Halloween

I saw a hand truck on sale in a Harbor Freight email last night that I wanted so we headed to Longview first thing this morning.  I am glad we did because I got the only one they had.  This picture was taken on the way home in the Pleasant Hill area.  It was worse on the way down so I am glad we  took the back roads.

Our first Trick of Treaters were Ava and Harper, Dianne came over with them.

I was out in the shop painting my plane so I missed them.  Vera told me that Harper was really warm in the Unicorn head and that Ava kept forgetting she had green makeup on and would scratch her cheek which left her with green under her fingernails.

Emmy brought Josie over next.  She is wearing Auna's Halloween costume from the 2000 Halloween.

This is Auna in 2000 in the costume.

Emmy had a matching Mini Mouse costume in 2000.

Josh brought Jordon and Jacob next.  Jordon picked out his candy and went back to playing with the toys.

Jacob would have nothing to do with the pumpkin or the candy, Josh finally had to give him a candy bar.

He finally went over and started playing with the toys.  He had a great time playing with the truck that Vera rolled to him.

Rick and his family were our last visitors.  Tor's lizard costume was great.

Bridget was dressed up in a Cleopatra outfit.

Jillian's ACME Jetpack reminded me of something Wili E Coyote would have.

The full moon was mentioned on Facebook again tonight so I had to take some pictures of it.  The craters near the top really showed up good tonight.

While I was out there I took a picture of the house with the pumpkins lit up.

Moon

I opened up my little paint booth today and gave the F-18 a coat of white acrylic paint.

One of my friends on Facebook posted about the moon so I went out and took this picture of it shining through the clouds and trees.
 

Flying at Toledo

 

It turned out to be a great day for flying, warm and very little wind.  We had a good turnout, I believe there were ten flyers out there.

There were three of the Baby Blues flying today.

Gene #5 and Ken #2 during a slow pass.

Of course landings can get a little interesting when there are three planes all trying to land at once.

Bruce had his Stearman out today, that inspired me to get mine out of the motor home and fly it.  I ended up putting three flights on it during the day.

Mt St Helens had some snow last week but it was all gone today.

This is how it looked at five just before we left.  I had a great day!

Wood Pellets

 

We have been sticking pretty close to home lately.  The little cold snap we had ran me out of pellets so we ran to 4-Corners today after Vera got home from bible study and picked some up.  Kind of nice that we can buy them by the ton and then just pick them up when we need some.

I have been working on this F-18 for the last few days so I can fly with the Baby Blue Angels at the field.

A really nice day of flying and a Hot Tub adventure

 

I got to test fly Joel's Pilatus PC-9 today, it flew great with only minor trim adjustments needed.

I took the bungees out of the Kitfox landing gear, put springs in their place and added some positive camber.  Boy does it handle a lot better on the ground now.  I flew it three or four times and shot lots of touch and goes.  I got a couple of flights on both the F-4 and Skylane as well.

I started parking with the front end facing the tables today.  When parked the other way the shade was nice during the summer while charging batteries but now that it is fall I was getting cold on the shady side.

It was mostly sunny all day with lots of pretty clouds, we never did see Mt Rainier or Mt St Helens because of the clouds.

Dianne had texted me that their new hot tub was being delivered today and the driver was nervous about turning around his thirty two foot trailer.  I texted her that we were going flying so there would be lots of room at our place.  I also moved the Mitsubishi out of the way before we left for the field.  When we got home I went right over to check on the hot tub and it was still sitting on the pallet but Gabe, Parker, Dan and David were coming over to help move it.  Dianne mentioned they had to turn it 180 degrees after it was down and I volunteered my moving dollies.  Steve came over and picked them up and we discovered they were rated for a thousand pounds each which was good because the hot tub weighs eight hundred pounds.

They are just starting to lower it in this picture.

This is as they are starting to turn it.

I wasn't the only one watching the operation.

Dianne is approving the final positioning.  You can see one of my moving dollies under the side toward the camera.

