Graduation Day

After I dropped Kaylee off at school for her very last day of Kindergarten, I headed out to Glenndale. I needed to fly the J-3 Cub, and today looked like a pretty day to do it, so I asked Chuck to "prop me". It doesn't have a starter, so you have to hand-prop it to start it. Several other things are atypical on the cub. You fly it from the back seat, the fuel 'gauge' is a stick on the cowling that just floats however high depending on how much gas you have, and there is no mixture. Chuck hand propped me and got me started, and not too long after that, the engine died. This happened twice more before I even took off, but finally I got going. I took off, did some turns, some maneuvering in the air, and then I headed to Sheridan to practice some take offs and landings in private. Fortunately, my takeoffs and landings were fine. Unfortunately, they were a little TOO private. The Cut quit on me just after I touched down at Sheridan. Did I mention you have to hand prop it? Kinda hard to do by yourself, at least if you're me. I rotated the prop through backwards several times with the mags off, then went "hot", and tried to hand prop it from behind so I could hop right in the plane immediately if it fired. I tried about 10 times with no luck, stepped in front of it and considered for about 2 seconds trying it from the front, but just couldn't do it. I didn't have a chock, and I could too well picture the NTSB report on that one. So I ended up hiking up to the airport, across a field. I grabbed Jeff, who gave me a ride back to the plane, and after several tries, finally got the Cub started again. I was done after that-I just flew back to Glenndale and put it away. It's a very historic plane, a classic. But I have to admit, I like airplanes that have a starter, and I like flying from the front of an airplane where I can actually see where I'm going on the ground. It was more tiring and stressful than anything else. I'll need to go back up soon and get more proficient at it.

Chuck and I flew the Citabria over to Kokomo to let a couple guys in to a hangar; Chuck took up the Baron his first solo flight in it, and I took up the Citabria. When we were done, we headed back to Glenndale, and then Kaylee (whom I had picked up at 11:30) and I headed home. I threw her in the bathtub so she'd be clean for graduation tonight. She chose her outfit, and was all ready to go, and pretty excited too. She was also super tired, but hanging in there.

So tonight I'm really tired and having a hard time finishing this update! I may come back later and fill it in, I don't know. But the graduation went well. The kindergartners wore white gowns and caps, and they did a little program for the parents. I got some photos, but man, I detest the lighting conditions in that auditorium. It's terrible. You get red eyes, white eyes, white out spots and dark fuzzy photos. Ugh. But here are the pictures I took tonight of Kaylee graduating. She did a good job singing loudly and participating. :) Her teacher was in tears, very sad about the kids leaving. The school also donated Bibles to each of the graduating children, which was sweet. After the program, we went downstairs and had a cupcake and punch, and then headed home.

Kaylee was so tired, she crawled in bed, we did devotions, and then she said "I don't even want to play, I just want to go to sleep", and she DID. The girl who stays up for hours before passing out didn't hardly move in bed tonight. Sweet girl. :)

I think that's it for me for tonight-I'm going to head in to bed, I'm wiped!