Father's Day Fly-in

Here are the two videos of this years (my first) Father's day. We flew up to Columbia, CA (O22) for their fly-in. The flight was smooth and we saw Half Dome and circled around Pine Mountain Lake on the way up. The camping was great, about 70 or so during the day, comfortable in the sun and the shade was cool. There really weren't any bugs either (flies or mosquito's) however we did find a tick in Katie's pack & play and a tarantula. I think we ended up with 4 lifers added to our lists as well (birds, we've seen most the airplanes before except maybe the AirCams). Katie did great and the airshow was pretty good for a local fly-in although it was mostly just flybys with no aerobatics. We'll be going next year for sure.

We took a short ~1/2 mile walk to the city which is actually a state park. They have all sorts of old shops such as panning for gold, saloons, and blacksmith. We got our first family portrait at one of those places that takes old fashioned photos. It's not the best photo, I'm missing a chunk of hair and I'm not sure what to think about Katie, but it was fun. I hear Mark is going to take some real photos; I'm looking forward to updating the family portrait :)

Katies First Camping Trip (camping)

So here is the camping video of our trip to Kernville. The camcorder ran out of memory Friday afternoon and we forgot the spare memory stick at home, but Katie still has plenty of air time :)

Katies First Camping Trip (flight)

Michelle and I are planning on flying to the Father's day fly-in next weekend, but we haven't gone camping with Katie yet. We've been trying to go camping the past few weekends to see how she does, but the weather hasn't been great. We made the flight to Kernville this last weekend and camped in their airport camping area. We managed to fit me, Michelle, Katie, Maverick, Emmett, and and all of our camping gear in the airplane! This video is of the flight there, I'll make another one of the actual camping trip.

I'm so out of shape, camping delayed

So I decided to play in the outdoor "indoor" soccer. I haven't exercised since last season so tonight was pretty rough. I spent most of the game out of breath on the bench and my legs and back are now killing me, but it's better than nothing. We play twice a week so this will be a rough few months.

Two weekends ago on Saturday after I got back from work, Michelle and I decided to fly to Kernville to go camping at about 5pm,. This was supposed to be a test run taking Katie camping some place close. Eventually we came to our senses and decided we wouldn't make it in time and we'd forget something in the rush. We postponed the trip to this past weekend. Crappy weather prevented the trip this weekend, the mountains were blanketed with clouds so we wouldn't have been able to make it. The plan is now to go next weekend.

With the extra time this last weekend, we went out to the airport to do a test fit to see if we could fit everything we needed. We were able to fit the 3 of us, the two dogs, all of our camping gear, plus the jogging stroller! Even though the jogging stroller is bigger than the regular one, it is essential when you are not on pavement so we would need it for the dirt trail down to the sandy beach. Kernville has a nice camping area just west of the runway with a trail down to the river. There usually aren't too many other people so I think it'll be a great place to let the dogs run wild in the river/lake. We'll bring the binoculars and bird books to see if we can get any new birds as well.

Here is a picture of the camping area at Kernville. It is amazing how low the water is now (draining for bridge repair) compared to the picture. Usually the south end of the runway is a peninsula, but now there is dry land all around. It is a short walk from the camping to the airport restaurant which has excellent breakfast and burgers, is dog friendly, and has a great outdoor deck overlooking the runway.