Florida

I wake up this morning and it’s finally really nice and cool out! So where do I go? FLORIDA. Not just Florida, the southern tip of Florida. Ugh.

Andy and his wife were going to Key Largo. I couldn’t land on the Key Largo Private strip because they’re not members of the Ocean Reef Club, and apparently they couldn’t get anyone to let them land there either. So we went into Miami Homestead instead, which isn’t too far away from there. I got 50 gallons of gas to waive their fuel charges, and then went VFR over to Venice, Florida. I’m not sure what’s worse. Flying IFR in Florida or flying VFR in Florida. My traffic system was dinging and going off all the time for awhile there. There were thunderstorm cells all over. Airspace is messy, except not right where I was thankfully. It was only a 35 min flight over there, but jeepers, it felt like it took forever.

I had gotten a hotel room from my phone app while we were flying along, and picked the room I wanted, and requested a digital key, and put the credit card on file. When I landed, I pulled up the app and checked that Lyft was $7.97 for a ride to my hotel, and Uber was $12.95 for the same ride, so Lyft it was. Very nice car, nice dude, no problems, 10 minute ride to the hotel.

Walked right up to my room and unlocked my door with my phone, settled in and did some work, had a bunch of texts, and then walked to a nearby Italian restaurant for dinner. I normally would have chosen differently, but this was .3 mile away and I was walking and it’s hotter than shit down here. So Italian sounded lovely, and better than gas station food. ;) 

This is where I had the calamari linguini with white wine, garlic, olive oil sauce. The pasta and sauce were delicious, the bread was hot and fresh, and the lemon marscipone small cake slice was also delicious. The calamari was steamed, and the little rings were good, but man, they had the baby squid in there too, the whole things, with legs and shit, and that was nasty. Even breaded and fried I don’t like looking at the whole creature and all its legs. Let alone when it’s steamed and on my plate looking alive. Just…urp. I took a photo and texted it to Steve and Kaylee and said “HELL no”. I ate everything else, but not them. I took them and some leftover pasta in a to go box and threw it away once I got to a gas station trash. Nope. No. Uh-uh.

Went into the gas station to get a drink and a snack for later, or for tomorrow, and headed back to the room to work on tomorrow’s flights. Home from Venice, to Frankfort, then down to Atlanta and back. Long day, but not terrible. Any day I’m by myself for part of it, with fast internet, quiet music, nice weather, and a paycheck, well, some days just aren’t bad. ;)

I’d post pics but Google/Blogger won’t let me from my iPad/iPhone any more, and I don’t know why… So I’ll have to go back next time I’m home with the laptop and reinsert them…

(Like now)

Kaylee as a bridesmaid before her makeup was done even, with the bride (Caitlin) and all the others. Don't they look beautiful?

Florida Views

The tiny Italian restaurant. Had 9 tables inside!

My grodie nasty squid that still looked alive and like it would grab my throat on the way down

You can tell how hot it is even just in this picture

Last Day Off

It's been enjoyable getting a lot of little things done I don't usually get to do, because if I only have one day off, I usually need to spend it in silence on the couch recharging my batteries. But two-three days off in a row, I can get a lot of stuff done.

This morning was a weird one though. I was looking on Facebook when I got up, and I saw a post by a lady pilot named Anh. She's another "influencer" who likes to look pretty and make content, aiming to draw girls into aviation, and has a matching red flightsuit for her Lancair IV, or else wears epaulettes on a white airline pilot type shirt, one or the other. She was up at Oshkosh fundraising, because she's been planning to be the first Vietnamese girl (her words) to fly solo around the world. When I woke up, I saw her post this morning, saying she was leaving Greenwood, IN for the first leg of her trip around the world since leaving Oshkosh, heading to Pennsylvania. Here, it's a public post. So I take a shower, get ready, Steve has the TV on, and I see there was a plane crash in Greenwood, Indiana. It's her. She took off and crashed within 1/2 mile of the airport right after takeoff. A witness said the engine was running and she was "spiraling" down, so it sounds like a stall spin. But why? Maybe the engine wasn't really running, I don't know. But this poor lady was going to go solo around the world and crashed and died on her first real leg of the trip in Indiana. She says second because she left from Oshkosh first, but same/same.  She did not get very far around the world. She is the second 'influencer' type female pilot in the last 3 years that learned at Greenwood that died in a crash, too. And a another influencer youtube female pilot with like 16k followers crashed last year in a Bonanza, and she was known to not be that great of a pilot, she struggled with the higher performance aircraft. It had autopilot problems, and she took her dad with her when she crashed it and killed them both. This lady had type ratings for 757/767, though.

