Malts in Brenham

January 19, 2009

Today, I went with my friend Emery, his wife Jacklyn, and her sister Bekah. We went to Brenham Texas for a step back in time. We enjoyed girls in Poodle Skirts, Wonderful Hamburgers, Delicious Onion Rings, and Tasty French Fries. Did I mention the Chocolate Malts?

It was a wonderful lunch, The only thing that made this day anything but wonderful, was the wind. The wind was real high today, it made for a bumpy ride, but it was well worth it for all the great food we had.

I highly reccomend anyone that's looking for a $100 hamburger, stop by Brenham and enjoy the old time atmosphere and out of this world food!!!

Picking up a friend's new airplane

November 4, 2008

So, I had a very interesting time a few months ago, and I've been dying to tell you all about it. I went with my friend Simon and Beki and their friend Ron. Simon recently bought a new Stinson, well it's new to him anyways. Simon is one of those people who is of the "you haven't really flown till you fly a tail dragger" mentality. So, I was very excited to go on a trip with him, see how his piloting skills measured up to his talk. Could he walk the walk and talk the talk?

Here's one of my favorite pictures from the trip: Seen the movie ET?


So, to start off our trip, we headed over to DFW, by car. We were going to drop of Beki, Simon's wife, at the airport. She had to catch a commercial flight back to Washington DC so she could go to work. I still say DFW, is an overwhelming airport, even when you are in a car. Did I mention that Simon brought a great companion for me on our trip. His sweet baby girl, Aubergine. Here's a picture of the 2 of us just chilling out.

So, we set out on our Eastward travel, heading from Dallas, Texas to Atlanta, Georgia by car. This was going to be fun, and long! Along the way there were all sorts of interesting sites to see. I only thought I might get carsick once, so we stopped for a while to let my stomach settle. Simon was really worried about me possibly getting sick in his car, and plus Aubergine has a reputation for going "potty" in all 50 states. So, for this potty break, we stopped in Mississippi! Here's a picture of me with the sign!

After our short stop in Mississippi, we headed onward, thought not upward, to Atlanta Georgia. At this point, I was getting kind of tired of the car, and I was eagerly awaiting actually getting to lay my eyes on this airplane. I really wanted to be in the air, though the sights along the way were interesting, I find them even more interesting from the air. Plus, sweet dear Aubergine, as nice as she is, thought I was a pillow, and i was getting kind of tired of being laid on. But on the bright side, atleast I had someone to keep me company. Some pilots kind of forget about me cause I'm so small, and I don't get much attention. But, Aubergine was just my size, and we had a grand ole time.

Finally, We got to Georgia. We stopped at the Georgia Department of Industry and Trade. Here, I tried to sell myself, but turns out, I am not of good enough quality, and I didn't have any marketable skills, even though I'm darn cute, if I might say so myself. After the rejected me, I did however stop to pose with their sign, so that you all would know I wasn't making this stuff up! Here's my with the department of industry and trade sign. Please ignore my low self esteem after being rejected so blatantly.

So, after being turned away an unable to sell myself, my self esteem was so low, that only chocolate and caffeine could remedy the situation. Simon is such an insightful person, he promptly bought me a snickers and a coke. Now, i was in a better mood, and would enjoy my ride. Here's me with my comfort food!

Finally, we got to the airport. I got to lay my eyes on Simon's new plane before all his friends at the Palestine Airport. Everyone has been talking about how bad they wanted to see this plane, and I got to see it first! Envy me! ha ha! So, after some paperwork, finalization and a handshake, we were on our way. We climbed in this plane and started towards home. Here's a picture of the notorious stinson that Simon bought:

So, when we climbed in the plane, I thought to myself, I really hope this guy is as good of a pilot as I have been told he is. I knew it wouldn't take long to find out. I had been told that tail draggers are harder to taxi than other airplanes, so I was hoping he could keep the plane on the taxi line. Amazingly he did. I thought hey, maybe this guy is as good as he says he is. After we taxiied out to the runway and did a brief run-up, we were on our way. As we started down the runway, I thought to myself, "yeah, now I get to fly" then the tail came off the ground, and I could actually see out the front window! Then we rotated up, and we were finally airborne. The moment I had been waiting for while enduring this LONG car drive, I wasn't sure how Aubergine was gonna do in the plane, but she too was an old pro at flying.

Our flight home was uneventful, we had lots of great scenery to look at, and the joy of flying is so much fun. Our landing at Palestine was also near perfect. When we taxiied up to the ramp, Everyone that was at the airport, came to check out this great plane, that Simon had searched so long to find. As everyone was admiring this plane, I took pride in knowing that through enduring the long car ride couped up with Aubergine, I was the first to lay my eyes on this plane, as well as the first passenger.

Now, where to next?

Escorting a Soldier Home

10/25/08

Well, today was a very sad yet interesting flight. To completely understand the situation, I will have to give you a little back history.

