SonuvabiSLAP!  I started to retaliate until I noticed my Mama huntin’ the fly swatter and I knew that whatever was about to happen, I’d most likely be gettin’ hurt so I let them both win this little battle.  I can still remember when I was a kid that I’d have to go out and bring back in a switch that was fixin' to be used to wear my behind out.  I never did nothing wrong but sure did seam to get in trouble a lot for misunderstandings or situations beyond my control.  Goodness Gracious, I wasn’t mean like my two sisters, Tracy and Kelly.  Back to Mama and Beth; I believe they winked at each other and made a girl alliance or something.

Just a bit later, Jim came in and now the tides were going to turn.  Lewis wasn’t about to join forces with me since 1. he didn’t like me, and 2. he knew his Mama fed him and not I, and 3. he didn’t like me.  Jim would certainly put his foot down and keep both those crazy women (SSLLAAPP) from teaming up against me.  He took one look at me and declared that I was on my own!    Beth had mentioned to Jim that we’d be going jogging in the morning and, as a jogger himself, Jim suggested to go on the short route around the neighborhood first (37 miles I believe) to see how we liked it.  I knew I had to act quickly to get injured in time to not have to run so I reached down and stuck my toe in Lewis’s mouth. Unfortunately, he didn’t bite it but now likes me even less. 

My Mama told us that my Aunt Mary (her Sister) and Uncle Kenny (not her Sister) were coming by on Sunday to meet Beth and sit and chat a while.  I sure was happy to get the chance to introduce Beth to them but was a little nervous cause Aunt Mary had spanked me plenty too.  I believe it was probably always my Cousin Bobby’s fault that I got caught holding the chicken, or watermelon, or Ms Lumpkin’s false teeth, or whatever.  I bet he made me hold it and then hollered “MAMA”.  I’m such a victim.

Speaking of Victim’s.  I think I know why Lewis hides every time more that 2 people are in the same room.  It becomes picture time and dress up time!  Click on them to see what that poor child goes through every time a camera comes near the house.  He didn’t help me, so I didn’t help him.  Ha!  SLAP

	This poor 4 legged child has been dressed up, shaved, bathed, nails painted, teeth brushed, hair permanated, tail trimmed, groomed, weed-eated, and photographed.  He’s been turned into reindeer, farmers, Hawaiian Grass Skirt Dancers, and Toga’d.   Click On Any Image To Have A Larger Look.

My Mama had bought that poor child antlers, overalls, sweaters, britches, hats, boots, moccasins, snow-shoes, and a walking stick and the little thing would look at me like he was just all spent-up and couldn’t resist any longer.  Those pants were something else, especially when Mom realized that she’d put them on backwards and upside down.  His little Johnson was stuck up in his armpit and if he’d a tried to tinkle, he would have pee’d on his own ear.  She did get them on straight and Lewis no longer walks sideways.  Po Lil Thang.

The next morning Beth did make me go running and I think we ran probably 80 or 90 miles, uphill, in the snow.  The air is noticeably thicker down here (humidity) and as I ran and tried to breath, I finally gave up and held my breath till we were done.  I had been down here a couple of years ago closer to the summer months and remembered how humid it was too, compared to the less humid days that we get in Pennsylvania.  It does get humid back home, but not quite this thick.  That’s my excuse for whining the entire time and I’m sticking to it. While we were out running, we did find a little gazebo area on the shoreline of the bay and walked over to it and sat out and looked at the ducks playing in the water.  That’s when the large lady yelled at us to get out of her backyard.  Some people’s kids!  No No, I’m kidding,  we weren’t in her backyard (her neighbors) and she was yelling at the ducks that we were calling over.  We acted like we had somewhere to go and quickly left.

We did a little shopping and later went back to the beach because Beth wanted to walk barefooted in the sand.  I wanted to go skinny dipping in the gulf but there were signs all over the place written in Spanish and I’m only guessing they said, No Skinny Dippin’ In The Gulf.  Instead we walked along the shore and took a couple of photos.  Beth made me hold her hand and do all the crazy mushy stuff like look off into the sunset and make a wish and look up at the birdies flying and call to them. That’s when I got shat on by a damn SLAP pigeon.  If I could have caught that little turd, we would have had a pigeon bbq tonight I tell you.

The Emerald Coast is such a gorgeous line of beaches along the Florida Gulf Coast.  There weren’t a lot of folks out today besides Beth and I, and a Pigeon.

Beth made me run the same route the following morning and I’m sure I got tennis elbow from throwing food at (to) the Duck’s who wouldn’t come any closer than 30 feet away. After running the equivalent of the Iditarod, we went home and showered and all jumped in the car and headed for the Officer’s Club to Sunday Brunch!  Brunch was awesome and I wish I could have carried out a doggie wheel barrow but they wouldn’t let me.  In addition to the tons of seafood that I had, I had these Red Link Sausages that I’ve been unable to find up in Pennsylvania.  I have tried and tried but have not been successful. If someone could please let me know where to get them things, I’ll cook some up for both of us! There was a pianist playing during brunch and we really had a fun and delicious time.

Not too long after returning from eating (we never really stopped eating), we went out shopping again.  Beth and I were working on a plan to pay back Brandon and Annette (our friends next door to us) and my Mama had some ideas of where to get all the goodies we’d need shipped back up to Pennsylvania to execute our plan of action.  Unfortunately, we didn’t find what we were looking for so that’s why I’m not telling you what it is.  When we do find the stuff we’re looking for, it’ll definitely make the blog so stay tuned.  Probably around the Spring time, I’d guess.  We hurried home because My Aunt Mary and Uncle Kenny were getting close and we didn’t want miss out on any time we would get to spend with them. 

My Aunt Mary and Uncle Kenny had arrived within minutes of us getting back home to Mama’s house and we were all so excited to see them.  Every time we all get together, I hear such funny stories of how all those bad spoiled cousins and sisters of mine would get me in trouble because I was such a good kid and all.  Aunt Mary had put enough whoopin’s on me too, for me to know not to mess with her or run at less than a sprinter’s pace should she call me by name.  I remember my Uncle Kenny had once lifted my entire weight set over his head with one hand; he’s the man; cept he still won’t let me hide behind him if I’m in trouble with any of those crazy women in this house right now.  SSSLLLAAAPPP!!!

On the wall in the hallway hangs a huge picture of my Mama and her little Brother Sonny.  Uncle Sonny  stands at 6’11” tall and swallows his chew tobaccy juice.  He ain’t no punk either but all of us menfolk are highly respectful and, uhm, aware of the womenfolk in this house right now. Even Uncle Sonny’s look appears to be saying, “Yes Dear?”  Beth is getting to meet more and more of my family and I’m so proud for them to all get together.  We’re gonna try to plan a longer trip in the summer time and get down into the woods of Georgia so I can show her where I spent some of my summers growing up out on Berry Hill.  Uncle Sonny lives up in Ellijay, which is in the Appalachian Mountains in Northern Georgia. We’re going there too!

As all fun things do, our trip down to my Mama’s was coming to and end and it was time to say goodbye for now and start planning for the next trip.  We really did have a fantastic time and wish we would have had more time to stay.  It’s sad really that months, sometimes even a year or two, go by and we haven’t gotten together.  It’s my fault for not planning better, so please learn from my mistakes and go see your folks very soon!  They miss you more than you probably realize.  I’m hoping in the near future that my Sisters and their families and my Mama and Jim and Lewis and Beth and I can all get together for a visit. We’d have a ball and I’d even bathe.   Lewis took a liking to Beth but still wouldn’t get within 10 steps of me.

