I shoulda stayed in bed

On Tuesday, March 20th I was scheduled to travel from Christmas, FL to Melbourne, FL. A distance of 41 miles that my GPS program said should take 51 minutes. Click here for map.

I left Christmas at 9:00am and arrived at Land Yacht Harbor Airstream Park in Melbourne at 9:00pm. The problems started before I left Christmas when I found a flat tire on the trailer due to a 2" long machine screw. I drove from the park to the Firestone dealer who said they could make me an appointment for Wed but they couldn't possibly help me today because they were so backed up. I asked if they could fix the tire if I brought it to them. And they said yes, if they didn't have to remove and replace it on the trailer they could "fit it in easily". So I took it off and rolled it into their shop. 4 hours later they returned it and I went to put it back on the trailer. Lessons learned many years ago and forgotten - a partially deflated tire will come out of a place that a fully inflated one will not fit. So an hour later, after getting the trailer up on higher blocks and putting the tire on, I was back on the road.

Exactly 6 miles down I95 I threw a tread on the right rear truck tire. It got real exciting for a few seconds and then I was able to pull off the road. AAA finally came but it turns out my spare was in very bad shape. Too many years of sitting in the back of a hot truck, I guess. The AAA guy said, "I'll put it on. But if I were you, I'd unhitch the trailer, and drive very slowly back to Wal-Mart. So I did. My first thought was, "I'm gonna die" because I didn't want to go over 40 and the speed limit is 70. So everybody except me is going 85. But he was kind enough to follow me the whole way with ALL the flashers on his truck going. 3 hrs later I left Wal-Mart, found the trailer right where I'd left it and had an uneventful trip to Melbourne.

I parked in a car parking lot overnight because I got there too late to find my spot. BUT no one was hurt, minor damage to the truck from the tread, almost NO damage to the trailer and when I got up Wed morning, this is the sunrise that greeted me. To quote Mary Ann, "There IS a God. And She has a great sense of humor."

Someone helped me park in my spot around 9:00. The guy next door immediately came over to say, "Hi.Where in VA are you from?" He and his wife are from Floyd but last fall they bought a condo in Roanoke. When he saw the bike he said, "A group goes riding every Tuesday, but they got rained out yesterday so they're leaving at 10:00 today." I plugged in the electric, got the bike off the truck and took a 125 mile ride to Disneyland for lunch at the Coronado and then over to theAnimal Kingdom hotel to walk around the grounds and see bunches of animals. And YES, I left in such a hurry that I forgot my camera AGAIN. One of the wives promised me pictures, but I don't have them yet.

I DO, however, FINALLY have some good pictures from the Sarasota Rally. Dennis Ober, the guy that took them, is a GREAT guy. He conned security into letting him climb up on top of one of the Fairgrounds buildings to get these pictures. He was a little slow in getting them to me, but he's a real clown anyway.

No, REALLY. He's a clown. SEE !

The blue lettering on his trailer's back window says "Airstream Hobo."

Here are two of his pictures of some of the Airstreams gathered in Sarasota.

And for those who haven't seen my home and toys, here are pictures of my Airstream and the truck with the Honda that "Obie" also took at Sarasota.

Yesterday I rode the bike 15 miles down A1A to my cousin Elsie and her husband Tony's house. Map I had dinner with them and another cousin, her brother Leo and his wife June who live in PA. I hadn't seen Elsie and Jay since her Dad's funeral over 20 years ago. We had a great time and I'm going back Sunday for a family gathering.

I WILL remember the camera !

Still at Christmas

After succeeding in re-loading stuff back into the now clean truck bed I went through the Airstream and got rid of some clothing I hadn't worn in a year.

