Took the Kids Up (First Time)

Not sure what "in-water boater" means but assuming it means the average
boat owner you have got to be kidding. Owning a boat costs a small
fraction of what operating a 182 does.

An "in-water boater" is a Great Lakes or open ocean boater. These are the
"big guys" -- the kind that are too big to be transported on a trailer.
Fly around the Great Lakes, and you will see thousands of them.

Each of these guys spends an unbelievable amount of money so that they can
spend 14 weeks each year (on the Great Lakes; more on the ocean, if down
South) getting drunk on what amounts to a small, floating hotel room.

We've got friends who own a 40+ foot yacht on Lake Michigan. It cost over
$300K to acquire, and an amazing amount of money to maintain. (Each year
they have to pay to have it removed with a crane, and then shrink wrapped --
I'm not kidding -- for winter storage.) Worse, it is a depreciating asset,
meaning that it is worth less and less every year. It has two 350-cubic
inch Chevy engines, gets 6 gallons to the mile, and they never, ever leave
the dock.

Yet, they look at Mary and me flying all over the country as an unaffordable
extravagance, even though they know that what we spend is a tiny fraction of
what they spend on boating. And the guy took flight lessons at one time.

The same goes for golf, only more so.

Clearly you have not rubbed elbows with really serious golfers. I know guys
who spend hundreds per WEEK playing golf, all over the country. Hell, a
single Big Bertha driver can cost $400 bucks -- and tee times at the best
courses run into many hundreds of dollars for a single round of golf.

And these guys never play a single round.

It ALMOST makes a Garmin GNS 530 look like a justifiable expense!

:-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"