We jumped in the car and headed back towards Pensacola airport and to my surprise, happened upon a little boiled peanut stand along the side of the road.  I nearly crashed trying to get the car turned around fast enough.  Beth had never had boiled peanuts and had only heard me talk about them.  We pull up long side of the little stand that was equipped with 2 pressure cookers, a whole lot of raw peanuts, two toothless folks cooking them, the back seat of their 1980 Malibu that they were using as their bench, and a grocery cart full of “secret” spices that they were adding to the boiling water.  I ordered up a bag and the fella reached down inside the large pot and scooped up a pitcher full of boiled peanuts and dumped them into  a plastic zip lock bag and then stuck that into a paper sack – all for $3.95 plus $2.00 tax.  I couldn’t wait to get a few shoved in my mouth.  We took off down the road and Beth couldn’t give me another one fast enough.  I thought I’d have lost the proficiency of opening them up, sucking out the juice, shelling them, chewing the peanuts, and spitting the shells out the window using no hands, but I still had “it”.  Beth, on the other hand, had peanut juice in her eyes, the roof of the car, in her shoes, and all over her little face.  Bless her heart, I’m not sure she ever got the chance to actually eat one.  Besides working on her own peanuts, she was giving them to me and steering from the right side of the car cause I was so excited I had both arms flailing like that Pigeon would have if I’d have gotten a hold of it, the little turd!    I was averaging about 11 peanuts a minute and had to finish this two gallon bag before we got to the airport.   We did.

We made it on the airplane and here we sit getting getting ready to start our final descent into Philadelphia.  We had a wonderful time and I learned something new today.  Boiled Peanuts, combined with altitude, gives me terrible gas.  Beth is sitting up front and won’t come near me right now. She said she’d meet me in the car so no one knows she’s with tootaloticus.  I’m a victim I tell you.  Ya’ll Be Particular

Geocaching?  Geocaching is an outdoor game where you use a handheld GPS to locate “treasures” placed by others.  It actually doesn’t require a GPS if you can read maps using latitudes and longitudes and navigate to that point with a compass or your good looks.  Folks (all over the world) are out right now running around like crazy people either hiding these caches or looking for those that others have hidden.  Sometimes you’ll find neat trinket's inside of the cache (container), and sometimes nothing more than a logbook where you’ll sign to show the secret world of geocachers that you’ve been there and you’ve found this heifer!  Honestly, I didn’t know how many neat places existed so close to home until we started geocaching.  While out hunting these treasures, we discovered hidden parks, gorgeous views, and places and things that I hadn’t known existed just right down the road.  Not only that, but I didn’t even realize that I was getting exercise while out in the fresh outdoors hiking and sometimes biking enroute to these cool destinations.  If you even only read about geocaching (click for the website), I think it’ll have an intriguing and mysterious pull to it that may get you out looking for atleast one or two.  It’s really quite exciting to be honest.  I bet you’ll be quite surprised, VERY surprised to find out how many hidden treasures are within a mile or two of your home.  This Geocaching thing is world wide!  Anyway, take a look at their website (it’s free) and create yourself an account (that’s free too) and start hunting for treasures (that’s free too). Our Geocache username is “OTISAIR” so please add us as a friend to your Geocache account. Now go and hang out and have fun with the rest of us crazy damn SLAP Indianer Jones want-a-be-like crazy-women-in-a-shoesale-and-hunt-a-like-hillbillies geocachers!  Oh, Google Muggle (as related to Geocache) before you go though.

				Isabelle watching Nicole ride
Beth and Shane riding through Valley Forge National Park Crazy Horse	Isabelle Miller Hot Air Balloon Rides during Oktoberfest	Flight to Centre Airpark Valley Forge National Park		Nicole at Horse Jumping practice

These are just a few pictures that we’ve taken during the month of October except for the bottom pictures of Mo, Otis, and Boomer.  Boomer Prince Charles sadly passed on the 26th day of October. He is now with his brother Mo and sister Otis.

Clicking on any picture above will open a larger view. 

Tonight we had our 2nd annual pumpkin carving contest and I didn’t win again!  Not sure if ya’ll heard about last years pumpkin cuttin-up contest but it was a lot of fun, in another town, with lots of beer, and freezing cold temperatures. The picture just below is of some of the entries from last years contest.  I had cut a bulldog out of a little tiny pumpkin but if I remember correctly, someone got scared of me winning and accidentally tripped and push (only mine) my pumpkin over the ledge to join Humpty-Dumpty’s broke back behind on the ground. 

This year I had a plan.  I’d carve my pumpkin across the street and out of harms way. Our friends (both of them) started showing up around 6:00 and immediately the trash talking began.  It seems that last year we started around 3:00 pm so people could actually see what the heck they were carving.  A slight miscalculation on my part, put us carving (after eating dinner) in the pitch black dead of night.  That would be fine with me since I knew I was gonna win anyway!  YAY.  I fired up the grill and cooked a whole herd of chickens legs, arms and boobs, SLAP, breasts. After dinner the carving up began….

	Pumpkin bits were flying every which away as the contest began. Luckily I got assigned camera duty so I was able to talk smack all I wanted without fear of having to show off my lack of carving skills.  To the right is the birds-eye view from the dome camera.
	The initial cuts were quick and resembled Stevie Wonder driving (all over the place). Soon though, the fine carving tools came out and artwork began.  This is about the same time I “accidentally” unplugged the lamp hoping, I mean fearing that someone may make a unwanted cut.
	The octopus lamp helped out since I didn’t take into account that it would be nighttime during the contest.  The artwork on display is over on the right.  I forget who won but I knew it wasn’t me again.  Clicking on any of the images should give you a larger view.

We had actually hoped to have the backyard deck finished before the contest date, but weather had slowed down it’s progress.  Next year though we’ll have plenty of room and light to accommodate room for everyone.  Ya’ll have a Happy Halloween and good luck candy hunting!  Ya’ll be particular.

Hey Ya’ll!  Right now we should be exhausted and counting the minutes until bedtime, but due to the uncooperativeness of Mother Nature, our Camp-Out and 75th Anniversary celebration of Kellem (Campbell) Field has been postponed until next weekend.  So with nothing planned, it suddenly became a wide-opened weekend.  Hearing this, the first thing out of Beth’s mouth was, “Honey, we’re gonna have to get some running in!”. DAMN!  SLLLLLLLLAP! I should’ve faked an illness before I’d read aloud the postponement message about the Camp-In, but I hadn’t thought quickly enough. 

The news about the Camp-Out cancellation came on Friday afternoon just a few minutes after I got home from work.  Prior to that, I’d stopped by to pick up some ribs to cook on the grill so we could cook extra and bring some with us to Virginia.  I quickly changed into my bbq’ing attire (shorts, flip-flops, t-shirt,  and Zune) and lit the grill, grabbed an SB (Scrumpdidlyishus Beer), and cranked up the tunes.  As all the other fella’s in the neighborhood do too (I’m sure), I was hoping that the smell of the ribs sprinkled with garlic powder was visiting every house on the block and making everyone curious where the expert chef was.  Certainly, whomever that bbq’ing Sensei is, he should be on tv.  ME?  YAY?  Naw, just kidding’…. 

After consuming the required couple of beers to ensure the proper cooking time had been met, we ate dinner and I managed to get bbq sauce from my navel to the top of my head, including in my left eye.  Boy it was good though!  After choking down what must have been 40 ribs, we started chatting about what we would be doing since our weekend unexpectedly opened up.   While flipping through the newspaper, Beth came up some garage sales in the area and we decided that this is how we’d spend our Saturday morning; searching through other people’s junk to find something that I absolutely positively had to have.  I’m a techno geek so if you can glue a flashing light on a stick, I’ll give you top dollar for it!  YAY! 

Since we’d eaten early, Beth decided that I’d go for a long walk with her to settle our food.  I quickly changed into my shorts with many pockets but just before we left the house, she made me take the hidden beers out of all my pockets.  Damn!  SLAP!  Damn Slap!  D! S! just testing.  I put the beers back and walked out the door with my front lip hanging down and both shoes still untied. 

Good Saturday Morning!  We walked about 600 miles Friday evening and now, on Saturday, we’re going garage sale huntin’.  This is gonna be fun.  We brought along our new camera so we could continue to get used to it by taking 400,000 pictures and picking out the 2 that came out.  I’m hunting for anything that has “as seen on tv” cause I know that’s gotta be some cool stuff!  Beth is hunting for the not fun stuff like china and doiley’s and pretty stuff; not the fun stuff I need.  ooooh oooh, I just thought about something, perhaps I can find one of those contraptions that you hang upside down from. 

This is Lola *(The Bull Mastiff)  and her younger brother beside her.  Po thang, she weighs over a hundred pounds and is very shy and nervous.  We wanted to pet her but as soon as she came jogging out of the front door and saw us standing there, she nearly shat a live puma.  We left her alone but she was a cutie for sure.

