And the best news of all so far is that Kelly and Erin finally met in person! We had a fun (and successful) trip from TUL to VLL (in Detroit) in the Deb after her new autopilot was installed. The 4.5 hour flight was uneventful despite a stormy beginning in TUL. We waited for the giant storm cell to pass and then took off to the east, getting as far ahead of it as we could before turning north (a little prematurely, but that's another story) toward the Motor City. Kelly's a great pilot and no one was harmed in the making of Our First Adventure.
The following day saw us boring holes in the skies about Michigan. Kelly played hookey in favor of consuming some serious amounts of avgas (and a good club sandwich) to "practice" our race flying. Mostly we goofed around, landed in Clare for some cookies and a photo op., and then headed north for Erin's first trip to Mackinac Island. Being rushed for time we zoomed into the little strip, literally trotted through the woods into town (snagging bicycles about half-way to expedite our adventure), rustled up some grub (the aforementioned club and fries) and tried unsuccessfully to con anyone on the island into giving us a lift back up the huge hill to the airport. Unfortunately the bikes we'd picked (there are hundreds of them lying about for public use as Mackinac is mostly auto-free) were a little rusty and small (though thankfully Kelly's had a basket to carry our foodstuffs). The image of Erin lagging behind (her excuse was that her bike was stuck in first gear and was too small for her long legs) is burned into Kelly's mind, accompanied by the theme song from "Wizard of Oz" when the Wicked Witch of the West rode by on her bike. Remember that one?
Here's the proof that we've flown together and survived:
Geez, Kelly, nice earrings....
Erin's working on getting her lower extremities a little more aerodynamic....
And even though we learned that Erin can bake some mean chocolate chip cookies, (see Captain Morgan immitation below), after a close call and some sweeeet talkin' with the tower controller at GOV, the jury is still out on whether Erin can actually remember how to read those VFR charts ...
At the end of May Erin's headed back up to DTW to enjoy the Red Bull Air Races with Kelly (and to practice our flying, of course). Should be a good time. While we're up there we're planning to meet with a Super Top Secret Racer who'll download all of her Super Top Secret Secrets into our minds. More on that later.
For now, Happy May and thanks for your support!
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