the friday morning while we were in oklahoma, chris’ uncle la rue walked out of his office right i was taking my first sip of coffee and said, “hey – wanna go flying?”
it took me approximately .32 seconds to put my coffee down and say “yup!”
i think i actually surprised him by how quickly i responded! one thing that i love to do is fly! i’ve never been scared of it and, aside from the hassle at airports, that is one of my favorite parts of a trip! i know. i’m a weirdo.
i think he also thought i was a little strange because the first thing i said after that was “can i bring my camera so i can blog about this?”
if he thought for one hot second that i wouldn’t be sharing this fun flight with you guys he had another thing coming! 🙂
la rue has a six-seater twin prop plane. he flew in the air force when he was younger and then about 20 years later decided to basically renew his pilot’s license when his son also decided to get his.
i dated a guy who had his pilot’s license and he took me up in a two-seater plane once. that was probably the scariest thing i ever did. we flew from jacksonville, tx to el dorado, ar. it was about a two hour round trip flight and it was jerky, hot, turbulent and very scary.
this flight was much smoother once we flew out of the air field over the lake. la rue attaches the plane to this little wheeled engine thing to pull it out of the hanger and then we loaded up!
la rue went through his pre-flight checklist and we taxied to the north end of the runway. throughout the flight every time he did something he would explain to me what he was doing and why he did it.
did you know that pilots can change how much fuel the plane is using? if you have a good tailwind you can reduce the amount of fuel the plane uses to conserve it for the trip back. pretty cool, huh?
getting ready to take off!
we took off heading south and flew over lake tenkiller. its a man-made lake that is dammed off from a river. it is a gorgeous lake!
here is a picture of the dam. it is crazy to think that if the dam wasn’t there where all that water would go!
here is another view of the air park that tink & la rue live in. the “21” at the bottom of the runway is where we took off from. tink and la rue live at the south end of the runway.
i felt all fancy and official wearing the headset! it is crazy how loud the airplane is so the headset is totally essential. plus you can talk directly to the person with you.
we flew south towards sallisaw, ok and flew over the robert s. kerr reservoir. the sun was hitting it just right and the water looked like liquid gold. it was so awesome!
this is cavanal hill which, according to the local chamber of commerce, is the tallest hill in the world. at 1,999 feet it is one small foot short of being an official mountain. from far away it looks a lot bigger but up close it just looks like another part of the landscape.
these are the towers on top of cavanal hill. i would be willing to bet there are several towers up there for the oklahoma state police and other local law enforcement agencies. this picture and statement has been brought to you by my lovely job. 🙂
we are flying back around the runway and getting ready to land. this is another view of where tink & la rue’s house is in comparison to where we were flying.
making our final approach!
time to pick up your feet – we are coming in for a landing! that is our blue car on the left hand side of the runway and their hanger. that is how close they live to the air strip! it is a really cool neighborhood.
wait – does anyone else do that? pick up their feet when the plane lands? i don’t know why but i have always done that! just a superstitious habit i suppose. i just don’t want my feet to get stuck under the plane i guess! 🙂
after being with family for almost two weeks straight it was nice to get away for a little while and honestly, i can’t think of a more fun way to get away for a minute! 🙂
have you ever flown? do you like to fly? what is the furthest you have ever flown? i really hope i get the chance to go up with la rue again! 🙂
what fun!!!! and i love that you pick your feet up. just in case? 🙂
Very cool! Is the neighborhood for people with planes? Sort of like they have neighborhood for people with horses? I could never remember what all of those controls are for.
I love flying too!
Cavanal Hill reminds me of the movie The Englishman That Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain I don’t remember the details of the movie super well, but I recollect it being cute.
Thanks for sharing.
T.W.
Oh my gosh Skye. Looks like you had a blast!
That looks like such an amazing time! I hate flying, but those pictures make me want to go fly right now!
I'm SO JEALOUS! This is awesome!