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.

Space Shuttle Atlantis Landing

Michelle and I took Katie down to Edwards AFB hoping the shuttle would land there since the weather looked bad in FL for today and tomorrow. We found a place not too far from the flight line on a little hill that gave us a great view. We got there about 25 minutes early and the orbiter had already completed it's de-orbit burn so it was officially coming to Edwards. We saw it fly over head, heard the double sonic boom, then saw it come in for landing. After the landing, we stopped by a nearby outdoor AFB museum that had an SR-71, which is Michelle's favorite airplane.

Katie goes flying for Mother's Day

Michelle and I had been planning on taking Katie flying around 6 weeks old, but didn't get up until she was 8 weeks due to family visiting. The first opportunity ended up being Mother's Day so I told Michelle we could do it another weekend, but she still wanted to go. Katie did great.

I pinched one of the silicon ear plugs into two so they would be smaller, making 3 might have been a better size. She doesn't like me putting them in her ears, but is fine with them once they are in. They stuck there really well with no problems of them coming out. She also wore the headset in case they would have fallen out. She is just learning to suck on a pacifier so we weren't sure how it would work for flying. At first she would just have it in her mouth, but not suck and eventually it would fall out. Michelle ended up holding it there, but she started sucking on it and fell asleep about 5 or so minutes into flight. On the way back, she was sleeping before we took off. She never cried or had any problems in the airplane and the pacifier seemed to be sufficient for sucking for the pressure changes

I flew at 4,500 feet on the way down to Cal City and 5,500 feet on the way back and the round trip time was only 0.7 hours.

Mark visits Katie for the weekend

So Mark flew to Vegas for a business conference but had some extra time during the weekend before. I flew out to Vegas and picked him up so he could come and meet Katie. I filed my VFR (Visual Flight Rules for Mark) flight plan to McCarren LAS since I had talked to the FBO (Fixed Base Operator) there and they said I shouldn't have a problem flying in on a Thursday morning. I was questioned twice by controllers to verify my destination as McCarren and when I finally got handed over to Las Vegas Approach, they told me I would have to hold for an hour to an hour and a half so I diverted to North Las Vegas and Mark took a cab to meet me there. I have a feeling that if I would have started to hold, they might have let me in within 20 minutes. I think they say over an hour as a scare tactic, but if you call their bluff, they'll let you land. I bet most people divert so they probably issue the hold to all small airplanes.

The flight there and back was pretty bumpy, but not the end of the world. I was worried about Mark since I didn't know if he would get sick or not and we were pretty much committed to this flight. He did fine and was taking pictures and whipping his head around looking at everything. Most people would have had their head in their hands trying to sleep (or to just not get sick). The visit was great and the weather held up well for his flight back on Sunday. I didn't even bother trying McCarren on a Sunday so Mark and to fetch a cab back to the strip. Regardless, the cab ride was about the same price as the ramp fee at McCarren so it wouldn't have been cheaper to fly into McCarren and I could have gotten stuck in a long line of airplanes waiting to take off, not to mention the gas I would have burnt holding waiting to land.

Here are some clips of the flights. I didn't have the camera on the whole time and I ran out of batteries so I don't have any film of Vegas. I tried to clean up Mark's sweaty potty mouth, but didn't do that good of a job. It's not my fault his *$$ was sweaty, he's the one who forgot his rocks then had his shoulder strap hanging out of the door resulting in an aborted takeoff!