Waynesburg Vacation

Sharon and I went back to her hometown for a week's worth of rest and recreation. It was my eighth trip there and this time we were staying for nine days. Waynesburg is not a big place with many attractions, so I expected I would run out of things to do and packed accordingly: four books, a Nintendo DS for entertainment and my computer so I could work on my website. The Nintendo DS never left its case, I did not touch a single website file, and most of my reading was done on the flights there and back home. Boy, was I wrong about how busy I'd be.

Like most Californians, we need our morning latte. Waynesburg has no coffee houses (why is a mystery to me since it is a college town), so we'd wake up every day, get dressed, get into our car and drive 24 miles to Morgantowm, WV, for our first cup of coffee of the day. A bit of a drive, but the scenery is nice and the coffee was worth it. To make it even more interesting, at the coffee place I heard someone speaking German with what I thought was an Austrian accent, so I had to chat her up. Turns out she was a Viennese student from the same university I went to when I lived there, who was working as an au pair in Iowa and had taken a break to go visit her boyfriend's family in West Virginia. What a convoluted world!

My brother-in-law took us to Cheat Lake. He keeps a boat there and we all went for a ride, ending up at a nice cove where he anchored the boat and we went for a swim. It was wonderful, just swimming around and floating in the water without having to worry about sharks and killer whales. It was very relaxing, until I started wondering if there were crocodiles were native to that area. I never really notice how much I miss swimming until things like this happen. Then I wish I lived closer to a good beach.


One afternoon I spent being the voice of a pink monkey. We were hanging out with our niece and grand-niece and she had a plush monkey, and we started playing and I still don't know how but I spent the whole afternoon chasing her with the monkey, and talking to her through it. I soon ran out of energy, but neither she nor the monkey did, so by the time we went back to our hotel I was beat.

Got to hang out with my nephew some, and that was fun as usual. There was an evening of playing "little red riding hood and the naked emperor" which is not as naughty as it seems since those were just the characters in a video game called, I believe, "Fairytale Mayhem." Turned out it was very enjoyable going around killing evil loggers.

Oh, and I got Sharon a Kindle. Before the trip she was bemoaning the fact she didn't have time to go to the bookstore to find something to read, so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to surprise her. I went online, ordered the reader and arranged to have it delivered at my sister-in-law's house. Of course things never go according to plan and when we got to Waynesburg there was no Kindle waiting for us, just an email from Amazon telling us they had been delayed in shipping it so they were refunding my shipping fee. They are very efficient, though, and before I could figure out what I wanted to do they had sent me another email saying it had been shipped and the next day it arrived. The look on Sharon's face when she got it was the highlight of the trip for me.

Got to have a few nice meals with the family. Nice omelets at the airport one day, a whole family dinner at Bob Evans, and another nice dinner by Cheat Lake, watching Madison throw bread crumbs for the ducks. On our last night we went to a place Rich discovered: a German restaurant at a golf course in Blacksville, WV. The place was small but the food was tasty and very authentic. I particularly enjoyed my schnitzel with German potato salad. Next time we go to Waynesburg I want to go there again.



There was also that county fair thing, but that is the subject for another blog.

The Greene County Fair

I got to experience a piece of Americana: a real-live county fair like those in the movies, with carnival rides, animal exhibits, arts and crafts exhibits, tractor pulls and blue, red and white ribbons everywhere. I had a blast!

Our (my wife, sister-in-law, niece, great-niece and great-nephew were with us) first stop was the arts and crafts pavilion, where I got to see a wonderful collection of award winning things: there were prizes for several different categories of photos, knit clothes, vegetables and fruits in jars, and much more all arranged in shelf after shelf. I looked for the winning A-line skirt, since Sharon won a first-prize for that in this same county fair when she was fourteen or thereabouts, but unfortunately they were nowhere to be found. It's a pity, since I was planning on pointing the skirt to strangers and inform them that my wife was a previous winner of that exact category.

Prizes for everything!

Some of the photo categories were standard: animals, portraits, action, landscape, etc, and we had the usual subdivision of color vs. black and white. What I found interesting is that they had a category based on photo-size: 4x6, A4 and bigger. I can understand this in the old days, when printing pictures larger than 4x6 was expensive, but in this brave modern digital world with photo printers at home, the size categories no longer make sense to me.

I found this niche where they had the first, second and third prizes for wool and hay. I spent maybe five minutes looking at them trying to figure out what made one first and the other second, but failed miserably at being able to tell them apart. I mean, I knew what was hay and what was wool (the labels helped), but I could not tell what made one pile of wool better than the other. I blame this lack of knowledge on my big city education.