Several years ago now, people were always talking about how women pilots were safer because almost none of the crashes involved women. I said once, quietly, that first, the percentage of women in aviation was so much smaller that of course statistically there would be fewer, but more importantly, it was harder for women in aviation coming up back then. It wasn't something cute girls did for fun, it was something you had to want to do, and a lot of people didn't think you belonged there, and you didn't have support groups, and they didn't put flowers in bathrooms and insist we needed to bring in a bunch of girls whether they were cut out for it or not. The women who progressed in aviation had to be a little tougher and maybe even better in the end, to stay in and make it. Now, it's pretty even. You can suck just as much as a woman as you can a guy, and get by with it. I said...give it a few years of this kind of mentality and we'll see what the safety record is of male vs female pilots. And this is one time I'm not thrilled to start being shown to be correct. They're putting out shitty pilots at the pilot mills, and it's sort of scary out there. I sucked in the beginning too, I know that, by the way. I'm lucky to still be alive, but I did learn and grow and practice and take criticism. You can't just pat someone on the head and say "you're pretty, have fun!" and think it'll be okay. Aviation is fun and exciting and sexy...and still serious business. So I don't care if you're pretty or not, or wear your hair outside of your headset so it looks nice, or wear short skirts and tank tops and make videos of how great you are...as long as you can actually fly the damn plane when things go wrong too. If not, you're drawing more people into aviation like you, and God help all of us including those young girls looking up to you.  Okay, I'm done.

Anyway, it weirded me out seeing her do a video thing one minute and then seeing the wreckage of the plane on TV with her window blurred out so you couldn't see her body just a few minutes later.

I left the house and went to Star Nails to get my fakes taken back off. They still looked really good, but they were starting to grow out, they made it hard for me to get my contacts out, and they just bugged me. I tried to go to Solutions, but they had no appointments for set removal or for basic manicure even listed, you had to get another set or shellac paint, which I didn't want, so I went back to where I got them from. The Vietnamese guy who did them originally asked why I wanted them off. I said they looked beautiful (they did) but they were for a special occasion that was over now and I wanted my real nails back. He took his time, soaked them, ground the fake ones off, and it took over an hour. He did a manicure then. My nails are not damaged at all, unlike last time when a lady just pried them off and tore off my real nails too (one reason I never get fakes). My nails are in great shape after that, he was patient and detail oriented and he just did such a great job. And he charged me $30 for the whole time. I tipped him about 50% because I was so grateful and because he takes pride in his work. Meanwhile, Solutions is an expensive "white girl" place, and they did Kaylee's fake nails for her wedding. There were bubbles in it, the french tip color didn't go all the way to the edge on several of them, and the quality was very poor. They charged her $85 to do them (mine were $75) and wouldn't take them off, so Kaylee pried them off, which left glue and damage underneath. I also could walk in and get service right then and there, both times, whereas Solutions makes you make an appointment, and half the time there isn't one for days, which I can't commit to usually. So. Long story short, while I'd rather deal with people who speak English clearly so I can communicate what I want to do, the Vietnamese place wins on price, availability, and quality of work, All Three. At least between me and Kaylee. Craziness.

