A bloody nose, a bruised cheek…
… and a request to ride the ramps “just five more times” before we have to go home and get an ice pack. We’re raising ’em right in Oregon.
Soaring
A few miles from our house the Willamate Valley Soaring Club has their airfield. I’ve always wanted to fly in a glider and Carmen got me a ride this year for my birthday. Fantastic gift! The skies were clear today so we drove out so that I could take a ride. It was a really cool experience. I had always assumed that if I took a ride I’d immediately be trying to buy a glider. That wasn’t the case, but it was still pretty cool. Here’s a breakdown of the day.
A tow plane gets into position to tow a glider into the air.
A glider soars above the airfield.
The glider I rode in sits waiting.
I rode in a Super Blanik glider
Vada was full of advice.
We had to wait about an hour and a half before my turn came. Fortunately it was great weather and Vada was having a pretty good time watching everything take off and land.
A tow plane flies overhead with a glider still on the rope.
My pilot, Laird, signs our flight paperwork.
Right before take-off with the pilot.
The cockpit is pretty simple on a glider.
Take off.
In the air, but still under tow.
The tow plane has bailed we are now gliding.
The view from 3,750 feet. The highway is Highway 26 and the airfield is next to the cornfield to the left of the highway. The row of white dots are parked gilders.
On the descent. Altitude 3,600 ft.
Back on the ground, Carmen and Vada were waiting in the tow golf cart to bring the glider back to it’s parking spot.
I was the last flight of the days so we helped get the plane covered and tied down until the next flight.
Fifty! Fifty years old!
This year marks the 50-year anniversary of the Porsche 911. On Saturday morning we met at the local Porsche dealership and drove in a caravan of about 30 other Porsches out to Skamania Lodge in the Columbia Gorge for a 911-0nly show and anniversary celebration. There were about 130 911’s on display which was pretty impressive. Mine isn’t show quality (I didn’t even wash it when we got there, egads!), but it was still a lot of fun to see a car representing virtually every year of the model. We had the only car with a car seat in it which for my money makes it the coolest one there.
Interesting car. It was built for Roger Penke’s International Race of Champions series (one of 12 built). Emerson Fittipaldi put this car on the pole in his first IROC race. It was eventually purchased by Pablo Escobar and raced in South America. It was recently restored and is worth about $900k.
Vada hung in pretty good, but was pretty pooped by midday. When she started laying down on the driving range mats we knew it was time to go.
We made it about five miles before both Vada and Carmen were asleep. I realize that going to a car show isn’t as cool as last week’s trip to pet tigers, but it sure beats the steam engine shows I went to as a kid.
Superforce
Vada started in her new preschool room this week. New teachers, more kids, bigger play yard…
Opossums and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!
On the way back from the Redwoods this weekend we stopped at an exotic animal farm. They let you get up close and personal with the baby animals. Vada got to pet a ferret, skunk, fox, deer, llama, goat, opossum and donkey. Oh, and also a tiger and bear.
The consensus is that opossums smell and are just generally a little skeevy. Vada chased deer all over the park and really wanted to hold one and when that failed decided that she wanted to hold a goat (also a failure). The bear was a little intense. It scaled a seven foot fence in about a second before they brought it into the petting area. It didn’t feel like a baby anymore despite the fact that it was drinking from a bottle. Bears are not soft.
The tiger cub is clearly going to be a massive animal. I’m not sure at what point a large cat goes from being “cute” to “scary,” but I think this one was days away from that transition.
Vada liked the baby fox the most, which is okay I think.
Ocean
After Redwoods we worked our way back to Oregon along the coast spending some time at various beeches along the way. Vada really loves the ocean and playing beaches. Jamie is also a big fan of running on sand. So all in all it is a pretty good way to wear out a dog and a child in pretty short order.
Redwoods
Over Labor Day weekend we went down to Redwood National Park in Northern California. They were, not surprisingly, massive.
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