There was a funeral in town today for a fallen soldier. The soldier was killed in iraq, several others were injured and 5 others were critically injured. So, another soldier escorted his body home, and stayed to help with the military service. After the service, he needed someone to take him to DFW so that he could catch a flight from there, home to Alaska. Well, My friend Emery, and my friend Paul, decided they would be honored to take this soldier to DFW, Emery went because he had the plane, and Paul went because he knew DFW.

When this soldier arrived at the airport, he told us his story, he also said that he would go home to alaska for about 1 day, then he would have to leave again to escort another soldier home. So, we all loaded into Emery's baron, and we flew this soldier to DFW so that he could get home. It was an honor for us to do this. When we were in the air, I looked at our soldier, and he was sleeping, guess it is true that they can sleep anywhere. I thought the plane was noisy. We went into DFW, and boy that was A LOT of talk on the radio! They even held an MD80 for us to taxi in front of it. That was interesting, in Palestine, the Baron is the big dog on the field, in DFW, we wer the puppy. That was interesting.

Anyways, when all was over with, it was nice to have been able to help out a soldier, they do so much to help us out!

Acrobatics!?*$# !!!!

Well, it's been quite an adventure. I've been busy with my friend Rob, let me give you a quick breakdown.

9/21/08

We left out in the 150, and headed over to mesquite. He told me we were going to practice acrobatics, and that there would be a lot of neat planes there, but I wasn't quite sure what that meant. When we got to Mesquite, we got in a piper arrow. It was a neat plane, i didn't think a whole lot about it because i have been in lots of planes. We did some landings, 5 to be exact. Then we got some sleep.

9/22/08

We went back to mesquite (we actually stayed the night there) and this tine I got to do some more tail dragger time, i liked that, it is still new to me, but i really like it. we did 4 landings. Then we headed back to Palestine in the 150. I'm not to keen on those overnight trips, but the flying in between sure is fun. It was nice to be home.

Then on 10/2/08 We went back to mesquite. This time we drove in the car over to Mesquite, we did some more flying and landing, just getting good practice in.

10/6/08

This is when it got interesting, this is when I actually got to start doing acrobatics. We went up and di some loops, rolls, accelerated stalls and other misc manuevers. Wow, good thing there were sic sacs available, luckily I didn't need them, but next time, I think I am going to not eat before we do that. It was a neat experience, I didn't know airplanes could do all that neat stuff.

10/7/08

We did even more acrobatics this day. Barrell Rolls, Splits, Cuban 8, Heck, I don't even know what all those things are, i just know that airplane was turning all sorts of different directions. It was tons of fun.

My first Tail Dragger time!

9/21/2008

Well, it's been quite an adventure! Today I went with my friend Rob, we went to Mesquite Texas. The flight to Mesquite was uneventful, that wasn't the adventure part. The Big adventure is the reason we were going over there. Rob, is working on his tail dragger endorsement. So, once we got to Mesquite, I got to ride along while he did some training in a tail dragger. an Arrow 200 to be exact. That was quite an experience. It's amazing to me the minute differences between other airplanes and tail draggers. They taxi differently, it took a lot more Rudder to taxi than in the other airplanes that I have been in.

9/22/2008
We stayed the night in Mesquite and we did more tail dragger time the next day. We did more take-off and landings. It was a great time, and then we came back home. It's always nice to return home!

And now, I have tail dragger time!

Flying with cargo

9/18/2008

Today I flew with my friend Paul, who hauls cargo. We flew out of KPSN and he even let me fly some. We left late at night, no one else was around, it was odd to leave the airport with no one to wave goodbye to me. We left about 7:00pm. We flew into Tyler Pounds Field (KTYR) and picked up more cargo, then we flew into DFW. Paul let me fly some while he tried to fix some navigational problems the airplane was having. It was fun to fly, but I wasn't nervous because I knew if I couldn't handle it paul was there and he would take the controls back. WOW! What an airport DFW is. There were a lot of REALLY BIG airplanes, and lots of runways and taxiways. A little bear could really get lost there. After following all of our directions and taxiing, we finally got the cargo dropped off and the airplane shut down. We called it a night and went to bed.

The next morning we got up bright and early and reversed our route. We started out in DFW, then we went to Tyler again and dropped off some cargo, then we went to Palestine and dropped off their cargo. It was a nice flight, and I was glad to be home. Good to see familiar faces.

If you ever think airports don't have any significance to the community, you have to ask yourself "Do I appreciate my overnight packages?" I didn't realize that people flew odd hours to get those packages to me. What an interesting experience.

My First Soft Field Landing

9/7/08

So, After flying with my friend Emery in his baron yesterday, we decided to go flying again today just for the fun of it. We went to a private landing strip "Dillard" on the Houston Texas Sectional. His Fiance Jacklyn went with us this time.

Emery hadn't done a soft field landing in his baron, so it was a first for both of us. The field was kind of difficult to find at first, but when we found it, we went on in and landed. It was a really neat trip, and I really enjoyed landing there. We stayed and visited for awhile, and then we left. Emery did a good job of taking off on that grass strip.

It was a really neat place to go, and I reccomend you go visit if you get the chance. The airfield is commonly known as Critters Lodge and they are having their annual fly-in on September 26-28 2008. For more information on that visit: www.critterslodge.org