Thursday, August 1

Berck and I slept in and took the bus by ourselves in time to try to catch the other scheduled RV composite building class, but it was canceled too.  Instead we went to the What’s New at Van’s class, where Van himself spoke.  They didn’t talk very much about the RV-10, but it was nice to hear them talk about how they try to design planes for real people in the real world.

We decided to find a good spot to watch the air show early and found one right on the spectator line.  Unfortunately, a thunderstorm came up, so we took shelter under our umbrellas in the lee side of a building until it stopped, then reclaimed our soggy spots on the ground.  I spread out my jacket so we could have a dry place to sit.  The show was really good with Sean Tucker (Berck’s favorite stunt pilot), Pattie Wagstaff, and wing walker, which I’d never seen before.  The Thunderbirds also arrived and went over the field in several configurations getting their bearings.

It started pouring rain again after the show.  Fortunately, it never rained for too long.  In fact the weather all week was very nice.  It wasn’t too hot, and the nights cooled off a whole lot.  Berck and I slept with the windows open most nights, awakening to the zooming plane engines over the house starting around 6 a.m.

Randy and Tracey met us after the show in one of the merch tents, and after it stopped raining we made our way back to the car.  A bus driver had kindly dropped Uncle Stacy off at the house already. We all went out to eat at the Dockside Tavern and sat outside until it started raining again.  A watch company was doing a promotion, and that got us a couple of free beers.  The Dockside Tavern has excellent food, and it was a very short drive from the house.  Berck got a burger with cheese curds one night we went.  I got the fried lake perch both nights we went; it was so good.  They have an amber ale that is very good.