With GPS in hand, we set out hunting for treasures.  The first stop Beth selected was St Peters, which is about 30 minutes that way.  We got there and were greeted by a Bull Mastiff and her younger brother of type I don’t know.  It took a lot of bartering, but I was able to talk the lady and Beth into selling me a work out bench and work out pad to add to our collection of other unused gym items that decorates the whole downstairs. I almost got permission to buy a stationary bike, but since it had neither wheel on it, Beth put her foot down on that one and I didn’t get to get it.  I did get to see the Bull Mastiff up close though and bless her heart, she was afraid of her own shadow.

On the way into St Peters, we drove through the center of the village and thought it was beautiful.  We’d noticed a pretty waterfall up the hill and decided that after we finished shopping, we’d stop back by for a closer look.  After all, someone may have bought that weight bench out from under us if we’d delayed our initial shopping! 

We thought this was a really pretty place to come back to for a picnic perhaps, or some other girl stuff.  SLAP!  I meant, bring you, my lovely, picnic’in which is one of mans favorite sports.  yeah!  We looked around the village and there is lots of work going on to make this a tourist/shopping area.  That’s when we noticed that tomorrow (Sunday) there would be an Oktoberfest here. We’re definitely coming back! Yay

After taking a few more photo’s of St Peters Village, we got back in the car and Beth found a close by (ahem) yard sale 30 minutes on the other side of home, that way! We drove down and through Skippack and saw signs for another Oktoberfest celebration also taking place on Sunday so we put that on our Sunday to-do list too.  Our free weekend was filling up fast!  We went around to a few other yard sales and I tried to buy some VHS movies of James Bond but Beth wouldn’t let me all on account that we don’t have a VHS player. So.  She did buy a antique jar though; no flashing lights on it so it didn’t mean much to me. 

We decided that since we’d be visiting so many Oktoberfest celebrations on Sunday, we’d better attend Church this evening instead, to ask forgiveness before hand; kinda being proactive I’d say.  Also, for those skilled in Oktoberfest Beer Drinkin’ know that the real Oktoberfest, held in Munich (Munchen) Germany, is the last two weeks of September celebrating the arrival of October.  Anyway, we would be celebrating in the middle of October and would be partaking in German beer and food so as far as I’m concerned, they can have Oktoberfest in March as long as we’re invited!

Beth made me bathe before Church, but afterwards I put my shorts and flip-flops back on and we cooked big ole Pork Chops! Hmm Hmm they were good.  No wonder she makes me run and walk and ride bikes all the time, if I ain’t exercising, it sounds like I’m eating! Well, maybe I am.      Speaking of exercising, I forgot to mention that after garage sale visiting, but before Church, we did go running and I’m happy to say that Beth is fine.  She pulled a muscle in her, uhm, behiney whilst running so that means I don’t have to run either until it’s all better!  YAY. I mean, I honestly don’t want her hurting, but I don’t have to run for a long time I bet!

It’s Sunday now and I just got back from Running! Son-Of-A-Bi  SLAP!  Honey, I wasn’t gonna really say it. 

Beth decided that since she’d awakened early, she would go for a long walk and as I took the first step (walking) with her, she said, “Oh honey, please feel free to go running, have fun, be safe, buh-bye”.  As long as I started jogging before I started cussing, she wouldn’t be able to catch me I said silently to myself…  As I jogged along the Perkiomen Valley Trail that meanders along side the river, I looked for places to hide until Beth walked by and then I could lounge until she returned, but something inside me kept saying how I’d get caught and be in big trouble; I jogged on cussing. After 30 or 3 miles (whichever sounds more believable), I had jogged to the 3rd bridge, turned around, and was heading back to the car, that would lead to the Oktoberfest, that would enable the German food and beer to reach the front of my head.  I met up with my Honey and homeward bound we went.

After we cleaned up it was still way too early for Oktoberfest so I acted like I was working on the laptop but was really playing Command and Conquer Generals.  I had to keep a work look image on my face even though my army men dudes were getting blown up and set on fire by the bad guys.  I thought my story was working until she commented that I’d got beat up pretty badly by the opposing forces and laughed when I looked dazed and confused on how she knew.  Seems I didn’t plug the earphones all the way in and not only was the sounds of war coming in through my headphones, but it was coming out of the laptop speaker as well, except I couldn’t hear it; Beth could though.  Busted!  I then got to vacuum the entire house. She’s .

Finally it was almost time to go and I knew it was almost time cause Beth came out to the car where I was sitting to avoid having to do windows and said, “It’s time to go”; so I knew it was almost time to go.  By the time potty breaks were done, hair was straightened and re-straightened, make up adjusted, shoes changed 7615 times, and complete wardrobes swapped out, a half-hours time had passed.  NOW, it was time to go.  We first drove over to Skippack cause it’s closer to Phoenixville, but left soon afterwards on account that it was a hotrod car show and not Oktoberfest.  I didn’t see one schnitzel nor one beer tent.  Time to go to St Peters!

	When we first arrived at St Peters, we knew there was fun stuff going on just cuz we had to park about 1 mile down the road and walk to the village since the streets had become a giant walkplatz. I did feel kinda weird wearing Lederhosen,  just kidding.  I think I would wear a kilt before wearing those things.  To make things easier all around, the only way to buy things (beer and food and more beer) was to find the ticket tent and buy tickets to make those purchases.  That way, there would be no need for change and pick pocketers, and stuff like that.  We bought enough to have lunch (Bratwurst, cabbage, and hot mustard) and washed it all down with beers. YAY
We started hearing a few dogs lose their minds and start barking repeatedly and was curious what it was.  We couldn’t hear it initially from where we were, but as we were walking around we discovered the cause of their lost minds.  A local balloon operator was heating up the air in his balloon to give static line rides to anyone who wanted to float around tied to 50 foot rope – all for the one time low fee of $10.00 a ride.  We’re guessing dogs can hear the roar from the gas torch thing-a-ma-jiggy  in the higher frequencies and perhaps it even hurts their little ears.  I just made up the high frequency bit, but it may be true.  I know something drove those dogs crazy and none of them were looking at me!  Hello.
	This photo (to the left) was taken just as we were entering the village. Down around the corner is probably 2000 crazy people shopping, eating, drinking, listening to the live bands.  There is a new band that performs every hour beginning on hour for forty-five minutes. The outgoing band and the incoming band have a combined 15 minutes to setup before the concert is expected to continue.  Standing there drinking beer watching them setup and tear down was quite fun.  This whole village is receiving a face lift so if you are in the area and want a nice fun day, think about stopping by St Peters Village (near Elverson) in Southeastern Pennsylvania.  There are coffee shops, chocolate shops, knick-knack shops, a waterfall, picnic areas.  It’s a really nice place.
Beth had gone into the chocolate shop for a looksie and I was standing there looking like a tourist with my camera so I walked on the side porch of the chocolate shop and discovered this little creek running right behind it.  It was really pretty and the quiet soft sounds the water was making through the rocks could have quickly put me to sleep. Luckily the dogs minds were still lost because of the balloon and they continued to bark and bark, keeping me awake.  We’ll definitely be packing a lunch in the future to come back up and spend a few more hours up here.   My patience was rewarded because when Beth returned, she was carrying two chocolate pretzels with toffee melted on top of the chocolate.  I think mine was good but ate it so quickly that it could have tasted like corn-chip smelling feet and I wouldn’t have known it.  Let’s just say it was delish!

The late afternoon was arriving and we hadn’t eaten in, oh, 45 minutes, so we thought we’d head home to finish watching the football games and act like couch potatoes for the rest of the day.  We walked the mile back to the car only to find some crazy lady walking up and down the street writing license plates down and hollering at people saying “the police are on the way to arrest everyone”.  I thought she was a bit funny because nobody that had parked there was on her property (we parked in a church); nor was any sane police officer going to drive all the way out the St Peters Village to listen to some crazy lady hollering about mashing her grass down with car tires.  We stood there and watched as others walked up to their cars laughing at loopy lady and driving away.  I couldn’t believe that people were laughing at her so loudly, and then Beth told me to quiet down and get in the car.  I did and homeward bound we drove leaving mashed down grass in our wake.  Beth phoned the pizza place just up the street from home and by the time we arrived, the pizza was just coming out of the oven.  Now here we sit on the couch, eating pizza, and watching football.  We had a pretty good weekend considering we thought it would be a wash due to our flying plans getting cancelled.  We’re planning on flying down to Virginia next weekend if the anniversary fly-in is a go.  The weather is forecasted to be iffy for the moment but we’ll see.  Until then, ya’ll be safe and don’t drive in the grass.