I ran my car through the car wash for the first time in awhile, right before it rains tomorrow of course, but I was here and it needed it. Stopped at Walgreens and did the girliest shopping stop ever. I got some stuff for my nails--nail strengthener, as they are thinner now after being ground down a couple times, a cuticle thing which will hopefully help stop me from picking at them if I have a way to cut them off, etc., and I got a Caramello. So...nails and chocolate. Total girl trip. ;)

Steve is trying to catch up from being gone so long, and he has a lot on his plate. So since I was home today, I mowed the back yard, since he showed me how to unfold and start the mower. I did it in two or three phases, because it's still hotter than Satan's Sauna out there right now. I'd go do some, come in before I started sweating too hard, and go back out when I was cooled off.  I was just now watching the radar and saw some rain coming, so I went back out and shoved the mower in the garage, but not folded up because I now can't figure out how to get the battery back OUT. lol But it's out of the rain anyway, and I took the trash cans out back for tomorrow's trash and recycling day, and tried to do a little bit of helping around here. I hope he doesn't get too used to it though. ;) He just got home, came in and was pretty excited. lol

Steve told me that one of the guys who used to fly, Jerry C, who let us use his Bonanza to fly to Florida to drive his car from the airport to stay in his Condo on St Pete for vacation, Jerry still follows me on Facebook, and told Steve the other day that reading my posts is a highlight for him. That he looks every day to see what photo I posted or what I might have written, says he loves how I write and what I post, and that it's been a bright spot in his life. Wow. He never likes or comments on anything, so I guess you just don't know who is out there looking or what they think of what you're doing.

While I'm 'bragging', I got an email from a former student that I finished up in 2017. He worked the night shift and would do flight lessons first thing in the morning. Sometimes he'd be about asleep in the airplane, sometimes he'd ghost me on the lesson, sometimes he'd show up looking like he rolled out of bed, but I knew he was working a night shift, and the only thing I didn't like was him not showing up without notice. The rest of it though...I understand, you know? So he sent me this email (in part):

"As I said, I know you’re a busy woman, and I was afraid you’d tell me you weren’t instructing anymore. In that case, I just want to tell you that the quality of instruction I received from you was unmatched by anyone else. You had a very thorough understanding of everything that you were able to effectively translate in our lessons. I am happy with the instruction received from everyone, and what you guys collectively helped me to achieve. BUT, I feel had you been my sole instructor, I could have completed the requirements for my license in less hours and with a better overall understanding. You’re a wonderful pilot, and a great teacher.

I don’t know how well you remember. But I’d also like to apologize for often scheduling my lessons early in the morning, immediately after work, sometimes after being soaked in sweat. I’m sorry if there were ever times that you were like “This kid is disgusting” lol Subjecting you to that grime while trapped in a tiny metal box with me was inconsiderate. And I know I slept through some lessons I had scheduled with you too. With all the things I was trying to juggle at the time, I wasn’t always the best student. But I just want you to know that I’ve felt bad for those things, and I appreciate you."

I wrote him back and told him I appreciated the kind words, and that I did not ever think he was disgusting, that I understood he was trying to make ends meet and learn to fly at the same time, etc. I just thought it was a neat email to get from a student who was, let's face it, not remarkable at the time, struggled to finish his Private, and then disappeared for the next 8 years. So to hear he felt I made a difference for him was a nice, positive thing for the day. 

