Off to the Winter Build Challenge

It has been a busy week, I decided to install the new color backup camera in the motor home.  When I got the old one pulled out the wiring in the dash looked so bad I got a  junction box and rewired the camera, radio and the GPS.  I also installed a new cigarette lighter socket, it hasn't worked for years, not smoking it wasn't a big issue for us but we needed it for chargers once in a while.  I took most of the planes out as we got ready to head for the Winter Build Challenge Maiden Flight Day in Shelton.  We are planning on staying there two nights, then come home for Michelle's birthday lunch at Papa Pete's Sunday afternoon.  The picture is just after we got things set up today.  We took our normal back roads route on the way up and really enjoyed the peaceful ride.  With all the curves in it, it is probably longer than the freeway and takes more time but we still got there a half an hour earlier than I had planned.

After we were setup I wandered around and visited with the other modelers.  Tony one of the guys I met had this plane with an eleven foot wing span in his trailer.  I flew the P-39 and the Skylane this afternoon to get used to landing on pavement.  The planes sure do roll a lot further than landings on grass.

Just before I settled in for the night I took this picture of the rigs spending the night.

Flying

We went flying today at Toledo.  I wanted to try out the camera in the new phone so all the pictures today were taken with it.

I took this picture of Vera and the camera automatically went into the HDR ( High Dynamic Range) mode so the outside background was not washed out.  I am really liking this Motorola's camera as it takes the pictures with a 4:3 aspect ration just like my Nikon's.  It also has a 5000 mah battery that is supposed to go three days between charges.  So far it seems to be doing that as it went two days and still had over 50% charge.

There was a knock on the door this evening, it was Laury with a piece of the strawberry rhubarb pie she had made.  I took it right into the computer room and ate it!  Well, I did give Vera a taste first.  Boy was it good!

It flies again

We went to church this morning.  They had the cross of remembrance set up and a list of people that were being remembered in the bulletin.

I finally got the APM quad flying today with all the telemetry working.  Vera noticed me flying and took several pictures before I noticed her.

The laptop is set up on the railing so I can see the information being sent back.  I was curious about the current being drawn from the battery while flying and discovered it was only eighteen Amps.   I did a little flying over the cargo container to check it's roof with the video camera.

55 Years

Vera is giving the birds some seed before we headed out on a little road trip to celebrate our fifty fifth anniversary.

Our first stop was at the Pancake House for breakfast.  Of course I had the french toast with cinnamon apples on it again.  I was planning ahead today and brought our 12 volt cooler along for the left overs.

Our plan was to follow the Old Pacific Highway to La Center.  This is the first spot we found just South of Kalama with a view of the Columbia that had room to pull over and park.

After we got to La Center we decided to give cousin Richard a call and see if we could visit.  We had never been to his place so he gave us directions and I put the address in the phone's mapping app.  It took us on all kinds of roads on the way to Yacolt.

Some parts of the drive were just like going through a park, is was a very pretty and interesting trip.

We made it to Richard's place without any problems.  This is his fire pit, he worried about kids falling into it so he added the chimney to it and has a screen to set around it.

We had a really nice time sitting around the fire talking with him.

Richard mentioned he had been sorting old pictures of his folk's and got them out  so we could see them.  This is Richard while he was in the Air Force Police.

I had never seen this picture of Aunt Addie when she graduated from nursing school.  I remember that she used to work in Tumwater at the state hospital.

This is our Aunt Eve, the youngest one of my Dad's family.

Uncle Duke lived in Castle Rock and worked for Weyerhaeuser so I saw a lot of him as I grew up.

This is my Uncle Fran's daughter Darlene.

I am still working in Photoshop on the picture of Grandpa and Grandma Piercy but I decided this was good enough for here.

After we left Richard's we went to Yacolt because neither of us could remember being there before.  As we came into town I was thinking that is the strangest tree I have ever seen.  As we got closer I realized it was a cell tower, a disguised one.

If you look close you can see the antenna's at the top of the tower.  After we left Yacolt we drove down to Battle Ground, had a small salad and headed home.  We took a short break at home before going to the Verizon store to upgrade my phone which has been doing some strange things lately.

Then we went to dinner at the Castaway's and took turns using the new phone to take pictures of each other.  It was a nice relaxing day and we had a good time.  Boy has fifty five years went by in a hurry.

Barry's pizza visit

I had a call from Barry this morning while Vera was at bible study wanting to know if I was interested in having pizza.  Of course I was, after Barry got down here I called one in and we had a nice visit before we ran down to Papa Pete's to eat.  Vera sent him home with a batch of cocoa mounds she had made for him.

After Barry left, I decided to mow the lawn, it really needed it.  Vera took this picture while I was mowing one of our trails.

Vera took a picture of the lawn after I finished, it looks a lot better than when the grass was about to go to seed.