"Yes Honey, It's going to be warm camping out tonight.  I think it's gonna be at-the-coldest around 70 degrees."

Had Beth known I was lying through my teeth, they'd have been slapped out before I even started my checklist.  I didn't know it was gonna be so cold that the cattle would be wearing hoodies & leg warmers, but I knew it was gonna be chilly.  I did remind her to bring a wind breaker. 

We were both really excited about getting back to Centre Airpark this year after attending our very first flying camp-in at this same airport just last year.  We got up early Saturday morning and I had the grill going by 8:00 a.m. cooking our super secret tater & onion & bacon & garlic mixed-up-and-cooked-on-the-grill-for-about-an-hour recipe.  Last year we'd brought along 2 batches and Beth made me give both of 'em away so this year I brought 4.  Beth found the one I had hidden in my headset bag and made me give 'em all away at the dinner this year too.  

The Forecastin' Fella on TV said it was gonna be a sunny and warm weekend.  No worries of a cloud in the sky I'm sure he said. Well, that's atleast what I had told Beth he'd said.  There must have been something lost in the transalation because the ceiling was coming down and it had grabbed a hold of the temperature and was bringing it down too. Here (to the left) we were about 40 miles from Centre Airpark, weighing in at about 8000 pounds (household items plus), and smelling like taters & onions & bacon & garlic mixed-up-and-cooked-on-the-grill-for-about-an-hour. We were ready for Centre Airpark part duex! Damnit!  SLAP!   Honey! That was just an expression, Damnit!  SLAP!

The field looked awesome!  We flew the pattern to runway 06 and after parking the Viking Witch, we learned that the fella next to us in the cub had disobeyed a direct order and Uncle Sam had sent someone down to manipulate an attitude adjustment along with a little proficiency training!  Nah, I'm just kidding.  One of the fine EAA'ers was hunting his camera lens cover and asked this Civil Air Patrol Officer to pick his airplane up and give it a shake or two.   I could just hear his mama,  "PUT THAT PLANE DOWN SON, NOW!"  Guess what?  He found his lens cap! He did!  Jack (in the background to the left) is the owner of Centre Airpark.  I'd love to sit down with him for a few days and listen to his stories.  Someone please write 'em down and send them to me!

I ain't messin' with that dude. He's liable to pull my tooth out!

After parking the Viking Witch we began unloading her and soon the big dent in the ground caused by the weight of her began straightening itself out and was no longer  lower than Furnace Creek California (below sea level).  We had brought everything we own plus the stuff in the neighbors garage that we could sneak out when they weren't looking.  We'd sent the address to Allied Van Lines to deliver the rest of the furniture and the new outdoor equipment we'd bought on the way to the airport.  Since we were only staying overnight, I was surely hoping it would be delivered before noon the following day.

Beth asked me several times why everyone was walking around carrying coats with them; I'd told her how warm I "thought" it was gonna be so she would still come.  I'm sure I would be close.  About that same time, I heard someone hollering from down the way that the movie would be in-doors on account of the freezing temperatures.  My head grew heavy and I nearly passed out thinking that Beth has heard those same words.  Somehow she hadn't and the beating that would soon be coming had been delayed for yet a little bit longer. 

After setting up the tent backwards and upside down, we finally got it fixed up right and ended up having to hand pull the plane out of the way of the tent door in order to use it.  Beth has finished unpacking the clothes and getting them all put away in the dressers and had just sat down to take a break before the moving van arrived.  I took advantage of the break and pulled out our new Nikon D40 Digital SLR that we'd just bought.  It has a ton of cool buttons and switches and even another lens that I have no idea what any of them do.  I just took a few photo's with one lens, changed lenses and took a few more, than flicked a switch here and there and kept pushing the button.  I'm sure someone read through my Gilligan stare and knew I was the Nikon Village Idiot.

The folks here are truly good people.  It was nice to see familiar faces of those that we'd met last year.  Everyone had a big smile and a warm hello and that was nice.  Jim and his boy Jack stopped by to say hello and soon they were off flying.  Later, we would meet Jack's Grandparents and that was a real treat for us too. They are wonderful as well and we got the chance to talk with them for a bit.  Jim & Jack were on a mission.  They were heading down to their plane for a quick spin around the patch.  Jim's Wife has a gorgeous Aeronca that she let’s Jim fly. If I remember correctly, Jack is 6 and will no doubt make a great pilot.  If you can zoom in to their departure picture, both fella's are looking and waiving. Maybe they’re just trying to get the prop started again….nah, just kidding… that’s the new camera and the fact that I don’t know what I’m doing.  I’m sure there is a way to get the prop blur like it’s supposed to have, maybe.  I think.  Or, was the prop stopped.  Nice tricks Jim, does your wife know you’re flying her aircraft like Bob Hoover? Looking down the flight line, there were lots of planes, ultra lights, gyrocopters, tail-wheels, singles, twins, RV's, and huge pickups. Oh, and one tent.....ours.  I wonder if Beth has noticed yet that the temperature has already dropped 10 degrees in the 2 hours since touching down on 06?   Shhhhhh I heard airplanes cranking! Click on them to have a closer look.

I knew I heard something big cranking up and before too long a C207 immerged from behind the FBO.  What a purty aircraft, with luggage pod and all.  As quickly as Beth saw it, she wanted one cause now she would be able to bring even more stuff to the camp out.  I’m figuring that caravan could carry probably at least 3/4 of her shoes. SLAP! Honey! I dare you to slap me one more time, just one morSSSSSSSSSSSLAP! Honey!  (winding up), You So Purty!  The Caravan driver dude flew a left closed traffic pattern and gave us a high speed pass.  Where ever he was going – it wouldn’t take long.  Nice airplane!   Did someone say Yuengling? I wasn’t gonna be doing any flying tonight and somehow a beer had fallen out of the zipped up cooler and the beer cap fell off. Heck, I had to drink it!  And the other one too. It was supper time!

It was getting close to 6:00 pm and I could see fella’s starting to look towards the chow hanger.  Some of them were acting like they weren't interested in getting there first but I had been sizing them up since we’d arrived and I figured if I got to running downhill, I may just beat a couple of them to the hanger.  We all took off running about the same time and knew we were in trouble when we rounded the corner and were faced with an obstacle course of Winnebago's and pick up trucks.  Narrowly missing a mirror and port-a-potty, I wind sprinted for the hanger and nearly panicked when I realized that the hanger door itself was closed and now we’d be fighting to get in through one small little door that I happened to be farthest from.  I hit the brakes and barely escaped running down through a farm field.  I wouldn’t even finish in the top 3.  My precious Beth,….Beth?  Bethhhhh?   OH LAWD HELP ME, I had forgotten to tell Beth that the dinner bell had rung. I’m gonna tell her that Jack (Airpark Owner) had called me over to the other hanger to show me a Beech 18 twin tailed twin cept she’ll know I’m lying cause I can see her up the hill talking to Jack now.   This is gonna hurt….    Hi Honey, I went down and saved us a seat cept I didn’t have anything to mark the seat with so chances are we won’t have one when we get there but we can go whenever you want cause I ain’t in no hurry and if you want to leave some secret tater & onion & bacon & garlic mixed-up-and-cooked-on-the-grill-for-about-an-hour dinner bits for later we can do that too but only if you want to.  No I ain’t lying about nothing.  Hi Jack, I heard you were looking for me…