As I'm writing this, there was Breaking News about a new AI Health Tracking System. Just last night I told Steve one of these days all our records are going to be organized and centralized and there will be no more privacy/discretion on it. This is the next step. Trump says "There will be no centralized Government Database of your health records, it will be opt in, if you want, for privacy". You know what, they said the same thing about ADS-B. "It won't be used for punishment or tracking, just safety so you can see other airplanes out there". We called bullshit at the time, and now guess what it's used for. Tracking, proving wrong-doing of airplanes, punishment, and now FEES from airports, This is bullshit too. Just like ADS-B (and many other things), once people get used to the idea of the health records thing, places will start requiring you allow them to use and access your records that way or they won't let you be a customer.  Pharmaceutical info combined with all doctors' info all tied together.  I love the idea of not having to fill out the same paperwork 20 times to get in to see a doctor. I even like organization of records. However...you know where this is going. I Know where this is going, and it's potentially going to be a problem for me. Not for awhile, but some day. Perhaps when the FAA makes you check a box on the medical form that gives them permission to access all your records via this thing "out of expediency" and so you don't "forget" anything. Mmm hmm. *sigh*

When it's this hot out, a guy posted that his instruction rates are as follows: $2/hr per degree Fahrenheit, plus $1 for each humidity percent over 50. I like it. I'm gonna remember that. ;)

Welp, guess that's about it for today. Tomorrow starts the busy again. I take Andy to the Key Largo area, drop them off, fly over to Venice, FL, and spend the night while they work on avionics. Fly the plane back to Frankfort Friday afternoon, pick up two people, fly them down to the Atlanta area to pick up a work truck, and fly home that night. Saturday by 8 am, I land in Delphi, pick up Ethan and Amber, and fly them back out to Colorado for the week. Come home, and then I have Sunday off. So, a busy end to the week. :)

Settling In

Steve, Greg, AE and Brennan stayed overnight and finished packing up this morning, then drove home from Oshkosh. They split up around Frankfort, Greg went home and Steve picked up his Jeep from there, and took Brennan back to Kokomo at Grindstone Charley's, where Brennan's girlfriend picked him up, and Steve, Kaylee and I ate dinner.

I spent the day organizing, cleaning up, trying to mow the lawn (can't figure out the electric mower), cleaning my coffee maker, taking out the recyclables, putting away my laundry, and hanging out and talking with Kaylee. I told her all the B-29 drama from when we were at Oshkosh and she was amazed that a bunch of adults were that bad at all of this. 

Kaylee is excited at having a couple of weeks off, now that she's finished her job at Radiant. She had an exit interview where they told her they'd love to have her back, that she went above and beyond what normal therapists do there when they leave, to make sure all of her clients were well taken care of and organized, and that there would be a spot for her if she ever wanted to come back. So that's always nice. She joined the local YMCA because they have a lot of group classes she's interesting in trying out. Ours is a nice one, newly refurbished, and a lot of options. I may go with her for one or two things if I have a day where I'm free to do it.

Now that Steve is back, he has the rest of our dirty laundry, towels, and bedding, so I have more laundry to do to catch up, which is fine. It's always good to get rid of the camp smell. He said the first thing he wants to do when he got home is use his own bathroom for as long as he wants, so I may see him tomorrow. lol

Nothing else exciting here. I'm just tired, organizing, and getting ready for the end of the week when things start picking up fast, and I may or may not have another day off for awhile...

Home Again

We're back to hotter than Satan's Sauna out here. It is...steaming. Terrible. The guys started packing up the camp site this morning, while I packed up my stuff and got ready to head out. Morgan and I got a bus ride to Fond du Lac, where they pulled our airplane out of a hangar back there that I didn't pay for as far as I know. 

The flight home was just over an hour, hotter than hell, and low to the ground, along the shoreline of Chicago, just for a different view than the middle of the lake. When we landed, we put the plane away and then went to Dairy Queen of all places, for lunch, because we were hot, so we wanted ice cream along with our chicken strips, and it was good.

Morgan then had to drive to Marion and fly the Meridian to New York to drop off Caleb's girlfriends' parents who had come to visit. I, meanwhile, went home, took a nap, did all my laundry I had brought home, put away my bag, emptied the dish washer, cleaned the coffee maker, hung out with Kaylee for several hours, and started catching up on adding these photos back in. I got every day caught up through today on photos, going back through to last Wednesday.