I got some more wiring done on the quad's power distribution module.  It may not look like it, but the wiring is much neater than it used to be.  It was a nice day, the temperature got up into the seventies.

The first visit from Jacob

I spent the first part of the day putting a new faucet in our bathroom.  It only took four hours and one trip to the hardware store.  The new power distribution module for my quad showed up at the Post Office so I spent the afternoon working on the wiring of it.  Debbie texted me this afternoon and wondered if we were home so we could see Jacob and they could pick up a dresser and bed we had bought for Marie when she moved to Colonial.  While we were loading it Vera got to hold Jacob.

After the loading and looking around the shop Jordon had gone in the house to play with the toys.  He did great in the shop, walked around looking at all the planes but he never touched a thing.  Josh and I talked for a while and then went in and joined them.  Can you see anything different about Josh?

Jordon was getting tired so they headed home.  We ended up getting quite a bit of stuff out of the storage container.  I got a couple of more wires soldered on the distribution module before calling it a night.

Robinhood

I had a dentist appointment this morning at 8 AM, I wanted to find out if where I had the tooth pulled was healing OK.  It was, so I was out of there in about ten minutes.  We went to the Pancake House for breakfast after leaving Kaiser.  I had French Toast with cinnamon apple filling on top.  Boy was it good, it was also filling as I could only eat half of it.  The second half was a really good lunch.  The plane in the picture is a Robinhood 25 kit that I gave our friend Horty and he built it for the Winter Build Challenge.  He brought it down today so I could give him a little help setting up the controls.  We had a real nice visit with him this afternoon.  I did some work on the Bird of Time today and I plan on starting the recovering of the wings tomorrow.

Bird of Time

Vera didn't feel like going to church yet, so I got an early start pulling the covering off the Bird of Time wings.  I had thought I had a roll of covering to match the orange trim on the plane but I couldn't find it.  I told Vera I was going to pull all the covering off and do a different color scheme.  She mentioned I should check for cracks while it was uncovered.  She was right, I found several things to repair and I made one modification to the wing joiner sockets.  I am waiting for a dry day now so I can use MEK to clean off some small pieces of covering.  I have all the cracks in the fuselage repaired and ready for paint so that will probably be the next step.  Of course while looking for something else tonight I found that roll of orange covering right where I had sat it so it would be easy to find.

The rhododendrons North of my shop are getting pretty big, but I am going to trim them back before we get the shop roof replaced in a couple of weeks.  It has been a slow week here since Monday, Vera has a cold so we have stuck pretty close to home.  I have been cleaning in the shop and repairing the Bird of Time glider I crashed last year.  I also made good headway today on the quad I crashed a couple of weeks ago.  I installed all new motors and speed controls.  I am looking for a power distribution module so I can revamp the battery wiring.  There is not much else new except I made a batch of cookies tonight that taste great.  It might turn out to be my new favorite recipe, in fact I will go have another once I post this.  I hope you had a good week also.

A Busy Monday!

We went to Chehalis this morning to finish up Marie's estate.  It went great, we were all done at the bank in fifteen minutes and the stop at the lawyer's office only took about five minutes.  We made a stop at Arby's, picked up sandwiches for lunch and headed to the flying field.  The cap over Mt Rainier usually means rain is on the way.

I had loaded up some small planes into the Mitsubishi last night and got in ten flights while we were there.  Barry stopped by and visited for a while, I got to demonstrate the X-Vert to him.

Dan was flying his Stearman and I got this picture of it coming in to land.

After we got home I found a spot in the front half of the shop to store the Vortex until the Winter Build Challenge event on June 1st.

In this picture I am sharpening the drill I have been using to drill a stump.

This oak stump is hard!  I really had to push on the drill.  After we got the first batch of holes drilled we filled them with Stump Remover.  It is supposed to take several weeks to start breaking down the wood.

While I was drilling Vera took pictures of our flowers.  I think we have fifteen rhododendrons and they are all in bloom.

We don't know what this bush is!  We thought they were dead when we got back from Arizona but they leafed out and have more blooms than ever.

Edit:
5-20-2019 Vera looked up the bush and it is a Red Cardinal Weigela.

Mothers Day

We went to church this morning and then in the afternoon went to the Lucky Dragon in Kalama for dinner with Mik, Michelle, James, Margret, Rome and Elle.  I was sure surprised when I downloaded the pictures and the first pictures were a pink dogwood.  I checked the date and then I remembered Vera wanted some pictures of the tree by the Castle Rock post office in April.

This is Vera and Michelle after dinner when we had a photo session in front of the Lucky Dragon.

Vera, Michelle and James, we did all kinds of combinations of people.

Mik's mom Margret with her grandkids Rome, Elle and James.

Margret and Mik!

Mik had Elle taking pictures for him with his phone, and he was doing a little teasing while she did it.

Debbie posted more pictures of Jacob today, this one is of Josh showing Jacob to Jordon.

She also posted this one of Jordon getting to hold Jacob.