If We Fell...

I fly with Steve in the little plane occasionally. In order to keep the air sickness at bay, he lets me take the controls. While watching the air speed thingy, the altitude thingy, and the horizon, I try to concentrate on keeping the plane as steady as possible. If there's heat on the ground, like there was on Sunday, we have to really gain altitude. The heat pushes up and makes the plane beebop around in the sky. Beebopping doesn't agree with my equilibrium.
The higher we go, the more my mind is able to wander. And have little tiny panic attacks. I begin to realize as we're right around 6500 feet that if something happened we would fall from the sky and be permanent additions to the desert below.
It begins to feel like we are truly a tiny flimsy object that's just waiting to catch the wrong air current and begin its horrible spiral into the ground.

All in all, it feels like this:



You would think it would be comforting to have some other little planes flying along side us. But not when I give my mind the time to rationalize what would happen if we had an emergency. What would our friends do? Well, they'd watch us fall to the ground.



But that didn't happen. We landed at Alamo Lake, had breakfast, then wandered back out to the planes.
I snuck up on a little lizard who thankfully wasn't trying to sell me more car insurance. I already have GEICO, and the coverage sucks....



What is fascinating (to me) about this photo is I didn't use a zoom at all. He sat still while I was able to crouch down right next to him and take a bunch of photos.
I was even able to tell him about how expensive and unfair my car insurance is. Full coverage, my ass.

We flew to a couple other desert locations, checking out old landing strips here and there. See this photo? There's something in it. I snapped it as we were landing on a strip:



Here's a hint. It's on the left side.
Oh okay fine I'll zoom in on what I'm talking about:



Mr. Moo Cow was having lunch when all of a sudden an orange, black, and white object swooped out of the sky and rocked his world. You know he had a great story for all his cow friends.

We made it home in time for an afternoon nap, and a quiet dinner of veggies. All veggies. We had simple needs that night.

Driving. And More Driving.

Last week's schedule was not an easy one. Monday I worked all day. Tuesday was housework. After feeling ooogie on Wednesday (allergies, I guess) I had a long day at the Farmer's Market on Thursday. We were done at 8pm, so I then hopped in my car, drove several hundred miles to Tucson where I had class the next day. 2am arrival, class at 8am. Yippeee!!
Class was great, I found myself running out of paper to take notes because the whole day was packed with tons of information. This is definitely stuff I can't get back here in Havasu.
Instead of staying in Tucson, I opted to drive home that night. 9pm, I pulled in the driveway and unloaded my gear. Steve insisted on talking. I was holding my eyes open with my hands, listening. It's not always easy to get Steve talking so I obliged. But by 10:30pm, I couldn't take it anymore.
I crawled into bed, only to be awake at 6:30 thanks to someone who thinks it's appropriate to send text messages at the crack of dawn. Who are these people? Perhaps they need a text etiquette class, provided by YOURS TRULY.

After a couple of shots of espresso I was on the streets. I rode my bicycle and got signatures from some friendly neighbors up the hill. Campaigning is great when the weather is cooperating!

Open House

Last week Shay's little school had an open house event with the hopes of recruiting 50 new students for next school year.
And when they opened the gates, people were lined up for a block:



Definitely a success. Shay's school is small, conservative, and the staff is personable. Even better, the school insists early on that parents be VERY MUCH involved in their kids' school life. I guess word is getting around...