WEDNESDAY - July 25, 2007

I truly believe a good night’s sleep can make all of the difference about how the day looks. Last night when I went to bed I was beat, tired, exhausted, and just wanted to close my eyes. This morning I came out to the dining room with the sunlight streaming in the windows and quickly grabbed a cup of coffee. Alan beat me to breakfast today and we started to talk about plans. He had a project he needed to finish for work. This morning was relaxing, we sat and talked about log books, flying, he worked on his project and I worked on this blog. One of my more interested projects lately has been to update my digital logbook with distances. I have flown nearly 25,000 total miles and about 450 hours.

Alan mentioned that we got to land in two new states – Wisconsin and Michigan. This prompted me to start counting how many states I had landed in, 14 states and one other country: South and North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Maryland, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin and Governors Harbor, Bahamas, Always interesting to count. Of course, this was now my longest total cross country trip, 1054 nautical miles, the way we went - or 971 according to my flight planning software.

We headed to the show and quickly found our parking spot this morning. We decided to walk the pavilions and look at merchandise. Right away I found a shirt for Jack. Next, we found the Autolite spark plug booth and I got a t-shirt with Autolite Annie on the back. Alan was much more carried away than me and I think he bought one in every color. As we went through the buildings I looked at aircraft covers, GPS’s with weather, and flashlights. I have a fetish for good flashlights. But, I controlled myself and spent no money. I found the girls and planes booth and bought two t-shirts, one for Haley and one for Marcella. We continued to walk and then found ourselves outside in the heat, looking at airplanes. It looks like the Piper Mirage is the perfect upgrade airplane for me – more comfort, faster, and a higher cruise altitude. Sure, for $600k I can get one on trade. Why not?

After grabbing some lunch we worked our way in and out of more outdoor booths and then back into the vendor buildings. As we rounded the corner at the Lowrance GPS booth we ran into two of Alan’s friends: Keith and Darrel. Just across the aisle from there were friends of mine from past business, Fred and Mike, at the ASA booth. Interestingly, we started up the next aisle and ran into Mr. Wilson from Wilson Air Center, one of my customers. Who else could we see in the same building?

Alan finally found an embroidery vendor with a Varga! Of course, we had to order some shirts with his airplane and tail number on them. I finally found a Piper on a hat with a Piper in my paint scheme on it, but she would not sell it to me! She said come back on Saturday and I could buy her sample, I hope I remember. As we stood there it started to rain outside. Unlike Sun ‘n Fun, the building did not flood with people. This was kind of nice. We continued to prowl the aisles and look at merchandise and worked our way outside as the rain stopped.

Heading back to the VIP Flightline Pavilion we both discussed we felt better than yesterday, but were still thirsty. We found ourselves water, snickers bars, and air conditioning, aaahhhhhh……

The air show started and again we were dazzled with the performers. Personally, I wanted to walk, get some photos. So, we decided to walk the antique aircraft. We headed south as Patty Wagstaff took to the air. Again, a dazzling performance. I was interested in finding the Cessna 195s, the Beech Staggerwings and some classic Cessna 172s. As we walked though, I discovered the beauty of the 1940s through the Swift aircraft. I photographed the row of 195s, and walked by Piper Cubs. I saw a majestic Beech Super G18 and headed to a Cessna 140. All of these aircraft were in beautiful condition.

As I walked more I kept finding myself drawn to a particular Piper, the Pacer and the Tri-Pacer. What a beautiful airplane. I asked Alan what one cost - $20-30s. Hmmm, that is the perfect collector airplane for Leeann, me, and the baby. Jack could even learn to fly in a plane like that.

Alan called to me, “where’s the bag?”. I looked, I did not have the bag with his shirts. Uh-oh, I thought.

We had left it back by his friend’s SX300 and the Long EZ of a gentleman from Stuart Florida that I had met on Saturday at the Cornelia airport. We began the walk back north through the airplanes we had just seen. I had no idea we had walked this far. What a trek. We both agreed that we expected the bag would be there, hopefully someone had placed it under the airplane wing out of the rain. Sure enough, we rounded the corner and there it was lying on the ground. Things, keep working out.