Dinner, as we knew it would be, was awesome.  So many secret recipes and other good fixin’s brought in from all corners.  I was spoiled for choice so I took little bits of near about everything there. Excellent!  I had, once again, eaten my own body weight in dinner stuff.  About the time I took the last bite, someone had to go and say aloud “dessert”.  Dinner lasted about 90 minutes and after everyone was nearly about to explode, the lights dimmed and the picture screen lit up.  One of the fella’s who also has a camera (and unlike me, knows how to use it) showed his Oshkosh photo’s that he’d taken during EAA’s Air Venture.  Beth and I had also gone to Oshkosh and I’ve yet to finish that blog entry (it’s coming, I promise).  He had taken lot’s of great photo’s and we (Beth and I) learned of quite a number of things we’d missed that we’ll have to see next year – like the museum and sea plane base.  We’re going again and hope to see some familiar faces. After the slideshow came a Disney production on a couple of youngens getting there glider ratings.  We both thought it was a great production and it’s amazing how the regulations have changed in just a few short years (about 40).  This young fella wanted to get his glider rating and obtain some advanced qualifications except he kept on crashing his glider.  His instructor was very patient, even after he took the glider swimming in a pond with a herd of ducks.  He’d learned that trick after watching this young lady crash her glider into the ocean.  There, she called in a conveniently standing by Pawnee to land on the sea shore and try to tow her out.  She had other plans though and had apparently watched a recent James Bond movie because all she wanted to do was go scuba diving using her glider as a submarine.  After a few attempts she got airborne and only crashed a few more times later that day.  Meanwhile, the boy had earned his glider rating and elected to fly his glider into a thunderstorm and practice aileron roles while in IMC conditions.  He’d seen a large chicken hawk flying in the thermals and followed him out of harms way.  After landing in the middle of nowhere, he was able to get this toothless guy with a Model T to sign his X on the line and then tow his glider back into the air to continue his 1900 mile journey all in one afternoon.  He successfully climbed his glider the required 117,000 feet and covered a distance of 1311 miles.  He earned his ratings.  Ok Ok, perhaps I’ve forgotten one or two of the particular’s of the story, but I really did enjoy it.  I can’t remember the name of it, but if someone sends me the title, I’ll edit this bit ->( bit to edit here ) to include the title.

After the movie ended, it was time to head on up to the tent for bed.  “Honey, why can I see my breath?”  “uhm, did you brush your teeth?”  SLAP!  “Honey, it’s cold”.  I tried to explain the concept of un-forecasted instantaneous freezing conditional environmental situations but she wasn’t falling for it so I broke down and admitted that it was supposed to drop into the upper 60’s.  She wasn’t buying it and I knew that I’d just lost my own sleeping bag as I’d just been volunteered to donate it to operation-keep-Beth-warm.

The next morning after waking up I told Beth that it had dropped down to a mild 36 degrees.  I know this as true because at 3:30 I’d gotten up to get rid of one of those Yuengling’s I was telling you about and checked the temperature.  My forearm had frozen itself to my forehead so I’m sure I was a site to see heading to the porta-a-potty in the foggy dark.  I was able to get back to sleep but it did take a while.  I looked over at Beth and she was wrapped in 2 sleeping bags, a blanket, and long-johns – looking all cozy and warm, while I had 2 paper towels to cover up with, oh, and flipflops.  One of these days I’m gonna learn something (I’m not sure what though).  This morning visibility is less than 20 feet and we feel bad for the folks in hanger because they’ve just put on 600 pounds of sausages and have cooked about 22,000 pancakes.   I’d asked Ron if he knew what the expected burn off time would be and he smiled and said “Soon”. I knew all would be well.

We rolled the portable wheel barrow of toiletries up to the FBO restroom and got ready to face the day.  A couple of hours later and we head down to eat breakfast. 

I was still filled up from dinner but I told myself I was on holiday and mozy’d on up to the food line.  Sausages, pancakes, fruit, coffee, syrup, and orange juice and we were filled back up.  Another great meal and now I’m wondering if we’ll get airborne or not after having eaten yet again.  I made a big mistake by saying that out loud and my precious Butterbean declared that we were going to go and walk it off. I faked an illness but she didn’t buy it.  She’d seen me fake illnesses 7 days in a row last month in Williamsburg Virginia when we were on vacation and it was time to run and she wasn’t going to buy it this morning either.  Ron met us down near his pick’em up and offered us the use of his truck to drive into town but Beth had given me one of those looks that your Mama may have given you in church when you were a kid and I knew I had to say no thanks cause Beth was making me exercise yet again.  I exercised last month!  And on top of that, just as my luck goes, we walked out to the road, turned right, heard a skunk get ran over up over the hill, and walked through skunk funk for the next 30 miles.  We did snap a few photo’s though…. click to enlarge….

The fog did burn off quickly just as Ron had directed it too.  Shortly there was activity all over the place with planes coming in from all directions!

Soon it was time to pack all up and head back to Wings Field in Philadelphia.  We can’t wait for next year’s camp-in and hopefully we’ll get to see the good folks of Centre Airpark and the 1327th again very soon!  Thanks again for the groups wonderful hospitality and we look forward to see ya’ll, our friends, again soon.

Beth and Shane

Our Favorite Tree, Last year we had a picture taken near this tree too.

Good Morning! Today we flew up to Alfred University in New York to see Nicole. She’s attending college up yonder and we wanted to fly up to see her since she wasn’t able to get down herself this weekend. The forecast called for a beautiful day all day long, we grabbed our sunglasses and camera and headed out the door. It appeared (at that time) that the forecasters had hit it right on the mark; it was a beautiful day and the wind was calm, no clouds, about 60 degrees, and all was well.

On the way to the airport we stopped by Duncan Donuts to get a coffee and then continued our journey to Wings to pick up the Viking Witch, N8388W. This was gonna be a very photographic flight, I just knew it. All things being said, I still filed IFR as I figured there would be 19,319 weekend flyers out doing the same thing we were so I wanted that extra set of eyes (air traffic controllers) watching over our progress and issuing traffic calls along the way. We received our departure clearance, which was just the opposite of the image at the top of this blog (that’s our return flight plan) and were cleared to our destination airport via Pottstown-Limerick VOR to intercept the Victor 29 airway to East Texas VOR. From there we’d join V164 to Wellsville VOR to shoot the VOR approach into our destination, Hornell Airport in Hornell New York.

Just after getting airborne we could see the morning fog hugging the ground to the north. The ride was beautifully smooth though and the temp dropped quickly to around 50. NICE! I was loving it and Beth was trying to figure out how to get a campfire going to warm up. There is a heather in the plane, but it has only 2 settings: Off and Burning Up! It only took me about 100 miles or so to realize I had my vent open and as quickly as I closed it, the color came back to Beth’s little fingers, bless her. She’d have hit me I’m sure but her arms were frozen to her sides; po lil thing was shivering just like a baby Chihuahua at a Bigfoot Convention. Yo Quiero Taco Bell  warm blanketo?  SLAP!

Once we crossed over East Texas (ETX), which is just West-Southwest of Allentown and began our journey up airway Victor 164, the clouds started showing in the distance. Sure enough, another 15 minutes flying time and we were now in and out of the clouds. They were the big fat white puffy clouds though so Beth wasn’t too concerned, opposed to the thunderstorm clouds that we’d inadvertently gotten in to once before. Those weren’t fun and could have easily ended up with skidders as lightning was all over us, hail just to the west, moderate to heavy rain beating down on us, and Chicago’s unwillingness to take us over the city while enroute to Oshkosh. Those Brown-eyes!

Anyway, today’s journey up to Alfred was very smooth and an enjoyable ride the entire way. We played in the clouds along the way up and got a few pictures along the way:

This is one of the lecture halls at Alfred University where Nicole is going to school.  The campus is build within the rolling hills of Alfred New York and is a beautiful campus.   Equine stuff is what attracted Nicole to this school.  She's on the college Equestrian Team and must have a screw loose because she actually drives a horse right at a fence until the horse gets scared and jumps over the dadgum thing. It would be my luck that the horse would stop and send me crashing through the fence then gingerly walk around me.  Alpo here we come!  SLAP! Sorry Honey. &#$%glue#&%~!alpo%#$*%# Nothing Dear I was coughing.

As we were walking around the campus we noticed lots of pretty landscape being maintained.  The campus itself is quite clean and the students all seemed to be very friendly.  Of course, since this was family weekend, the students were on their best behavior. I wonder if, as quickly as the last parents left, the wild parties started and they all lost their minds.  I'll have to watch the news closely tonight.  We'd missed getting to go into the campus book store by 20 minutes.  Being just a few minutes late is a recurring thing this week as you may remember we were 3 minutes late for Jamestown just a few days ago.  Po Us, No Books.

