Saturday

I wonder if this might not be a new, better normal. We are packing up tonight a lot of stuff (Saturday), and I leave tomorrow, and start working on Monday. But coming in Wednesday, I still saw the night airshow, lots of daily airshows, walked through everything, saw all the people I need to see, went to the Burger Burn and socialized appropriately, went to the T-6 forum, made our steak night with our large group, walked, ate cheese curds, slept in a trailer and showered in a tiny space and used quick dissolve TP.  Now I go home, but I don’t feel like I missed a whole lot. I missed the big warbird show on Tuesday, and I never got to eat at the Oshkosh places, but…I don’t care as much about the restaurants. Maybe it’s time to cut back on Oshkosh and go for less time but still accomplish all the things.

Today Steve, Morgan, Brennan and I took a Ranger over to the Tower gate, went to warbirds, rode the tram and got the talk. Stopped and got some ice cream for Steve and cheese curds for me, stopped at the Purdue tent for Morgan to talk to her friends, walked through Homebuilts to talk to Charlie and Bob (Charlie was gone though), just did one more round of light peopleing. 

Last night we had 35 people or so at our place for steak night. Steak, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, asparagus, salads, alcohol, non-alcohol, and a birthday cake for Chuck, who turned 83 yesterday and has been staying in our trailer with me and Steve, in the back end. He was a most quiet guest and we were glad to have him, as he won’t be doing this forever. Nathan didn’t want to come this year, and didn’t. But we had good representation of everyone else, and a lot of our young people made it. Ben, Brennan, Cameron, Morgan, Shelbe, and Spencer all camped with us. Next generation stuff, you know?

We then had our second to last camp fire. It was chilly the last few nights, excellent for us in trailers, tougher for the tent campers, but all but Morgan were prepared. I tried to give her our extra blanket the first two nights but she wouldn’t do it. So last night when she was already in her shirt, sweatshirt, and wrapped in her only blanket by the fire, and still cold, let alone when she went to bed and slept on the ground, I walked over and threw my extra quilt in her tent and didn’t give her a choice. She was finally warm all night, she admitted.  lol

I sunburnt my feet. They’re extra white, as usual, so I stuck them on a chair in the sun for hours yesterday, but I overcooked them, and now they’re swollen and red and painful.  Oops.

Enjoying the snowbirds, they should be coming up shortly. They do a great job. 

One fatal accident the first day of someone stalling on base to final, two dead. One crash of a Diamond twin who got slow trying to land and pancaked onto the runway but everyone is okay. And one groundloop of a T-6 of a pretty high up T-6 guy, with my friend Greg M. the photographer in the back seat. Supposedly they hit Corsair wake turbulence as they were landing. This pilot, Stan M, heads up NATA formation clinics and was last I heard going to be the 4th pilot on the Aeroshell (now Titan) formation team next season.  I feel for him. Can’t think of much worse timing than to groundloop a T-6…at Oshkosh…in front of everyone with cameras. I have one photo of it in process and I’m sure there are others, plus video. And looking at it I can see a couple things I wouldn’t like to have permanently and publicly recorded. Like I said, I feel for him.

The guys just finished rolling up our carpet to put it away while it’s dry. We’ll have leftover night tonight to get rid of extra food, and burn up all the firewood we have left over, so tomorrow everyone can finish packing up and go home. And thus ends Oshkosh 2024. Shorter, but great weather, and rather satisfying all around.

I wonder what I’ll do next year. T-6 in the show? C-45? Work all week? Or more like this one? Or come in something else? Hard to guess.