The kids wanted some time at home, so last night Mary and I cooked out
alone at the hangar. Chicken and shrimp kebabs on the grill, crab
salad and a baked potato rounded out an excellent repast, followed by
flopping down in the sling chairs to watch the clouds drift by
overhead...

No wind...three more hours of daylight...Atlas fully fueled...no
kids...you know the rest...

Soon we were airborne, destination: North. The sky was an absolutely
calm puddle of warm, still air, and the earth unrolled beneath us like
a tapestry, with little sense of motion. On evenings like this,
training a chimpanzee to fly would be easy, and we were able to simply
stare out the window, senses alive in the moment, yet utterly relaxed.

Our eyes gazed in wide wonder as we saw that the last few days had
utterly changed the landscape below, even from our last flight. Rain
and sun had gradually transformed the brown, bare fields into lush
acres of impenetrable forest and lime greens -- green so green that it
hurt your eyes. The kind of green that your eyes long to see in
January. The sort of green that screams life itself, covering the
bare, dead earth entirely in its bouquet.

This velvet of green now stretched to the horizon in every direction,
its long, soft leaves of new corn swaying gently in the wind as we
turned base-to-final, carving a perfect arc toward that slash of
asphalt -- an abomination in the middle of all that green, but a
welcome sight, nonetheless.

Wheels chirping, gently rolling to a stop, we watched as a powered
parachute swung lazily overhead. Inside for a cold pop, the FBO full
of happy, t-shirt-clad pilots, the contented buzz of summer filled the
room to bursting, and it simply couldn't get any better.

Ladies and gents, our midwestern summer is unbelievably beautiful this
year -- I sincerely hope it holds together for all you folks who will
soon be enroute to OSH.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"