Today was some of the best flying weather I’ve experienced in a long time. Stacy and I headed out to the airport about 6:30 pm and it was 75°F and sunny. No wind, no humidity…just perfect. I think the only downside to the evening was that the FSS briefer sounded like he’d never had a course in basic meteorology and had never been trained to use the new Lockheed-Martin software. 
Hopefully this improves over the next few months. With the briefing out of the way, we headed out for pre-flight and everything looked great.
As soon as the wheels left the ground we knew this was the evening to be out. The air was glass smooth and a perfect night for sightseeing. We headed Southeast out of Winona toward Galesville. My boss was house-sitting out there so we decided to fly over and see if she noticed us (she did). After a couple passes over Galesville, we decided to turn North and head towards Arcadia to check out the Fox Ridge Speedway. Not much was going on their though. They must race on Saturday nights or something. I joked with Stacy on the way up that we were flying IFR up Hwy. 93…I Follow Roads. 
By this time, we’d been up there about an hour and were starting to crave a little Zesto ice cream so we made our way back to Winona. My landing was a nice smooth and short full flap landing and a great way to end the night. We taxied up to the fuel truck and shut down. After making sure everything was secure, it was off to Zesto for some tasty milkshakes. Another successful flight!
“Theres no sensation to compare with this. Suspended animation, a state of bliss.”
This past Sunday (Father’s Day) was the EAA Chapter #307 Annual Chicken-Q at Holland Airpark (36WI) and we had about 130 people show up for some food, flying, and fun. 
Setup on Saturday afternoon went pretty well and it only took us about two hours to get Steve’s hangar clean and set up the tables and chairs. It’s a good thing we had as much help as we did or it would have been a long and hot afternoon.
Sunday morning started out pretty nice, with a light breeze and not too warm. Allyn Kaste got the industrial-sized grill running passed on the knowledge of chicken cooking to me throughout the morning. I think I’ll be smelling like bbq chicken for at least another week or two. As the sun moved into position overhead, it started to get really hot and standing by that grill for two solid hours didn’t help matters. The reward was the chicken and the smiles on everyones face. I think we only ended up with a few left-over pieces at the end of the day. As people began flying out, Stacy and I took some pictures and then she headed home with her family. I stayed back to help the guys clean up and was home by 4:30.
You can check out some of the pictures we took at our photo site.
“Could you take my picture…cuz I won’t remember.”