Then we were off to the carnival rides where my grand-niece, fearless as ever while being only two years old, insisted on riding everything in sight. The look of happiness in her face as she tackled the train, the big slide and much more was wonderful to see. Made me wish I was young again so I could ride with her, but many of the rides had a size limit.

One of my sisters-in-law had been waxing rhapsodic about funnel cakes, so when I saw a booth selling them I had to give it a try and Linda decided to join me. The name is a misnomer, the cakes in no way look like funnels, though I am assured that there is a funnel involved somewhere in the cake-making process. Linda and I ended up with what to me looked like random dough on a plate, covered in powdered sugar. It was tasty, it was messy and when I go back to the fair I will have some more.



The main event of the evening was the tractor pull, a competition which an old friend of mine described as "tractors pull a weight until they can't anymore, and it's loud and muddy." That is a very accurate description. There is a little bit more to it, though. The weight that they push is actually one complicated contraption consisting of a platform with wheels on one end and a moving weight on top connected to chains. As the trucks pull the contraption, wheels turn and the chains move the weight forward. At some point the center of gravity moves forward enough that the tractor can't pull the weight anymore and it's over. Whoever goes the furthest wins.



Loud and muddy it might be, but I enjoyed the experience. It is something like a slow motion race with the winner in each category being decided by inches. And yes, there are many categories, from "just come in from the field" tractors to pick up trucks to souped up machines designed and built exclusively for competing. I was particularly fascinated by the contraption the tractors pull. It is an elaborate machine, with its own engine, wheels that can be lowered and raised and a seat and steering wheel. It amazes me that there is enough of a market for tractor pull weights out there that a company would find it profitable to design, build and sell these things. I'm also impressed someone would buy them, as they do not look cheap.

On my second day at the fair I visited the animal pens. Got to see sheep, their award winning wool already removed; cows surrounded by fans gently blowing on them, several and sundry goats, rabbits and horses. Interestingly enough, there was no poultry. There was, however, someone applying what looked like spray paint to the behind of a bull (but was probably an insect repellent).

There was also a bona-fide animal auction with the auctioneer going a mile a minute. Young kids paraded with their 4H-raised sheep, some of them covered in glitter, while people in the audience raised paddles and the auctioneer shouted numbers. He did say a lot of things in between the numbers, but I think it was mostly babble as not a word was intelligible. Still, it was exactly like I'd seen in the movies and I had a ball.

The third day at the fair was dedicated to fair food and a demolition derby. My goal was to tackle the concession stands and eat as much bad food as I could. This turned out to be one hot dog with an unidentified sausage, onions and peppers, french fries smothered in cheese and a diet Coke. There was a plan to add corn dogs, cotton candy and another funnel cake to this mix, but apparently I am no longer 16 and able to eat anything and everything. My stomach made it quite clear that the hot dog and the fries were more than enough.

After the food it was off to the stands where my nephew, my brother-in-law and I enjoyed my first ever demolition derby. This consisted of way too many cars in a muddy field driving in reverse trying to hit other cars until only one was left. There was the occasional fire, at which point the would stop the derby by waving red flags and using lead pipes to whack cars that refused to stop. The firemen would then rush in and foam the car to death. All in all a grand old time, except for the person behind us in the stands who needed and ambulance because of the fair food.



And that was it for my slice of Americana. It was crowded, noisy, dirty and I look forward to doing it again.

Getting to Waynesburg the Fast Way

Last time we went to Waynesburg we flew ourselves there. Took us seven days and it was a blast, visiting friends and new states along the way. This time we decided to do it the fast way, taking the airlines.

Checking in the luggage was fast and the lines at the security checkpoint were small. I was taken aside for an extra search and I think it was not because of my suspicious appearance. My personal theory is that the screeners had a bet going on as to whether what they saw in the X-ray machine were stress balls or hard-boiled eggs. Whoever picked the eggs won.

Getting to our gate one hour early and seeing our plane already there was reassuring. Expedia had listed our flight as being 90% on time and I had been a little worried since we only had an hour window for our connection in Phoenix. I was able to relax, since I was now confident we would make our connection, and went to look for a book for Sharon.

Once we were on board the captain was happy to announce that they had just found a problem with the radio and it would be just fifteen minutes for them to swap it. Fifteen minutes minutes in airline speak apparently is one hour in real world time, and our connection window disappeared with a poof.

