Well, the day started at 6 a.m., with a flight to St. Louis. We were supposed to be wheels-up by 7:30, but when I went to check, the plane didn't have enough gas, something I'd thought was taken care of the day before. We called the line guy, with four of us sitting in the plane waiting, and 20 minutes later he still wasn't out there, so I called again, and this time I was less happy than I was 20 minutes prior. It makes you look bad, sitting on the ramp unprepared for the flight. I think that's the first time that's happened to me that I can recall, and hopefully the last. The trip was fine, we didn't have helpful winds, but it's not that far. When we arrived there, the long runway was shut down due to a "disabled aircraft on the runway", and all traffic was being diverted to the short runway. I was happy to see that the disabled aircraft was not a seriously disabled aircraft, and nobody was hurt. I just dropped them off and came right back home.
By the way, it got up somewhere between 102 and 104 degrees F today. That's just nuts. We spent time hanging out in front of the hangar, under the door in the shade, with a cooler blowing air at us, watching Rob Holland practice his moves again. It's funny, a bunch of pilots who see aerobatics all the time at airshows and are kind of not that interested in it any more have all, at different times, when they first see him, said "Wow, that guy's really good."
We also had some visitors out at the hangar. A senior FAA official brought in a couple of guys from a band; they hung out for a little while, and Nathan gave them T-6 rides. The FAA gent brought his family, gave me a hug, and was really excited about the whole thing, and the two band members, one of them is a private pilot who has thus far flown a 172, so he got two new experiences in today--he got to fly a Saratoga and a T-6. The guys had a great time and I guess talked about it the rest of the afternoon. :) They had wanted to stay incognito out there, so we didn't tell folks they were there or who they were until they left. Part of their act is that they dress like mummies, which sounds silly, but they're really very good musicians...none of this synthesizer voice equalizer fake instrument stuff. These guys are from Nashville, and they can PLAY.
After the mummies-without-their-costumes were gone, Steve drove me over to meet Dale E. to ride in his 1921 Haynes Model 55 sport touring car with a whole line-up of
antique cars through the city of Kokomo for the Haynes/Apperson festival, ending up in the square downtown. We had a motorcycle police escort and everything. It was fun. That car is in excellent shape, and I enjoyed the ride. Cars stopped along the side of the road would honk at us, folks waved, and not too many seemed irritated at us slowing up traffic for awhile. This may be the only time I have flashing police lights and sirens around me while we're running red lights left and right where it was a GOOD thing. ;)Steve and I went to the downtown Haynes/Apperson festival, walked around, had some fair food that was set up down there, watched the carnival rides going that Kaylee would have loved, and then enjoyed a concert from the Here Come the Mummies guys. They are an R&B/Funk band, like I said, actually talented musicians even if their style isn't your cup of tea. We enjoyed them. We also enjoyed watching the people in the streets dancing and having a good time with it. While we were standing there, we kept smelling this acrid smoke. Eventually we found out that it was an electric source, where a bunch of folks were plugged in, had gotten so hot it melted a hole in the thick plastic cover over the main source. Smoke everywhere. Not too much longer, the one right next to us started smoking too. Not good! We walked around some more, and ended up seeing a guy inspecting another power source nearby. I think they were glad when the concert was over and they could reduce the load. We ran into several people we knew, so that was kind of fun. We were out there until after 10 p.m., had a good, relaxing evening out.
So all in all, it was sort of an unusual day. Hugging FAA, anonymous band members, competition aerobatic rising star, police escorts riding through town in a classic car, sweating to death, and oh, starting the day flying to Missouri and back. No wonder I'm tired!
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