We started to walk to the car tonight and the skies opened up with rain, again. Fortunately, we were at an EAA merchandise tent and ducked inside out of the mud and the storm. I decided to buy a DC-3 balsa wood model and finally found a 2007 AirVenture pin for my hat. Within five minutes we headed to the car and agreed to go to Wentzs for dinner – a seafood place down near the seaplane base.

Talk about good! We had perch and waffle fries with a beer for dinner. The fish was probably the best fish I have ever eaten. It was delicious! After dinner tonight we drove up the highway near the lake and found the seaplane base. What a site, seaplanes lined up on the creek, pointed the same direction in the evening light. Unfortunately, it was not good enough to take pictures so we headed home.

I called LeeAnn, I miss her a lot. She was crying from watching a show on television. My heart skipped a few beats because I thought something was wrong. Oh yeah, she found a Wii today – a Nintendo video game and bought it. I told Haley this afternoon and she screamed with excitement. I can’t wait to see Lee on Sunday evening and it sounds like she is having a great week at work.

A lot of typing tonight and time to go to sleep. Looking through pictures was refreshing. I also realized it is only 1.5 hours from here to my parent’s house. The world is getting smaller to me through flight.

TUESDAY - July 24, 2007

Sleep was great. I still can’t believe I am here. All of the months of planning still seem very surreal. It is 7:15 and I am in the shower waking up slowly, and unsure about what I will find when I get to the kitchen. Wow! Cantaloupe, Danishes, cereal, fruit, coffee, orange juice. So far the day is going well.

Alan and I headed to the EAA museum, planning to be there for a 10:00a tour. We were greeted at the museum and went to the conference room to wait for our tour guide. Pete Kelly was introduced to us and he quickly volunteered that he would do his best to show us around, but was to say that if we asked specifics his answers would be generic and he would say, “a lot” to anything we asked.

We made our rounds through the museum. I began to see beautiful aircraft, wow. This was going to be quite a day and quite a show. During our two hours with Pete today he took us to EAA kid venture, Compass Hill, the chapel, trough the war birds, past the classics, to the campground, and around by the presidents house where we will go the barbeque this week. As we approached lunch time we joked about a place that advertised beer and bikinis later in the week – Pete had already been there and said the food was great. We parked and walked to this outdoor tent on a private lot, there was no beer or bikinis. But, I had a shredded pork sandwich and an ear of corn that had been dipped in butter.

We parted ways with Pete and headed off on our own. Alan and I went to look at the gift shop at the museum and move our car closer to the show, to our ‘VIP’ lot. We began to walk through the ‘air swap’, a land of tents with vendors hawking sunglasses, old books, hammocks, aircraft parts, and a variety of items anyone would need. After about two hours of walking we decided to head toward the performer’s tent. Alan and I had passes for the day, to be in a tent and watch the air show from the front row.

Arriving at the tent I asked the man checking wristbands if we were in the right place. It turned out it was Pete! He jumped to his feet and said “no, but let me get you a badge to get in.” Suddenly Alan and I found ourselves walking through an air conditioned tent and being offered drinks and food. Pete took us to the rooftop gallery and explained we could watch the air show from there. Alan and I looked at each other and laughed, it just keeps getting better.

For about 45 minutes we sat, not a lot happening as a few airplanes buzzed overhead. In a moment, at 3:00 airplanes appeared from everywhere. I counted at one time at least 40 aircraft in the air. Soon, aerobatic pilots were performing in front of us, doing maneuvers that I could not imagine. Airplanes were going up, down, sideways and in ways that I could not imagine. As I looked around, I spotted Phil Boyer, head of AOPA, just a few feet behind me watching the same show from the same pavilion we were. I sat back and watched in awe, enjoying every second.

After the show, we headed out. It had been a long day. Tonight we ate dinner, after driving all over Oshkosh, at a restaurant called “Jansens”. An interesting neighborhood tavern where I had a delicious rib-eye steak. I lasted for about 15 minutes when we got home, ugh I needed sleep.

I enjoyed today. I realized that flying is not hard, scary, or intimidating. I have never felt that it is, but I probably pass up many opportunities to go places that I could easily reach in my airplane or “time traveling machine” as my friend Andy Millin calls it.