Adventures in the air

We dashed off to visit the family of another of Elaine's friends this past weekend. They are the people we made the swingset with last summer (see the thrilling video here; I've had all of 91 views over the past year!). This year there were plans to strengthen the top bar of that, but mainly we enjoyed the sunshine and didn't do much work at all.

Spot the zucchini!

Let's get the knitting pictures out of the way first. Sitting in a car on the highway is certainly a good way to get knitting done.

The sock is ready for its heel! I'm not that impressed with the tigerishness of this yarn. It's fine, but it's not really tiger-stripes.

Two more miters for the cotton blanket got knitted on the way home last night. Now the whole thing looks like this:


I need to make the four corners, and five more pairs of miters. With a couple of trans-continental flights coming up, this should get done!

Chris, the friend's dad, is a pilot in his spare time, and managed to get hold of a small Cessna for the week! He took Stephen and Arthur up Saturday, in the clear blue sunshine, and Elaine, her friend, and me up Sunday, in overcast skies and threatening rain.

My darlings and a Cessna. This was just a quick trip out to the airfield to put some chocks on the wheels and tie the plane down.

Then we went for a little drive to see antique shops and such. This area of Dead People's Stuff was called Mantiques. Cute, eh? (I think Mantiques is an attempt to get people to stop thinking of antiques as "cute.")

I asked if they had any sock blockers, and they did have a few pairs of metal ones, but really, I don't block socks, and they were not that attractive, looking sort of like someone had twisted them up out of an old clothes hanger. A nice pair of maple wood ones, now that I might pay for!


I did find two little booklets of knitting patterns, published by the Red Cross and obviously distributed in the Yellow Pages! There are no pictures, and the yarn is called things like "Special Light Red Cross Service Yarn," but I might just try something out of one, just to see what happens. Who knows what the difference might be between a Quebec helmet and an Aero helmet?

Then it was time for the boys' fun. Arthur in the red, in the copilot's seat. Going up in this thing was described as flying in a VW Bug. Our pilot, following safety rules, told us not to worry if the door fell off -- we were only going up to about 1000 or 1200 feet, and it wouldn't be a problem.





Pretty spectacular! When the girls and I went up the next day, the shadows were less distinct, but the ground was just as clear. It really was a treat to get to do this!

An old door to end with, today.

No, wait, I'm back, a few hours later, to tell you that today is the centenary of Elizabeth Zimmermann's birth!


Where would we be without the Baby Surprise Jacket?!