Two Pilots & an LSW: Behinder

I hate it when there were finally fun things to talk about and I'm too busy to write it up and then there are too many of them and they'd take too long to actually talk about. *sigh*

On Friday Kaylee got to ride on the float she made with her class, and their float won "Homecoming Float". The Seniors were really annoyed that they didn't win, and Kaylee's class (Juniors) were quite pleased. They put a lot of thought and effort into their float, and it was energetic and fun. They had 50s style tables and stools, milkshake glasses and serving trays, a homemade jukebox and records decorating the place, a speaker blasting 50s music, and they'd get up and dance and sing and do the hand jive and such, all dressed like "Grease" characters. Steve found an old red Willy's Jeep to pull it, and it matched the float Perfectly. They threw candy to the parade people, and all in all had a great homecoming run. Kaylee even wore a 50s style dress she found on Amazon for cheap, and looked quite lovely, if you ask me. :) She's a class officer, as are several of her friends, so they decided to make their Junior year great, and so far they're doing just that.

She tried on her Encore dress today too, which they just got back. Every year her Starlet dress was too big and she had to pin it for every performance. This year her Encore dress is slightly snug. But it won't fall off, it doesn't look snug, and it looks good. So she's mostly happy. It's emerald green. Mom will like it. :)

Steve finally started feeling better on Friday at some point, and is pretty much back in stride now, with a bit of a residual cough. So far neither Kaylee nor I have gotten it, but I'm sort of living in fear that I'll catch it just in time to be miserable at the BBQ Bash.

Friday Kayleigh B and I were supposed to go to Illinois for a Ladies Love Taildraggers event. About ten minutes before she got to Kokomo, Steve called me and said "Hold off." A friend of a friend of a friend called in desperation and said this guy was stuck in Naples, Florida, his flight out was cancelled, and could we go get him. About 45 minutes later we determined there were almost no airports still open, they had questionable fuel, everybody had run from Irma, and it probably wasn't going to work out. So finally Steve told me to forget it, and to go on with the planned flight.

So Kayleigh and I were going to take a taildragger, but it would have been over 6 hours of flying round trip in one day, I had to arrange to get the plane here and back from Westfield, fuel stops both ways, coming back at night (no landing light but at least legal nav lights). Just...ugh. So instead I asked Nathan to take the Aerostar, and even though it was a tailwheel convention, we showed up in a nosewheel plane, and were both just fine with that. We actually had a nice time. We got there, and nobody was there. They'd gone to a fly-out at another airport, and then lunch at a third place was on the agenda. So we went directly to the lunch place. I ended up with a nice seared tuna salad, and a group of about 6 others met up with us there. When she and I got out of the plane, a guy was standing there who said "That's a nice airplane!" I said thanks. He said "Isn't that airplane a little zippy for you ladies?" Whatever, dude, speak for yourself. ;)

Back at the airport, I met several ladies who flew in, went for a golf cart ride around a really incredible flying community neighborhood, went through an engine shop on a tour, had a really nice dinner, even socialized. Took a group photo, got a goodie bag, looked around a museum...it was a very nice day. I think I even made a couple of friends, or at least we all enjoyed each other's company and wouldn't mind running into them again. I was parked on the (flat, smooth, hard) grass next to all the taildraggers, so there were 2-3 rows of airplanes, all taildraggers, except Gumby. We were "THOSE girls". lol My only problem was my head started pounding after lunch. I had a couple of Excedrin on me, but it didn't stop it. One person there had some Advil on her, but that didn't stop it. I fended it off and ignored it until I told Kayleigh we needed to go now. Nice clear night, nice flight home. I made it back to the house at 10:30 pm and crawled in bed and didn't open my eyes again until Saturday morning at a reasonable hour. I'd gotten about 2 hours of sleep the night before, which is probably what did not help my head.

Saturday I felt really drained still from the day before. I had one flight in the PT-26 with someone working on tailwheel and PT transition. We had a crosswind of about 60 degrees and up around 10-15 knots. So it was a good day to practice that. After that flight, though, I was kind of done for the day. I was just wiped out. We hung out at the airport and I tried not to nap. There was an aerobatic competition going on, and lots of activity. It made for a nice day out there, door open, blue sky, lots of noise and stuff. :)

Saturday Kaylee had a band competition. Her band has 21 people in it. They came in 2nd out of 3 places for the day, beating a band with 9 people marching in it and losing to a bigger school. She got done at 9:45 pm. When I picked her up, we ran through Hydration Station, which closed at 10, and was being worked by her two friends. One of them asked me if mixing bleach and ammonia was bad. Yes, yes it is. They'd done it on accident, but luckily it wasn't a strong percentage of it. But still. I told them to ventilate the area and don't sniff the fumes. lol

Today we've been watching Irma a bit. We went to Glenndale for an association meeting, came home and watched the hurricane news. Hysterical, a bit, and the reporters were ridiculous. Pointing out palm branches that are on the ground and the wind blowing palm trees. No kidding?? But it's been interesting to watch it develop and move.

Feels like I'm forgetting stuff. I'm sure I am. But this is long enough. Here are some photos to end the day.