I'm right now watching "Point Break", except not the one with Patrick Swayzee, but a remake I never knew existed. It's not the same movie at all, and it doesn't have the...heart...of the real one either. But it's not a bad action movie of its own right. Not fabulous acting, but lots of action and stunts, above and beyond what the original ever did. 

I want to try to mow the lawn before Steve gets back tomorrow, but we have a new electric motor and I don't know how to operate it. Plus it's horribly hot and I may die trying. ;) I think I'll try in the morning before I take a shower, maybe.

I'm looking forward to my own bed, my own shower, and thick toilet paper again. It felt a little short this time, these 3-4 days, but I'm still glad to be home. I'm enjoying the quiet time at home alone at the moment, actually. And I don't have anything on tap at the moment for the next 3 days, which is okay considering the triple digit heat indexes this week...next big trip, I'm supposed to go to Key Largo on Thursday.

Campground almost torn down

Steve waving bye back there

Aerostar over Lake Michigan, and Chicago Skyline

Oshkosh Last Full Day

I really wish Google would let me add the photos as I go here, instead of making me wait to do it at home on a laptop. I don’t know why it suddenly won’t let me. But when I do get home, I’ll have to go back in to each day and add a few photos. And interestingly enough, so far I don’t think any of them are of airplanes, just people and campground stuff. I decided a few years ago I already have photos of airplanes on the ground, airplanes flying, the EAA smiley face from the skywriters, the Oshkosh Tower, I could take a photo of any of those things from any year I was here and you couldn’t tell the difference. So I have taken very few photos of anything except the group of folks at our camp site, which DOES vary per year. Not that I won’t take airplane photos if something screams at me, and I will take a few photos tonight of the fireworks at the night airshow I’m sure, even though that also doesn’t change, but…in general I’ve just been kind of photo’d out. Until I see my 20,000th sunset in an airplane and take a photo of that again too. ;)

Our trailer has outside water source, and a big tank, which we use to do dishes and stuff after meals, too. Someone left the water on, and all our water ran out last night before we caught it before going to bed, right after we’d had it topped off that morning. Steve’s livid. So that meant no water at bedtime or in the morning. I didn’t come out of the trailer until 10:30 am, after which they’d run and got a little more water so I could shower enough to wet down my hair and clean up a bit and not look like a homeless lady. ;) 

Morgan ran Cameron to the flight line, and on the way home stopped at got us both a Vanilla Iced Latte, which was a lovely way to start the day. A lot of folks have already packed up and headed out. Nathan and Jamie are gone this morning, Doug and Gayle and Karen and Mike and a lot of the Texas crew and Chuck, who was sharing our trailer with us. So that leaves out Kokomo crew; me, Steve, Morgan, Cameron, Brennan, Greg O, AE, and a couple of Texas folks, Joe Ford and his buddy. A much quieter day around here today.  I’m not planning on walking around the grounds. I did that twice, and I’ll be back out there for the night show, which will be a very long walk out to here, but I’m not too old for that yet. ;) 

Kaylee had called Wednesday night upset at her goodbyes at work, so I texted her last night to see if she was doing okay now that she’d finished out her goodbyes with clients. She was home with Molly and said she was doing fine, so that’s good. I was a little worried about her, but she handled it better after that first day after all. I guess I didn't talk about it Wednesday night when we arrived, but Kaylee wanted me to call her because she’d had a bad day. She had to say goodbye to all her Wednesday clients, for her last time seeing them, and she also had to turn in a 14 year old girl who was having frequent unprotected random sex, didn’t know what STDs were, didn’t know how to protect herself, was taking Plan B every day for a birth control, and refused to listen and tell her mom even though Kaylee said she needed help from her mom (who was a safe space, not a danger), and to talk to her. Kaylee put it through her bosses, who were divided, so she let it stand for a week, and then the next week additional info came in, Kaylee put it through the bosses again, who all agreed that this sucked and isn’t how you want to do it, but she (Kaylee) needed to have a conversation with the mom. So she did, and the mom was shocked and grateful, and had time to cool off and react appropriately with her daughter. But the daughter, of course, flipped out, called Kaylee everything but a white girl, said she’d never go to therapy again, etc. So that didn’t leave Kaylee feeling great.  That’s why, Thursday and Friday she had more goodbyes and more clients, so I wanted to see how she was doing, and the answer was “all good”. 