They actually made up some of the lost time and we arrived at gate A7 in Phoenix with 15 minutes to spare. Our connecting flight was at gate B26 because the gods only let connecting flights to be at a nearby gate if one of the flights is early. So a mad dash across the airport ensued and I have to say it was tough on Sharon. With her treatment she doesn't have much energy these days, and that dash took a lot out of her. We made it, though, about 30 seconds before they closed the plane's door and sat on the first two available seats.

We took off and were on our way to Pittsburgh. I was concerned, as I was sitting away from Sharon but the very nice passenger next to her offered to change places with me, even trading an aisle seat for a middle one in the process. I wish I could have done something for him in exchange.

Arriving at Pittsburgh was uneventful. Usually we had to deal with thunderstorms (once we had to wait by the gate for 30 minutes because a storm closed the ramp and there was no one to attach the gate to the plane), but this time there were no problems. Even our luggage arrived, something I was not confident was going to happen.

And then, after the car rental agency added fee after fee to our rate, effectively doubling it in the process we were finally on our way to our hotel in Waynesburg. One thing I always enjoy about driving down there, by the way, are the names of the towns. Pennsylvanians come up with really odd names. We saw signs for Canonburg, California, Laboratory and my favorite, Eighty Four. One hour later we were at our hotel, I put Sharon to bad and went to Micky Dees in search of food.

IFR Phase Check

I'm learning how to fly by instruments. It's been a long, slow process often interrupted by that thing we call everyday life. In fact, I recently celebrated two years of "I should be finished in a month."

This week, however, I reached a milestone: my club's IFR phase check. This is not an actual FAA-mandated activity, but my flying club insists on this as part of the learning process. It is a practice test, where you fly with a different instructor who acts as an examiner. The instructor puts you through your paces, makes you do all the things you are required to do in the actual exam and then gives you feedback.

In preparation for the phase check I was assigned a route and some approaches to plan and that's where the fun started. I did not have the appropriate charts, but a quick trip to the Airport Shop should have solved that. Crisis time, however! The store was out of the charts and plates I needed and the new ones were not arriving until after my test. Not a biggie, though: the plates I could download and print from my computer and I was able to borrow a chart from one of my friends.

So the day of the test arrived and I made my way to the airport at the ungodly hour of eight in the morning and met my instructor. We proceeded to the back room for the question and answer session. Half an hour later I had learned that I needed to review my knowledge of charts and the different phases of an instrument approach. I think I would have done better on the chart part if I had borrowed an NOS chart instead of a Jeppesen one: same information, but different symbols than I had studied.

When that was done I went to get the plane ready for our flight only to find out it had a leaking tire. Luckily for me, 172SPs are abundant at our club and we were able to get another one for the flight. So we refuel the plane, do the standard checks and are ready for our flight.

The flight itself was entertaining (and baffling) from the start. Our clearance was "vectors to our final destination" which means air traffic control would point us in the right direction. And point us they did, until they told me to fly straight to the EWTOF waypoint from where I was supposed to start my approach to Salinas. I let the GPS take the best of me and as a result did a really crappy initial leg for the approach, significantly overshooting it. I eventually managed to correct the situation, but not before getting the dreaded 3/4 scale deflection, which meant I would have failed should this have been a real test. I did manage to get it down and stabilized, though, so and we would have been able to land okay.

After that we were off to the missed approach, which they had us do at 6000 feet, so as to keep us out of clouds. I had never done a GPS-based holding pattern before, and fixated on distance from the fix as the way to determine when to turn, forgetting that the to/from flag in the VOR would have worked just fine. This made the two laps around the fix a little bit sloppy and again I did not like my performance.

After that we were off to the VOR/DME approach at Watsonville. The arc was managed properly and so was the approach, though we did not descend past 3000' so as not to get into clouds. I finally began to feel good about my ability to fly IFR.

From Watsonville we went to our last approach, the ILS at Moffett. It starts way, way away over Watsonville, but we flew it without a problem, mostly because we let the autopilot do it. We did take over at some point, when the instructor "failed" the autopilot and the vacuum instruments. Still that approach was ok, within limits and safe.

After that it was back to Palo Alto and the debriefing. The instructor gave me good feedback, pointing out the areas where I needed to work on: some more time with charts, a little bit more fluency with the GPS and more attention to radio work. A little bit of polishing, he said, and I would be ready for my checkride.

So the phase check was a good experience like expected. We identified my weaknesses and came up with a plan to deal with them. So now it's a few more flights with my instructor and then I hope it will be time to go for the gold, or at least a new rating.