I took it to the Catholic Thrift Shop in Titusville because I needed to buy a suit. And those of you who know me well know I haven't bought clothes anywhere except thrift shops for over 30 years. The St Teresa shop didn't have a suit for me. I looked at the on line yellow pages and found the SPCA shop about 10 blocks from St T's. When I got there, I found a boarded up building with a "For Lease" sign on it. Not even a "We've moved to" sign. I sat and thought for a minute, looked at the computer for any others close by, tried to decide if I'd bother going further out of my way.

Stick with me here - it's important that you know I spent several minutes sitting in this parking lot before I pulled out. Because when I DID pull out, I saw a step van cross right in front of me. On the side it had "SPCA Thrift Shop - we pick up" and the address of the new shop - which was 4 blocks away. I went in and said, "I'm here to get my suit." The lady looked at me a little funny and said, "Did we set something back for you." I said, "No. I've never been here before. But trust me, you have a suit for me." She said, "Well we've only got 4 or 5 suits back there but I'll show you where they are." And OF COURSE, Tinkerbell - mine was there. Perfect fit.

"In Betweens" really are there all the time.

I just realized that some of you may not know about "In betweens" and "Tinkerbell Jerusalem" but since most of you do, I won't repeat the story here. Suffice to say it's about a book I found in a Thrift Shop (where else) in Laguna Beach, CA four months after Mary Ann died when I was at the depths of my depression. If you'd like to hear the WHOLE story, email me at tomcookpsu@yahoo.com and I'll fill you in.

Yesterday Stuart Boblett, the pilot from Roanoke called to say he was back in Kissimmee for a couple of days, would I like to get together for lunch. I met him about 11:30. We had lunch and then continued talking about old times, old friends, old airplanes, new airplanes, etc etc etc. I left at 7:00pm. It was wonderful catching up and just talking with such a great friend. As I was leaving and looked at the time, I said, "I can't believe we talked for almost 8 hours." He said, "I know. But it was really good to get to do it." When I said, "Yeah, I guess. But you know, I used to make a LOT of money doing just exactly this.", he said, "Well, at least you haven't forgotten how to do it."


Some pictures from the Helicopter Convention just arrived via email.

Here I am with the President, Teen Corey



And this one is of Anne Ballard, the better half of the couple that came in just to help in the booth during the Whirly Girls Hovering (that's what they call their Annual Meeting.) Her husband isn't in the picture because he was off meeting Serge Sikorsky - yes, THAT Sikorsky, the son of Igor, who invented the helicopter. Denny had met him before and came back to the booth with an autographed copy of his DVD.

Anne and Denny have known the Booth Chairperson, Bev Haug-Schaffter since Ft Rucker, 1981.

Folks, these Whirly Girls are friends that really do stay for a long time ! I'm so blessed to have them as my friends.

I had told them I wanted a pink apron, but this was all they had. And, of course, it didn't say "Auxiliary" so I got lots of questions about "How did you get to be a Whirly Girl?" The answers varied from a smart a@@ remark to actually telling them about the great work the Auxiliary does in helping to fund the scholarships, depending on how they struck me.


Today I went to Lake Buena Vista - on the Honda - to Kitty O'Shea's Irish Pub for their St Pat's Day celebration. Bangers and Mash for lunch, lots of Guinness Stout AND Jessy playing fiddle with the Irish band. While I'm worrying that she'll write me off as a stalker she came up to me and said, "Oh, I'm so glad you could make it. Would you take some pictures?" and gave me her camera. She PROMISED to email me the pictures. But since I still don't have the ones from the Iron Horse Saloon I asked her if we could get just one on my cell phone camera. Here it is

My shirt was a gift from the Whirly Girls. You can guess - well some of you can - how old it is by the reference to "Double Green Stamps". But it was as close to green as I had.

Tomorrow I had planned on going to the Bluegrass Festival. But some folks who saw the Valiant Air Command Air Show today told me it's really a great show. So maybe I'll go there instead.



Whatever I do, it'll be 65 degrees under bright blue skies. Kind of like this one. I took this looking up from my lounge at the pool and I did NOT touch up the color.