Our Dumb Blog

Well, folks, we’re off for Palo Duro Canyon for the weekend. Catch you on the flip side.

The other day Diane Carr asked me what my earliest memory was.

I remember my 2nd birthday party. My mom made an intricate cake in the shape of a ladybug, with licorice strings for antennae and gumdrops for dots. A lot of people were invited, and we were going to have it outside, but a downpour forced us into the carport. I remember my mother placing the cake down on the coffee table, looking quite incongruous on the concrete floor. My bestest friend Cara Catlett was there beside me (her birthday was two days later than mine, and we usually celebrated together…I think she had a cake there too), and a highchair was set up with a baby in it (I’m pretty sure it was Rebecca Traylor).

This was what I considered my earliest memory. Until I realized another memory I had must have predated it.

This one also involved the coffee table (good toddler height). On it Mom had a plastic loaf of bread with scripture verse “fortunes” sticking out of it. I think it’s called a Daily Bread thing. It looked very much like a toy, and the papers sticking out of it intrigued me. So one day I pulled myself up and reached for it. But my mom rushed in at that moment with a very worried look on her face, yelling, “No no no!” The Daily Bread got moved to a taller location.

So I must have been younger than two, since that was the first time I had been able to reach the Daily Bread. And because I was unable to tell my mom what I wanted to: “You don’t understand. I’m not trying to destroy the plastic loaf of bread. I just wanted to get a better look at it. I wanted to examine the slips of paper and see what was written on them. There’s no call for alarm.”

The UPS man brought a long skinny package today. Wondering what the heck could possibly be in such a package, I looked at the return address. A company called “Into The Wind”. And then I put the pieces together: Nathan had told us that a present was on the way, and he knows we love kite flying… A kite!

Since most everything else we got as presents were things we asked for and thus things we needed, this is by far the most fun.

I don’t think I realized how much we needed a kite. We even have a place within walking distance to fly it! Oklahoma is actually a great place for kites, being full of flat windy places.

It’s a great little two string kite. Very lightweight and willing to please. I worry Oklahoma may be a little too windy for it, delta kites being better suited to moderate wind, instead of the 35mph Oklahoma breeze.

There are photos of it in the gallery.

Here’s a little video of it. Posting it will probably kill the server, but oh well.

Today is our anniversary.

I’m not going to waste time posting much else here. We have… other things to do.

I finally did it. I hadn’t flown since December 2, but I finally got the long cross-country done today.

The stupidest thing I did was forget my camera. Which is really a loss, because there was lots of stuff to take pictures of. Or more importantly, not much for me to do during the 7.0 hours of flight time today.

I stopped in Borger, TX both ways for fuel. I probably could have just refueled in Dalhart, but there’s really no reason for me to worry about fuel when I’ve got everything else to worry about. Not to mention I really had to pee when I landed in Borger.

There was still snow on the ground in Dalhart. Navigating after I got about 100 miles west of OKC was difficult, but I managed. There really wasn’t much of anything to look at, so I just flew on over endless nondescript farmland until I came upon the occasional town marked on my chart. I counted all 14 buildings that comprised one of the towns.

Borger, TX isn’t much of a city. It’s mostly a refinery.

The Dalhart airport is co-located with a prison. This is a little strange, but since they fence both of them these days, why not.

I spent most of the time staring at the ground, willing it to move. At 8,500 feet and a measly 85 knots indicated airpseed with a 35 knot head-wind, it really doesn’t move. For awhile I was flying along I-40, watching the trucks go the same speed I was. Sometimes they seemed to be going faster.

My headset is fortunately comfortable, but I found it tiring after awhile. There was little to listen to on Albequerque Center. Every 10 mintues or so a plane would check in; another 10 minutes and one would switch frequencies.

Most of all, with nothing much to do but sit and look at the view and trying to identify a cluster of barns as a named town, I decided that if I ever get paid to do it, I think it’ll be a pretty good life.