A few more campus shots.  It's a really pretty school and it appears that Nicole is really liking it a lot.

Too soon, it was time to head back to the airport and head back home.  I could tell by the building clouds that the forecast was definitely going to be proved incorrect.  I had already filed an IFR (flying in the clouds) flight plan but I wanted to check the weather again just to make sure it wasn't going to get crazy on the way back home.  "Just a few isolated developments" was the story I received.  We loaded up the Viking Witch and took off enroute to Wings Field.  The cloud ceiling was down to 500 feet so we immediately entered the clouds and would see the ground for another hour or so. 

A couple of times we did "break out" into clear pockets with clouds all around us, but for the most part just stayed inside the clouds and watched the instruments. Everything was going well until lightning struck right in front of us.  We couldn't be for sure exactly how far in front of us since we were in the clouds, but I'm thinking a quarter mile maye.  It was enough to make me nearly suck the seat up my you-know-what.  We hooked at 4G turn to the right, then requested to deviate to the south and continue our journey in just a few miles.  We entered a heavy downpour but the ride was still smooth and no more lightning.

I thought this one was sort of cool because we could see our own shadow on the wall of a cloud as we had intermittent breaks in the clouds to our west.  The journey itself is about an hour and 45 minutes and we landed just about  sunset but not late enough for the flighttime to be considered night time for logging purposes.

So there we were, crusin' home with the sun going down.  Just before the sun descended over the horizon, we took a quick shot of it as she was turning out the lights.  After landing, we put the Viking Witch's bed clothes on her and headed for the barn.  A Really Fun Day! Ya'll be safe and we'll write about another adventure soon!  Be Particular!  Beth and Shane

Well, it's Saturday and very hard to believe that we'd been in Williamsburg  for a week already.  Today we had to head back towards Phoenixville Pennsylvania, but didn't do so until later in the day after we used up the day having fun.  We started the day off by getting the bikes out that we'd drug all the way down there with us and hadn't yet rode.  It wasn't a super long trip but still 8 miles wasn't a bad way to start the day out. We completed the bike ride, got ready, packed, and loaded the car all before 9:00 am so we were definitely not wasting time this morning.

During our bike ride, we rode up a dirt road to some ranch and bed and breakfast.  The property was really nice and although we were just off a main road, it felt as if we were a hundred miles out in the middle of nowhere. We also stopped at a garage sale, but not having any money with us, and not having any way to carry back anything we bought, we only took a quick peek at what was being offered.  I think it was a 2 wheeled Big Wheel (missing one wheel), a 500 year old weber grill, and 3 worn out tires.  Again, it was a tough call but we elected to not buy anything.

We had been wanting to take a look at the model homes in Ford Colony since we'd been there and each time we jogged by them, we didn't want to stop because Beth was afraid I'd lay down to rest and not get up till the rented police fella came and had me removed.  Since we were leaving, via car, we stopped in to tour the place before heading out for good.  The two Southern homes that were being modeled were gorgeous!

We started to write a check for one of the homes until they told us that the monthly mortgage would be just a dollar or two over $10,000.  I decided I better put my elastic checkbook back in my pocket and walk quietly out the door.  I can't believe they wouldn't take an I O U.   The two houses were definitely purty.

We hung out at the model homes for about 30 minutes walking around and taking a bunch of photo's and then departed for Jamestown.  If you remember from an earlier blog, we'd been to Jamestown a couple of days prior, but arrived 3 minutes after they closed all the attractions.  This time we'd be there in time and have fresh batteries in the camera.  It really surprising how small the original Jamestown is, but then again, thinking about it, there wasn't a lot of folks on the ship that landed.  The James River has really widened it's edges since the original landing and some of it is now underwater out in the river.  The story of how researchers found Jamestown is pretty interesting. Archeologists searched and searched further out in the river until one day a professor said "why don't you try digging closer to the church?  Back in those days, the church was the center of everything." The first shovel full dug at the new location proved successful in find Jamestown.  Today, there is much digging going on.  Many things have been found and reburied as the earth provides the best protector of artifacts.

Here is an artists rendition of what the original Jamestown looked like.  Notice that the left front corner is shaded, indicating that it's now part of the river and underwater.  Some of the front right corner is also underwater.  The whole size of the original Jamestown was just over an acre in size.  Eventually, there were over 60,000 folks all over the immediate area and part of Jamestown.

You can see some of the digging that is still going on.  Things continued to be found even today.  Just this past summer a gold ring was found, along with a couple of dishes.  That's amazing!  The whole area just outside of Jamestown itself is very swampy and filled with 22 bazillion skeeters.  We read signs stating that the water was quite stagnant and its dirtiness and disease infested state was the reason that many many Jamestownians (I made that word up) died.  The water, along with starving to death caused the death of over 2/3 of the Jamestown population.  Scientists determined that the Jamestown landing took place right in the middle of a 3 year drought.  It was so bad, the people were eating their own horses and leather from their shoes.  Today, we couldn't imagine such a thing.

We walked about the area for a couple of hours and really found it very interesting stopping to look at all the structures still standing.  We learned the reasons for the ditches and mounds that marked the owners property. The trenches also served as sewage and a place to dump their trash.  Another place we learned to dump trash was the wells scattered throughout the area.  Water wells had to be dug to an exact depth.  Too shallow would be disease infested, too deep would be terribly nasty tasting.  I'd have hated to be the taste tester!  The structure to the left is actually not the original structure, it's buried.  This is a replica of what was there before 350 years of soil turning over and burying the original foundations.  At the time, tobacco was so popular that all the trees you see in the area were cut down and tobacco planted in every square inch of useable soil.

After an enjoyable visit to Jamestown, we jumped in the car and headed up the road towards Richmond.  Our destination was the Berkely Plantation which is world famous.  Unlike we were taught in school, the first Thanksgiving actually occurred here at Berkely Plantation a whole year prior to what's written in the history books.  Am I sure?  You bet! President George W Bush presented the official documentation acknowledging that the first Thanksgiving actually did occur here.  The first 10 presidents also spent much time at the Berkely Plantation and President Lincoln dismissed one of his general's during the Civil War because the general had a sit and wait approach and Lincoln wanted a seek and destroy leader.  President Bush did last years State Of The Union Addresses from the grounds of Berkely Plantation.

Right:  There You have it, officially! Below: Here you can also see a cannonball lodged into the side of the kitchen and laundry building.  I guess the didn't like what was being served.  Actually, this occurred in 1862 during an attack by General J B Stuart. We stayed at the Berkely Plantation for a couple of hours and took a tour of the inside of the main house.  It's still occupied (top floor) by the owner but the lower level is completely used for tours. The funds received from the tours are used to pay for the annual taxes as this property is privately owned and not state or nationally subsidized.  There was a replica of the ship that brought the settles in but during the hurricane a couple of years ago, the ship got busticated and hasn't been rebuilt.  The stop here was worth it!

  Long about 4 o'clock pm, we decided we should start heading back towards home and get rested up as we're flying up to Alfred New York tomorrow to see Nicole there at the university. 

The weather is forecasted to be real nice so it should be a fun day.

Thanks for reading along about our vacation.  We hope you enjoyed the recount of what we've been doing for the last 7 days, with one more day to go before heading back in to work. 

Ya'll be particular and we'll see you again soon.  We'll post some pictures of tomorrow's flight here on the blog as well.

Gnight! 

Beth and Shane

Hello Again!  What a busy day we had today.  I lost out on my pledge last night when I said I was gonna fake an injury.  Beth woke me up this morning at 20 minutes after 6:00 am and told me that I was gonna get to try out my new shoes after all.  There was no bruising to my dislocated feet and my ankles had not swollen like I had told her I was sure that they would.  We ran.  I didn't wanna run, I wanted to eat donuts and drink coffee and sit in the living room in my boxer shorts and play with the dog. But noooooooooo, Miss Jogger USA wanted to run!   "I got an idea! Why don't you go and" SLAP!  "Honey, let's go joggin, I said."

After joggin, and before the sun hardly climbed above the horizon, we showered, ate yogurt (yuck) and got in the car and drove to Historic Williamsburg to look around.  That was cool!  We took over 100 pictures while we were there and ate sammiches and had a beer and petted a horse and saw a cow and bought a postcard. Here's a few pictures we took....

