08 December 2003 15:28
traveling: may '03a note regarding posts headed "traveling." you'll probably find them boring.. it's just me rambling across the country side. i like to reminisce. ah yes, and remember that "travel" comes from "travail."
in may of this year, i was in four places. first i graduated, yadda yadda, in texas. a weeklong trip to kansas to my grandparents, a week or so back in texas practicing, then up to north dakota for the competition, then back to texas for two days before heading off to virginia, home again, home again.
the trip to kansas was fun. the twins and i were in my car, and we caravanned with mom and dad who were in mom's honda. stephanie drove from north of okc, it was the first time i'd ridden that stretch as a passenger for a long while.. interesting how much more scenery you see when you're not driving. of course, you can see a lot while you are driving, but that can create its own trouble. i averaged a trip to kansas about once a semester while in school. usually i'd just take I35 the whole way up, but occasionally on the trip back i would be in no great hurry. one time i got off interstate in wichita and came down 74, parallel two lane road west of I35. it was some lovely country. red dirt, that's oklahoma for you, and quiet too, not much traffic so i made decent time.
one of those times i started coming down the indian parkway.. oklahoma's a bit different over there. someday i want to take rt. 1 i think it is over into the ozarks, along the eastern border. k and i were thinking of that on our trip in september, but it never happened. it's like kentucky, just flatter.. lots of horses and wooded hills.
after spending the week in kansas, goofing off for the most part (grandpa won't let us work much), we headed back early. i dropped the twins off at dfw then i was back to school for a multitude of touch and goes. our flight up to grand forks was a lot of fun. i wish i could do it again with my new headset, because the one i had then gave me some trouble after wearing it for eight hours. we left at six in the morning. it was un-worldly.. we had tstorms moving in from the west at a fairly good clip, and everybody was taking their sweet time to get ready. there were three of us pushing for a rapid departure.. we had the planes all preflighted and ready to go. we finally got the okay, and we were off. it felt good. we'd been flying the planes solid for a week now, and had been getting lots of time during the semester too. we had procedures down pat. the first drops were starting to fall during our takeoff roll (i was flying). we got airborne and headed east. the sun was about half an hour from rising, so the sky east was light grey, looking west was hugely dark and ominous, the front hanging right over the airport. and there against that backdrop were the second and third planes from our flight, strobes flickering. it'll take me along time to forget that sight. our first stop was in southeast kanses, chanute.
the airport was very well maintained, nice mowed grass along the sides of the runway with crisp edging, a taildragger tied down in front of the one hanger, a turf strip crossing midfield. it had a lot of the things a small-town airport should have :). we had three legs, and three pilots on each plane. we had lunch in sioux city, ia, and then on up to grand forks, nd. we had to cut through some real low-vis stuff in northern south dakota, but other wise the trip was beautiful vfr.
i've already talked about being along US2 up there, that was a cool feeling. coming back i flew the first and second legs. there was a B-17 at sioux city giving rides, we had to hold short for his landing, that was a sight. coming into that airport was fun too, the approach for 17 was right over the river. going back into chanute, we were in the lead, so i decided to try the vor-a. it added .2 to our time max, but our coach gave us a talking too before recommending a class in business ethics. thinking back, i shouldn't have done it, sure what's .2 when the school's paying for a couple hundred hours already, but it wasn't my call at all. that and i botched the procedure turn. so that left me feeling pretty guilty, it's what i get for doing things without thinking.
back at school everything was green and warm, contrary to north dakota (which had been by no means warm and pleasent). i stayed with schooby for a couple days before heading home. he'd been keeping my stuff for me.. my rent was free anyway, so i'd never bothered to check out before i went up north. it was typical summer housing.. they put us on thomas one, which was better than the quads, but i still didn't see anybody but my roomate. we spent one of the evenings watching movies together, a fitting end to our scholastic careers together. one of the movies was on vhs, and he spent quite a bit of time trying to track down a vcr. things had moved a far cry from four years before when we did nothing but watch movies on vhs.
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