July 25 Oshkosh Opens It's Skies to Us

Last night we went to a "pre-show" in their Theater in the Woods. It was very hot and muggy but the entertainment was good so we really enjoyed ourselves.

First act bills himself as the "singing pilot" and has written several songs about flying..."Marry Me, Fly Free", Don't Take Chances (With Your Life), "Commuter Airline Blues", "Go Around", etc...all top hits, Right ? Not, but very entertaining and special due to his sincerity. He is from Colorado and was a close friend of John Denver...singing style was very similar and part of his performance was a John Denver tribute.

Next speaker was a commercial airline crash investigator and shared with us some of his experiences and tried to educate us on the difficulties and challenges involved in his work.

Last speaker was extremely inspirational with his personal account of the 1989 crash of the United Airlines flight in a Sioux City, Iowa cornfield. He was on the flight as a passenger but due to his flying skills (the one who did the flight tests with the pilots), he was called into service once they lost their hydraulics and could not control the plane. He helped the pilots bring it in and save the lives of half of the passengers aboard. He himself was very seriously injured but was able to overcome the doctor's predictions that he would never fly commercially again. Due to his experiences he was very adamant about living each day to the fullest and never leaving your loved ones on a bad note...lest something happens and you do not see them again.

Today we spent the day walking around and taking in the magnitude of all there is to see here. We are so glad that we have all week available so we can try to pace ourselves and not try to see it all one day.

They have a network of trams running around to get you from point A to point B but it is still mind boggling and in a way "sensory overload".

We only lost each other twice today...it is easy to do with so many people but we have agreed not to move very far when it happens which helps...some.

This afternoon we got to watch the arrival of Burt Rutan's Space Ship One. It was awesome. Then they followed that with a large airshow...which we will have every afternoon this week.

At the end of the airshow, we had been watching clouds move in and were informed that it was a major storm coming in (again) and that there was a "tornado watch". Well the trams were overloaded and it took us quite awhile to get back to the motor home. During our tram ride it started raining really big drops and then we got off the tram just one block from our coach and it opened up and poured. All that was missing was a bar of soap and we would have had our shower. We were drenched to the skin and now have wet clothes hanging around in the coach.

Since we got back, the storm has progressively gotten worse and worse with lightening strikes all around us. I pity the poor people in tents as they must be floating away with the volume of rain...as it puddles and runs off in torrents. Especially concerned about our friend, Jim Young, who is camped out there with several of his sons. They are "batching" it in a van and a tent. Tried to call on his cell phone to invite him to sleep on our couch but he did not answer so will have to assume his sons have it under control.

Oh yeah, our motorcycle is outside...we had no advance warning to get it inside. At least it is in between our motor home and another next door and we had put our covers over it. Guess we will find out tomorrow how waterproof the covers are...I would prefer to not have a puddle of water in the sidecar...oh well that's the adventure of life. Let's see the song goes "The sun'll come out tomorrow..." around here that is definitely true, the weather comes and goes very quickly.

Time for bed, might need our rest to "bail out" things tomorrow.

Linda under the falling skies of Oshkosh