Entrance to the Historic Williamsburg area.  It's a beautiful place, but again, we were a bit disappointed when they wanted money to see everything doggone near.  It may be hard to tell it here, but the "table" on the bottom of the picture is a replica of Williamsburg with 3D building sticking out of the table.  It's equipped with street names and and the surrounding terrain. A beautiful waterfall trickles down in the back ground.  Very Nice!
I had to laugh because I told Beth I could read sundials (just after I looked at my watch). She was amazed that I knew it was 11 minutes after 1:00 pm!	The Redcoats are here!  Officers rode around on horseback whilst the enlisted troops marched along on foot.  Those uniforms have to be hot and they are authentically made of wool.  No Thank You Ma'am!  There were several places that we couldn't go without giving them more money so.....we didn't go.  Don't get me wrong, they did a really nice job maintaining everything, but I felt like everytime I turned around, they were asking us for more money.  Negative on that one!
Some dude was hittin' on Beth.  She said he introduced himself as Thomas Jefferson but I bet he was just trying to act cool. There were tons of shops and buildings to look in and shop at.  There were speakers and story tellers (that we missed, bummer) and there were guided tours all about the area.  We'll have to plan another trip down this way soon. It sure is a beautiful area. The time here was really fun.  To see the whole slideshow of pictures we took of Colonial Williamsburg, please click HERE.

Again, we had a really fun time in Colonial Williamsburg and while we were there, we stepped out of the "towne" and entered into the market area cause Beth had some power shopping she "needed" to do.  On of the first stores we came upon was a Peanut store that sounded fun so we went in.  The fact that they had dog bowls outside with water and biscuits made us like the place before we even went in.  When we got inside, I almost had to laugh out loud because there were many opened peanuts cans allowing people to take taste tests.  The funny part is, the BAPE's (Big-Arsed Peanut Eaters) SLAP! sorry, the "occupiers-of-more-space-peanut-eaters put such serious looks on their faces as they were cramming their hands into the cans of peanuts.  They looked like they were professional wine tasters as they approached the peanut cans with slobber on their chins and twinkles in their eyes.  SLAP... sorry honey,  the non-starved starving peanuts eaters enjoyed their jobs as peanut taste testers very much.

As you can tell by the large bag in the background, Beth was successful at her shopping adventure and found a Williams-Sonoma store that was calling her name.  After all that touring and shopping, we were starving.  I only had one beer for lunch (it was 34 ounces & YAY! For lunch, we ate at "The Cheese Shop" and it was delicious.  We still had a few more hundred-thousand places to see before the day was over so we finished our lunch and headed back out on the tourist scene to continue our journey back in time.   I was enjoying the day but looking forward to stopping by the Piggly Wiggly on the way back to the room and buying a couple of big ole thick steaks, along with some corn still in the shuck, and asparagus, and sweet potato's to cook all on the grill.  Hmmm Hmmmm mmmm!  Just a few more minutes and we'd be on the way to start the grill!  Nice!

Here's a quaint little colonial house with some folks sitting outside chatting.  I bet the conversation was quite a bit different back then. Not any less important mind you, but quite a bit difference.  What would you talk about?  No internet, no email, no tv, no football, no aircraft, no space shuttle, no radio... I guess we'd talk about chickens and heffers.  Speaking of which, we saw a few. What a fun looking tree to climb!

Look at that cute lil thing.  I suppose back in the day, these cattle were like gold.  I've no idea how old this little thing is, but it sure does look cute though.  I'm not sure what the purpose of the harness is on it's little head, but it looks like it can get in the way of it opening it'll little mouth and getting a hooter in to have a swaller of milk.  Well, I think at least that it'll lead a long and happy grass-eating life and not be put in the veal line.  You go little fella!   Honey,  I know it's 5:00 o'clock PM, but can we go to Virginia Beach?    HUH?

So at 5:00 pm tonight, we left to go 70-something miles to Virginia Beach Virginia, and I don't know why?  This will be fun, a nice long walk along the beach watching the sun go down (behind us) cause we'll be looking to the East at the water while the sun goes down behind us. The beach was beautiful when we go there. The bird population though, was 50,000 birds to 1 acre of beach land. Don't look up!

We had been to the beach for about 6 minutes and had just only seen the water and wave for 22 seconds when I heard.... OK, we can go back now.  HUH? uh uh, oh no we ain't.  We drove 900 miles to Virginia Beach at midnight and we ain't just turning around and leaving now.  We're doing something!  Damnit! SLAP! K, honey, uhm, ouch!? We walked about a mile down the beach and went into the Maui Maui restaurant located inside the Radisson Hotel.  We had a great seafood dinner at 10:00 pm and then left to go back to Williamsburg.  It's 12:45 am tomorrow now so I'm going to bed.  Ya'll be safe and be particular!   Shane & Beth

Amelia Did It! or maybe it was Earnest!  No No Wait, I think it was Lemont.  Maybe!

Well hello again.  This afternoon/evening turned out to be pretty fun; this morning, EARLY this morning, Beth made us go to the gym to lift weights, and then during the business hours of the day,  Beth had some followup work to do, but that's not a problem because it gave me the chance to work on next weeks Penn State lesson, which if you remember from an earlier blog is the ADDIE model. Beth is working on Excel spreadsheet stuff that spawned from her meeting in Austin on Tuesday so we both planted our behiney's in the living room and worked till 3:55 pm; honest!  The dog didn't move the whole time either.

We looked at the various brochures for the area an know of a few places that we want to go while we're here.  For starters, we're definitely going to visit the "Historic Triangle" which includes Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown. Having already been to Yorktown, we have Williamsburg and Jamestown remaining.  We took off and headed to Jamestown after getting ready and arrived at 5:03pm  Bummer! They closed Jamestown at 5:00!  Po thing, Beth stood out front with her bottom-lip sticking out.  We'll have to get over there tomorrow or Saturday. We are supposed to check out on Saturday but that doesn't mean we have to leave in the morning!  There's still lots to see around here!  Oh Yeah!

Entrance to the Jamestown Settlement.  The only "sad" thing about it is, they completely commercialized it and charge you to even look at it.  This is quite different from Valley Forge where we live. One can spend all day in the park (often we do) and never be charged a dime. Plus, there are running/jogging/riding routes all over the place.  It's nice to run, I mean the view is nice while running although the running part ain't fun.  I'm filing for workman's comp if she makes me run anymore damnit!  SuuuuLAPPPPP!

I was looking at Beth, Beth was looking at a boat, and the boat was flying up the James River making all the wildlife lose their minds.  I do wish the park had been open because just up the waterway floats three large historically accurate replica's of the ships of the day.  We didn't see them so I don't know if they were the Santa Anna, Santa Barbara, And Santa Claus.

We drove along Colonial Parkway for a little bit and snapped a couple of photos from the information posts that are stuck in here and there.

Jamestown:  Across the swamp lies Jamestown Island; Powhatan Creek below you, takes its name from the Indian Chief. To the right is Glasshouse Point, place of early glassmaking and later a part of the suburb of "James Cittie"

Neck Of Land - near "James Citty": This area, like a peninsula and bounded on three sides by marsh, is just across Buck River from Jamestown Island. In 1625 there were a number of houses and 25 persons were living here.  The settlement had close community ties to "James Citty" and sent representatives to the General Assembly there.

The sun down here has been really nice, and except for the humidity, the weather has been quite perfect.  Surprisingly, I have only been bitten a couple of times by skeeters and Beth's hasn't been bitten once.  Beth wanted to buy a sweater before the dinner theatre tonight so we left closed-up Jamestown and headed for the shopping center.  I still hadn't gotten nuthin', but that is about to change.  YAY

Marshalls' Is The Bomb!  I was throwing stuff in the grocery cart like a crazy woman at a shoe sale!

Beth found a pair of shoes and a sweater that she is wearing right now, but I found 3 pairs of shoes, 3 socks, 2 Zune speakers, and 2 history books on the area.  I was so tickled pink that I was grinning from ear to ear like a mule eatin' bryars! Mmmm Hmmmm.

