Several members of my family were meeting in Panama City Beach, FL for Thanksgiving. Scott and I planned to use our time machine and take a short trip of out on Thanksgiving day and back on Saturday. While we could have legally made it out there, it would have been way too risky for our taste. From just east of Austin all the way through Louisiana, the weather was MVFR. Thirty minutes or an hour in marginal VFR - maybe. But 3+ hours, no thanks. And yes, Scott is about 1/2 way through his IFR training including passing the written exam. It turned out that we would have been stuck in Florida until Sunday afternoon due to a huge storm system that SLOWLY made its way through the southeast. Put one in the column for mother nature.
The weather was fine north and west of Austin, so we flew up to Bridgeport. The RV grapevine had word that it had the lowest fuel prices in Texas. Scott went under the hood for a few hours, and we flew up to Bridgeport and back for $2.60 fuel. We ate our Thanksgiving day meal, turkey sandwiches and cantaloupe, in the pilot’s lounge. Mother nature tried to score a second round by sending some rain our way, but we were able to stay clear and made it back to Georgetown unscathed.
On Friday, it was time for Scott to pay me back for not being able to have a Christmas tree for the past few years since the wings from the 9A were in the living room and took up the little extra space we had. Early that afternoon, we drove out to a tree farm east of Austin. We loaded up on the hay wagon, got dropped off at the rows of trees, and started wandering to pick ours for this season. I cannot remember the last time my dad took us to cut down a real tree for Christmas - all I know for sure was that it required moon boots, heavy coats, and scarves. The rest of the afternoon was blissfully spent putting on lights and decorations.
