Steve was up and out of here before dawn broke. Kaylee crawled in bed with me sometime before 6 am, and asked if she could wake up Grandma. I said no, let Grandma sleep because it's only 4 something a.m. her time. Kaylee whined "I'm not TIRED!" before promptly falling back asleep and sleeping in until 9 a.m.!
I went out to Kokomo after Kaylee and Grandma got up, as our Poker Run was under way. This is an event we hold every Spring. Pilots take an airplane to several local airports and pick up a playing card sealed in an envelope. Best "hand" at the end of the day wins prizes. You pay to play and eat, and the proceeds go to various charities each year. It's an excuse for us to have an event in the Spring, good for camaraderie, and it's usually fun. Last year the weather was bad, but this year we ended up with blue skies, warm temps, and light winds. The perfect flying day. The Poker Run was better populated this year than I think it has been thus far; we had quite a few visiting airplanes. It was fun. This was the first year I actually didn't make the 'run' at all. Usually each year I fly around to all the airports and drop off the boxes and cards, and then make a circuit around the airports once during the event. I've done it in the Baron, the Citabria, and with Nathan in the Cheyenne (that was fun). This year, the cost of gas is so bad, we just drove the boxes to the airports rather than flying them, and I ended up busy doing other stuff so didn't do the airport circuit. But our end results were more than double what we made on it last year, so even though it's not as big as the BBQ Bash, it still had a decent turn-out this year.
While I was at Kokomo, Kaylee and Grandma stayed and played at the house during the morning, then went to Kaylee's first ballet recital of the day. Grandma got an introduction to ballet world. He he.
Late in the morning, Nathan and I went up in the T-6 for about an hour. I found the centerline. ;) We had fun-he did some aerobatics and I tried to take a few photos and videos. I don't think I got a single video, since I apparently need to try to figure that out at a time prior to hanging upside down, but I did get a couple of photos. After the second time around in a roll, I learned not to inhale or leave my mouth hanging open, because all the dirt and grit came off the bottom of the plane and flew into our faces. I have grit in my hair, my nose, and I kept finding it in my teeth, too. Of course even when I quit inhaling and talking, I was still smiling, so the teeth got it anyway. ;)
I took a young lady and her boyfriend (one of our students) up for a ride in the Baron then. She had never been on a small plane before, but she wasn't comfortable going with just me in the Citabria. She wanted her boyfriend to go along too, and all the other airplanes were busy on the Poker Run...so I took the Baron for a quickie. They seemed to enjoy it. :)
A little later that afternoon, Mike took me up in his Pitts for my first time in one ever. It's funny, that has the same poor forward visibility of the T-6, but it feels like a little sports car. It's not squirrely, but it's rather sensitive. We did some aileron rolls, snap rolls, hammerheads, inverted flight, several things. And then I realized that unlike times in the past, I had reached my limit on aerobatics for the day. I considered not saying anything for about 20 seconds, during which time we did a few more maneuvers, and I had the realization that if I didn't call "uncle", in another few maneuvers I'd probably be calling for the barf bag. Which would be much worse and would totally ruin my record of being able to say I've never barfed in an airplane. So I said I thought that was enough for the day, and we came back into Kokomo. The hot sun, warm day, bubble canopy, while being strapped in place quite tight with parachute and seat belt harnesses were all part of the problem, but mostly I'm simply not used to that type of flying any more. You have to work up a tolerance to it and I just don't have it. I felt a little puny for awhile on the ground, and ate some crackers to take the edge off, and then finally things settled down for me. But man that was a fun airplane. It's so responsive. I joked that you could not know what you were doing at all and pull off aerobatics in that airplane, because it's powerful and responsive enough that you could wallow around with no technique at all and get it done. It was a fun experience, and I enjoyed it.
Finally it was time to run home, change clothes, try (unsuccessfully) to comb my hair and fix my face, and go out to Kaylee's second recital of the day. I couldn't find my make up anywhere, and I couldn't get the comb through my hair at all (again), so I changed clothes, freshened up, and ran out the door. Apparently Kaylee stole my make up to use for herself tonight, the bugger. So I fixed my face in the waiting room backstage, but my hair was a bit of a lost cause. Oh well, people weren't there to look at me, anyway, and the room was mostly dark. ;) The recital went off without a hitch, the two Grandmas noticed the same thing I had noticed about the, uh, maturity level of some of the dances and outfits, but it was a fun evening, and afterwards we went to Wendy's to eat and get Miss Kaylee a Frostie.
At this point, everybody else is asleep and I am pooped myself. I look forward to a quiet day tomorrow, probably mostly doing laundry and consoling Kaylee after Grandma goes home. :)
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