Sunday Activities at Airventure

Saturday night into Sunday morning it rained and remained IFR. Just before noon the skies began to clear and the flood gates opened up with massive numbers of arrivals, just as I had predicted. I have a handheld air band radio that I can use un case of emergencies where the aircraft comms are lost, and I tuned to the arrival approach control and tower frequencies to listen to the non-stop instructions from the tower for all the arriving aircraft. At one point a Mooney was on short final and the tower folks noticed that his gear was not down and they immediately focused all their attention on him and kept repeating very quickly check your gear down check your gear check your gear. Apparently he got it down in time, but that was a close call. 

Mike Rettig showed up after driving up with his friend Jeff on Sunday afternoon, and I gave him the tour of the new trailer. Mike likes the air conditioner a lot, and frankly so do I. The sun finally came out in the late afternoon, and the temps warmed up and it got humid, as expected, so the AC was put to the test all afternoon and evening long. 

My next post will be about the Monday activities at Airventure, which is the official start of the week-long event.  It did not disappoint. The campground is all but full already and there are thousands of airplanes and people here. I took a bunch of pics that I will try to download of some things that are sure to amaze you. 

Oh, I did have one more P.S. entry from Saturday's activities at the local Walmart. After I got my groceries back to the trailer I was unloading everything and putting it away, and I reached for the final bag, which I thought only had a 6 pack of small cans of 7 up in it. Well, it turns out that the idiot moron behind the counter at Walmart (a young dumb college - aged kid that could have cared less about what he was doing as I stood there watching him, had put both a small bottle of Dawn dishwashing detergent and the 7up in the same bag! You can guess what happened. The 7 up cans compressed the plastic Dawn bottle and blew the cap right off it, spilling most of the soap into the bag and all over the cans of soda. I spent an hour cleaning up that mess as it dripped all over the trailer floor and elsewhere. I still plan to take it back to the store when I have time and get my new bottle of dish soap, and perhaps say a few choice words to the idiot that created the problem if I just happen to see him again. That was really the only major headache I have had since I got here, so I'll take what I can get at this point. 

More next time.... including info about Monday morning Airventure wake up calls, aircraft displays, meeting old friends, making some new ones, attending classes and forums, and more - it was a great day.