I do still enjoy being up here. It feels a little like home after you do it every year for so many years. I still don’t like the showers and I still don’t like quick dissolve TP, and I don’t like having a couple of people there who are there, who I wish would go find their own friends elsewhere and move on. But fat chance of that. I do like running into aviation people, I do think it’s fun to hear “Hey Laura!” up in warbirds or around the main drag. I appreciate sitting out in camp chairs and watching the airshow, with a cold beverage in hand, napping in the trailer during the worst of the heat, waking up to a bunch of Mustangs or T-6s in the morning, and hearing all the aviation talk all around you all the time no matter where you go. You’re around your own people, you know? Where what you are is normal. I appreciate that.

I also kind of got the bug to bring the T-6 back up here next year. Do some formation flying, get back in it. I’ve spent at least 2 years now, maybe 3, doing nothing but the work stuff, and now I’m rusty, out of currency, have to retake checkrides, and out of the loop.  So maybe I can do that next year, and take a couple of our “kids” with me on a dawn patrol formation flight out here next year or something too. They’d like that, and I would too. Minus the getting up super early part. ;)

Our steak night last night went really well. A lot of good camaraderie, quiet groups talking until late at night, sat around the campfire until 1:30 am Central time, woke up when the sun came beaming in at like 5:30 am, but that’s all right, that’s Oshkosh too.

So tomorrow morning we go home. I can’t decide if this 3 days is too short, or just right. Normally we’re here for 9-10 days, and by the end I’m quite glad to get home. I don’t really have a lot more I need to do here, though I might go to the Seaplane base if I were here another day, or walk over to KidVenture and the Museum, or go onto flightline and get cheese curd tacos, or eat at Chester V’s and Wendts and other places, since the only place I got to this year was Ardy & Eds. All iconic and fun things to do. But I’ll see the night airshow, and I’ve walked all through the main area twice, and I’ve ran into the people I needed to run into, so…good enough? Maybe.

Oh, there is some additional CAF drama. I don’t know how I got pulled into the middle of it, and yet I did. A pilot in the B-29 Squadron was caught having sex with a volunteer in the hangar/airplane/something. He was walked in on in the act by another volunteer. He (J) was actively having an affair with M, and apparently most people around knew it. He is married with two young children, and I know him fairly well, because he’s also on the WASP Squadron and flies the T-6. She is also married. To someone else of course. Several volunteers said they didn’t want to work with him because he lied, was sneaking around, etc. Some of the leadership asked him to step down or step aside for awhile. He would not.  A couple people went to leadership, who basically said “He denies it, and anyone who wants to leave over it, we don’t want/need them anyway”. The people who expressed concern had been there for years, given up a lot, dedicated a ton of time to the unit, and were being told that because they didn’t want to deal with the liar/cheater guy any more, their input didn’t matter.  They were hurt and offended that their years of service didn’t matter. The big main money guy also backed J. So the WASP Wing kicked J out of flying their T-6 any more. The fall-out from that was that the main money guy threatened to kick them off the Tour. Or they pulled out, but I think they were to be kicked out. Then Kathy M, the wife of a BOB pilot, confronted M, and asked her why she thought it was okay to “F” a married man with two small children, and confronted her in public. The fall-out from THAT and the point of me telling you this, is that even though she’s not an IN Wing member, her husband flies BOB, and the money guy said if we felt that way and she represented us, he was going to kick US off the tour too. Now Glenn is getting calls, and Steve, and me, and we’re like… WE didn’t say nothing. Then I go to the Gunfighter Burger Burn, and Kathy confronts me and wants me to be on her side for publicly yelling at this other woman. In the meantime, the B-29’s head of maintenance, his wife who led the trailer/sales/rides desk on tour, the Tour Director and manager, Three A&P mechanics, and 2 or 3 pilots, instructors, check pilots, ALL QUIT over it. Now the Indiana Wing got the CEO of the whole CAF to talk to Kathy because she was going to confront the woman again at the Friday night CAF Oshkosh party, loudly and in public again, and if she did, the Big money guy was going to kick BOB off tour. And we can’t control her.  So Steve calls Dennis who calls Greg (Wing Leader) who calls David O (CEO) who already knows and who was one of the people who said “If they leave we didn’t want them anyway”, but he now says he’s calling Kathy personally.

