Plane ride & Lunch

Our good friends John & Pat who we met in the Florida Keys 12 years ago live in the Corning, NY area and I contacted them last night about getting together while we were here.  It worked out best for them to meet today for lunch in the town of Painted Post at a nice Italian restaurant.  We haven't seen them for a couple years since we go to Tucson for the winter and they have a place in Central Florida for the winter, so it was good connecting with them again.

We had a nice lunch and got caught up on events in their lives since we last saw them and filled them in on what has been going on with us.  John built a scaled down P-51 airplane from a kit a number of years ago and keeps it at a local airport.  

Grant in the cockpit of the P-51

 
He also has another airplane but it was in Ohio at the present time with his son.  We got to talking about airplanes and he asked if we wanted to go for a ride in a friend's plane and Grant's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree light.  That said it all and John arranged to get his friend's plane and off we went to the airport.

Gerry & Grant preparing to board the plane.

After a long preflight check of the plane Grant and Gerry were ready to fly off into the wide blue yonder.  Or in this case, the cloud filled yonder.  The picture below is of the airfield as they lifted off the runway.  If you blow up the picture you will see Pat & me sitting on a bench outside of the building on the right.  I am wearing the "red shirt" as Henry says.

They took a 35 minute flight around the Corning area and flew over our campground, John & Pat's house, our next campsite and the Corning Glass company from where John retired.

Our motorhome to the right of the pool.  The big MH

 A little way into the flight, Grant took over the controls and flew the plane for a while.  John drew the line at letting him land the plane.  Good move on John's part.  Guess what Grant wants to be when he gets older.

 While they were in the air, a restored 1927 bi-plane landed due to bad weather ahead.  The pilot was heading for the airshow at Oshkosh, WI and had to land early due to storms rolling into his flight plan.  He landed the plane and then was going to call a taxi and spend the night at a local hotel.

 
After the flight, we all adjourned to our motorhome so they could see it.  They have a Winnebago RV so they wanted to see the differences in the units.  We sat around and chatted or an hour or so and then went to their home for a further visit.  5 hours later and one huge pizza devoured saw us heading back to the motorhome.

We had a great visit with them and wish they lived closer so we could see them more often.  John worked in IT like I did and Pat is a crafty lady like Gerry is.  She showed Gerry her beautiful quilts she has made and also examples on her new hobby, wood carving.  She has some beautiful and interesting carvings she's made recently and they are wonderfully done.  I wish I had a talent like that, but just like music and arts, I have no talent for it.

As Forrest Gump said, "life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get".  That's how it is traveling in a motorhome and seeing all the sights and people out there.

As an aside note, when we brought them to the motorhome, I didn't stop completely at a stop sign in the park and the park patrolman jumped in his golf cart and followed us to the site and told Gerry that was twice I didn't stop and I'd better obey the rules.  The bad part was that I didn't even see the stop sign and was just slowing down from the 5mph speed limit to check around the corner for kids.  Now that I know about the stop sign, I stopped for 10 seconds on the way home tonight and the patrolman got up from his easy chair to check on me.  It's as bad as having a HOA association with all the rules.  At least they don't cite me for having weeds on my site in the flower beds nearby.  My FSILINC knows what the above comment is all about.  I hate HOAs and the petty people who govern them.

That was our day, how was yours?