Whilst Beth was in Austin working, I had been online trying to find plays that were showing in the area so we could go out one night and get educated to the finer thespian and theatrical events of the area.  She didn't know I was doing this and therefore couldn't suggest to me the lateral limits of which theatrical performances I could select from.  As a result, I picked GhostBashers at the all-you-can-eat Captain Georges house of seafood, grits, and hominy.  We had a brilliant time!

Captain George's is huge!  It has a seating capacity in its main restaurant area of 800 people. Honest!  We had to stand out in the back yard to get our tickets - no, not from a scalper - but the entrance to the theater area. Some dude in pajama's walked out to brief us on what would be happening as we approached the hour of 7:00 pm.  He would come out every 5 minutes beginning at 6:30 to tell us the same thing; I think he was crazy too.  When we finally got seated, Beth needed a beer or four!  Ok Ok, perhaps those ALL weren't Beth's, but then again...... The pajama'd fella led us all into the buffet area and turned us loose, table by table.  I started with all the unhealthy fried stuff (oysters, fish, clams, chitlens, grits, tomatos, ice-cream, shrimp, mussells, and donuts), while Beth started with a salad.

The lady sitting next to me started with dessert and a lot of it.  I was nervous that all the cheese cake and rice pudding would be eaten by this lady before I had a chance to choke some down.  We had 30 minutes to eat before the show started, but we would be allowed to go back during intermission 1 and intermission 2.  At intermission 1, Beth and I ran back and got a couple of small desserts and a fresh Yueng-Ling. Intermission 2 somehow found me at the fried chicken pit holding a chicken's breast in one hand and a piece of cornbread in the other.  I managed to eat my own body weight tonight.  The lights dimmed and the show began ...

	When we were first seated, the cast members came to each table (We were table 2, front-row center), and passed out a clue sheet and money that we would use to buy clues.  The show was about a series of hauntings and shortly after the show starts, one of the main characters is murdered!  Lawd Ham Mercy!  Through the rest of the show, the audience attempts to solve the murder case using their clue sheet and filling in the blanks as they are acted out on stage.  Beth and I both figured it out!  Ok, Beth figured it out and I figured she was right, especially after I looked at the dessert lady's clue sheet and she had the same thing too so I copied their sheets and joined them on the slueth's list.
	This fella is Emmet, who is one of the GhostBashers.  I wanna be a GhostBasher too!  He's been called out to assist in capturing ghosts here at the Quarterway House.  The house was built in 1630 and believed to have been built on an ancient Indian burial ground and the place of the death of Chief Powhatan.  The Quarterway House has become one of Virginia's most historic and well-known Bed and Breakfasts.
	This is Pete McGowan, owner of the Bed and Breakfast  where the haunting and the murder takes place.  Not sure if you can see them in this picture of not, but the picture of the lady on wall there to the right has eyes that light up.  I think she has pink eye or something.
	After the show, Beth asked them if we could take their picture and the next thing we knew, they had drug us up on stage and some other fella had our camera and was snappin' photo's left and right.  We really did have fun and I'm so happy that we went.  The food was superb and the performance showed us a great time.  If you ever find yourself in Williamsburg, you may want to go down to Captain George's and have some grits and a show. You'll not be disappointed!

We had a great night tonight and I can't wait till tomorrow to get up and do some more fun stuff.  This orange/pink picture by the way is the inside of my hand. I was just about to snap a photo during the show when all the lights went out (by design) and I didn't want the flash going off and spoiling a surprise that they might be working to setup so I covered the camera with my hand.  We just thought it was a cool looking background color for something so there you go!  Alrighty then, its time for bed as it's almost midnight again.  Shhhh, Beth thinks we're going running tomorrow but I'm about to act like a pull a muscle here in about 5 minutes. I'll let you know how it turns out.  G'Night Ya'll, Be Particular.

I faked an illness this morning so I was able to get out of running. Instead, Beth made me walk for about 15 miles.  If I knew then what I know now about the length of marathon walk for beer that she made me go on, I would have made it easier on myself and ran the doggone thing.  Speakin' of dog's, I'm happy to say that Beth liked Alexander Poe but she's making me turn him in to the front desk.  sigh.  I'm only turning him cuz I want to! "Damnit!" SLAP "Damnit" SLAP "D" SLAP!  "Hey, I didn't say Damnit!" SLAP! "You're lucky I have an illness".

Today we both had work-work to do so it was a light day after the marathon walk that we did.  Not much to report on during the business hours.

This evening, we did go to Yankee Candle in Williamsburg, which is by far the largest collection of candles and candle bits that I've ever seen in my whole life!  There was every kind of scent that you can think of.  Just imagine a smell that you like and I bet if you go to their site, they'll have it. 

We spent about an hours time at the Yankee Candle and Beth bought a couple of smell-goods and then it was time to find dinner.  We drove down the road to the New Town Shopping Center - which is a neat area full of shops in a clustered neighborhood.  It was fun to look around but we were both starving so we didn't dilly dally too much before agreeing on the Center Street Grill. Beth selected a spinach salad topped with Salmon and I chose the a brisket sandwich.  Our appetizer was ribs rubbed with coffee and bbq sauce. They were amazing!  The picture below is an aerial shot of Newtown Shopping Center.

We had a pretty easy day today and it was a "free" day as we both did work-work most of the day so it was a tele-commute day for real.  Beth is working on a big project located down in Austin an I'm working on a training package for work.  We were both surprised at how fast the day and week has gone by!  Ya'll be Particular!  G'Night.

Hi Again! Beth is not back yet, although I'll be leaving in just a little bit to pick her up; just after I clean up this pigpen!  Oh, guess what?  I found a dog.  It's over there sleeping on the sofa right now.  I told Beth about him (his name is Alexander Poe) and she's a little bit nervous that we now have another dog.  I guess someone just left him and that's sad.  I had to laugh though because when I told Beth his name, she asked, "you can just steal someone else's name?"  I had to chuckle knowing that she was thinking of Edgar Allen Poe and I said, "oh honey, you're thinkin' about Cleetus Allen Poe down yonder on 3rd street". She's not here to light me up so I was able to get away with that one.  She'll be home soon though and I'm hoping she's forgotten my jab by then. 

I got up this morning bright and early at 10:13 am and did not go running, as I said I wouldn't.  I decided against having a beer for breakfast though as I think it probably sounds better than it actually is.  I was gonna not brush my teeth too, until I smelled my own breath. Then I had to because I was teetering on the verge of passing out from funkadelic breathadiametrics a/k/a bad breath to the hilt.

Today I didn't really plan to do a lot of anything. I do have some work-work that I have to do and get emailed in to the office though.  I'm taking a course  at Penn State University on the ADDIE model and I have homework that's due first thing in the morning so I'll send it in tonight and not have to worry about it anymore. 

We haven't shown you a picture of the place we're staying at yet so here is a couple of shots of the area.

It really is a pretty place with lots of shaded walking areas.  There are a couple of golf courses surrounding the resort and we even have 6 FREE rounds of golf to play while we're here.  If I'd have thought about it earlier than just right now, I would have played a round today.  I did sign us up for a round on Friday afternoon - which is the time that they "assured" us we would not have to team up with anyone.  We, uhm, how do you say in English, suck!  We have golfed once before and it took us two hours to play one hole.  We were the last two in a tournament and the tournament ended before we finished the second hole.  I was trying to be cool and stuff, showing off in front of Beth and I shot a 37 on hole 10; which is the hole we started on. I do pretty much play golf like Stevie Wonder hang glides.  

Oh, back to the resort place. They also have BBQ grills outside so maybe Friday we'll cook out and have some steaks and corn and asparagus and taters and beer and stuff.  I'll let you know.

I'll show you a picture Alexander Poe.  He's been very good and hasn't pee'd or shed in the room here.  He's been very quiet and hasn't been a pain at all.  I'm not sure he'll be good at playing catch cause anything I throw may be bigger than he is.  Beth doesn't know just how small he is yet and I ain't tellin' her either.  Speaking of which, I have to be on my way now and drive to Richmond to pick her up. Her plane lands in an hour and a half so I best be on the way.  Let me leave you with a close up of Alexander Poe.

I found him under the coffee table. Ain't he cute?

I'm heading to Richmond; ya'll be particular.  G'Night.