Now. I hate drama, and this was drama at its finest. Except that was last night and now I DO want to know how the party went, how the phone call went, and what is happening with our airplane, with the Tour, with our pilots. Oh, Kathy’s husband, JP, had texted and wanted to talk to me too. We never have connected. I put it off, and put it off, because 1) I don’t like drama and 2) I’m not good at it. I don’t even know how I feel, to be honest! Obviously I am not a fan of cheaters, but how is their affair my problem or my business? On the other hand, the people who are leaving, ARE friends, who were lied to directly by him, and in good conscience don’t feel like they can stay to work with him. He J has been granted the privilege of flying the B-29 at Oshkosh, on tour with his side girl, seen going to her room with her now that it’s out anyway, which is a direct slap in the face to the other volunteers who object to it.  There’s all this upheaval, and reportedly some openings for pilots in the B-29 now. But if you do that, are you a “scab”? Should everyone refuse to cooperate with the B-29 squadron as long as they defend that one guy and keep him over everyone else who has been working for them all these years?  Or is it not my place to worry about all that, and just do our own thing and stay out of it? Stand with some friends in solidarity, or let that place’s drama be that place’s drama and just do us? Hell, I don’t even know what’s right, there. JP asked what my thoughts were, and my text response was “I’m a little confused, a little concerned, and a little annoyed”, and that pretty much covers it.

We have Starlink here, and other than a brief glitch on Wednesday, it’s been working flawlessly. This is the way to go in the future out here, that’s for sure. I am in love with Starlink. I don’t care if you like weird Elon or not, Starlink Rocks. ;) 

The last thing we did was go to the night airshow. Tummers dropped us off at the Vintage Pedestrian Only gate, and I led the way to a pretty good spot close to the center of the program, and not far from the runway. We enjoyed the show as always. Lasers, fireworks, airplanes, and drones, they did it all. Fireball, wall of fire, music, it was a heck of a show, as always. We had expected to have to walk all the way back, and we are out in the boonies. Miles. Steve sent Tummers back to get us, and we booked out of there. I led again, dodging and weaving and moving fast. I left Brennan and Cameron behind a bit, but I turned around and Morgan was right on my ass, her face was Right There, and it cracked me up. She was glued to me. I decided she earned her formation card with that one. Tummers found us, got to us, and got us home, and we made it out and home before the main herd and mass of people got in the roads. It was Awesome and will probably never happen again…

Back to the firepit, burning the last of our wood so that there isn’t any left for tomorrow. And in the morning, we pack up, and Morgan and I head out for home. She has a trip to NY, and I’m just goin’ home…

Sorry for the overload of fireworks photos. I deleted the bad ones, figured I might as well post the others if I'm going to bother taking them.

These sound gross but they are quite tasty

Twilight Airshow, some of the people you can see

Lasers, man

The drones taking off

A dinosaur. Couldn't figure out why a dinosaur, but okay

Gotta love fire

Lasers, fireworks, fireballs, drones, AND airplanes all up

Hartzell Prop

Four airplanes you can't see

Wall of fire, baby

End of night campfire