The Haute

Day One of Stop #2, Terre Haute.  I arrived at 9 this morning, and I had a 10 am ride for 40 minutes. They were there when I landed, a husband and wife team. She had been a student pilot who quit flying 30 years ago, he was a retired Marine, but not a pilot. They saw me pull in and get out, and he said “Are you the pilot for the rides too?” I said yes, and his face. He flinched, cringed, and stuttered, and his wife put her hand on his arm and said “He’s just nervous”. So of course I did the thing where I talk to them until they can see I’m an intelligent person who knows about airplanes, and reminded him with humor that he saw me get it there in the first place, and that it’s fitting that his student pilot wife goes up in a WASP women’s T-6 with a woman pilot anyway.  Then when we were out flying around, another airplane had an emergency, couldn’t verify their gear was down, so we had to stay away from the airport until they landed.  The airport set off a siren and rolled the trucks. Meanwhile, unrelated, someone else had set a tire fire off the end of the runway, and black smoke was rising up. This poor guy had to be scared to death, because we weren’t back yet and obviously something bad was happening. Well, the other plane landed safely, gear stayed down, and they let us back in. As we rolled in, I shut down, and he yelled up “I paid $600 for my wife to have that million dollar smile! And it was worth it!” She had a great time, and I told her “Don’t let it be another 30 years before you get back in the air.” She said “Well, my husband might not be thrilled about it, but…I won’t. I missed this. I didn’t know how much I missed this until today. I’m going to get going again.”

I also met a WWII Veteran, Marine Staff Sergeant, who flew Corsairs, SBDs, FU-100, and various other things, including the T-6. It was great to meet him and see him out there.

Fifi still hasn’t made it out, but they say it’s fixed now, for sure, and when the weather cooperates, they’ll finally make it out of Cincinnati and over to here.  They missed all of Ft. Wayne and now half of Terre Haute. Rough couple of weeks for the B-29. Steve and BOB aren’t making it down tomorrow either, as originally planned.

We got rained out the last half of our day, so the guys took the cars over to the hotel by 4 pm.  I’m sitting in here, waiting to get the group text on dinner, when now it’s 5:30, and Jordan calls and says “Want to get some pizza?” and I’m like “Yes. Come get me.” He drove over and picked me up and I joined him, his wife, Matt Throckmorton, and Jon Carver for some good pizza and breadsticks for a couple of hours. That way when I get back to the hotel at 8 pm, it’s a much more reasonable time frame for getting sleepy.  The group text finally came through that most people were staying in the hotel tonight and not going out. So I was glad I went with Jordan and all. I was going to go with the group so I could hob nob with that group too, since in Ft. Wayne I stayed with the “Fighter Guys” the whole time, and I don’t want them to think I don’t want to hang out with them too. But I’m glad I didn’t turn down tonight’s company just to end up in my own hotel room walking across the street to McDonald’s alone.  :p

I brought my own toilet paper here this time, by the way, and this place has nice toilet paper. Not as nice as mine, but at least it’s not bad like FWA. I took a lot of space in my suitcase for that TP to come along—-it was important. ;)

Tomorrow’s weather looks cruddy. I have zero rides pre-sold. Jordan is probably going to do three-ship formation stuff, with 3 P-51s, which I’m jealous about.  So I probably won’t have a lot to do tomorrow, but…so it goes!