Of course it had to be moved a little when the cover was put on because it was too close to the deck.  It was a nice end to the day watching the family work together.

Oil Change

 I had scheduled oil changes for the Mitsubishi and Smart Car this morning.  We dropped the Mitsubishi off first and then went to BK for our favorite breakfast.  Then it was off to Kaiser for my bi-monthly INR check.  We cruised around for a while after that until the Mitsubishi was done.

After swapping Cars at Art's Automotive we went to Dairy Queen to get a Blizzard but after two trips through the Drive Thru we decided it wasn't open yet.  We ended up settling for a Hazel Nut Chocolate shake at Burgerville.  While we were killing time I decided to drive down Fibre Way which I hadn't done for about twenty years.  We were sure surprised to find a bridge across the railroad tracks.

I had no idea that they still had bundles of logs in the mill pond next to the bridge.  One of the buildings over there must be a saw mill.

The Fibre or what ever it is called now still looks pretty much like I remember it twenty two years ago.  Once the Smart Car was done we headed home and I worked on the new F-18 the rest of the day.

More Flying

 

There was no rain in the forecast so we went flying again today.  I haven't flown my Electra Streak glider for about a year so I threw it in the motor home last night.  I had forgotten how much I liked flying it and had a great time with it today.  I found a spot in the forward storage compartment for it so I will be flying it on a regular basis from now on.

Flying

 
It was a beautiful day for flying, this is Chuck coming in to land and I got just the picture I was hoping for.  You can see that Mt St Helens has some snow now, in my blog picture two weeks ago there was hardly any.

I got to test fly Horty's Phaeton Biplane that he had just converted from nitro powered to electric powered.  It flew great and had lots of power.

John and Ken were practicing formation flying.  I am building the same F-18 so I can join them, Dan has one and Gene is almost finished with his so if things work out we could have five trying to fly in formation.

I only flew these three planes today and got in lots of flights.

We stopped at the South Lewis county park again to have dinner.  There was a small flock of geese that swam over to the West side of the pond and then swam back.  We were trying to figure out what their plan was but never came up with an answer.

The park closes at dusk so we headed for home right after dinner.  It sure was a great day.

Flying and Waxing

On Wednesday Vera had bible study, the forecast looked pretty good so I went flying.  It was pretty foggy when I first got there but it was a beautiful afternoon once it lifted.  I made lots of touch and goes with the Kitfox and Steve's Plane.  I got some higher voltage batteries for Steve's plane as it does not have quite enough power for some of the aerobatics I want to do.  Now I need to put the ammeter on it and make sure the speed control will handle the extra power.

I flew the B-36 for probably the last time this year, it is going in the shop for some maintenance and repainting.  Leonard had his Vortex out today and we got to fly together.  It was sure fun seeing them side by side, mine is just a little faster but not much, I would guess Leonard's is right at one hundred miles an hour.

I got this ten dollar fifteen inch prop in the mail this week, I was amazed at the size of the box and the amount of packing inside.  Thursday I spent most of the day waxing on the motor home and got of the right side finished except for a couple of storage compartment doors.

Friday I was determined to finish the job before the rain that was forecast started.

I am putting on the final coat of wax on the last storage compartment door in both pictures but Vera asked me to look up for the second one.  After letting it dry and polishing it we gathered up the tools and put everything away.  It was about an hour or so later that it started raining.  That turned into a big job, I started the first step on August first.  I shouldn't have to do the three step process again, I will just use a good cleaner/wax each time.  Today I woke up with a really sore left wrist from all the wiping and polishing.  After putting heat on it for awhile it started feeling better and I did some hunting for a box of foam sheets that is lost in the shop.  I didn't find it but I did throw away a bunch of things I would never use.  I had a nice long visit with Barry on the phone today, later I went over to Dianne's to deliver Jordon's school photo and had a nice visit with her and Steve.  There were lots of rain showers today, my rain gauge shows 1.14 inches as I am typing this.