As July quickly dims into the past, I’m grateful I kept the month free of social engagements. I know from experience how completely preparation fills the weeks before our trip. Add the ten days we are actually gone, and whoosh! The month is past.
Our plane is always full, partly because I somehow became responsible for designing and selling our group’s t-shirts. Although you can’t see it, there’s eighty-one pounds of extra garments beneath that camping gear. I’m just grateful we have a Cessna 182 and not a smaller aircraft (although I’m sure it looks quite small to most readers).
Every time we make this flight, it seems there are more windmills.
After reconnecting with friends for two nights in Illinois, we headed north to Oshkosh. Although we were a flight of fourteen, I could only capture seven in one picture.
Flying into Oshkosh is always interesting, and the range of power and speed between our group members’ planes can make it a little challenging. Still, it’s always fun to fly with friends.
As usual, our plane was parked what felt like miles from our group’s camp in “Vintage.” Our 182, at age 43 (built in 1980) is too new for that classification. The years covered by that designation move forward, but not on a yearly basis. I believe 1971 is currently the newest model year to be considered Vintage, and I fully expect to be dead before our plane reaches that designation.
Perhaps someone else will fly her there.
In past years, we’ve parked in the “North 40,” which is truly miles from camp, but lately, the powers that be have been honoring our request to park in the “South 40,” slightly closer to our temporary home — maybe a half mile or so away instead of closer to two.
I should note here that EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association), who sponsor the event, provide trams and busses for transportation. Unfortunately, however, the trams that service our area are almost always full, with no one disembarking at most stops. Waiting for another — likely just as packed — often means standing in the blazing sun because there are almost no trees and only a few man-made sunshades.
We usually end up walking everywhere, although fortunately others in camp were able to provide transport to and from the plane the few times we needed to transport items.
Since EAA volunteers on scooters had parked us in the southernmost row (173) of the South 40, we were very grateful. Eventually, row 174 was added so I guess we weren’t quite as far south as we could have been.
Below you can see our plane’s home for the week. She looked very lonely when we left her, though the field filled more later in the week.
At least it wasn’t the North 40. 😉
Oshkosh wouldn’t be Oshkosh without a storm or two, and we had several, mostly wind and rain, although The Engineer said he saw hail.
I didn’t notice. Because the weather came mostly in the evening or early mornings, I curled up in the tent and fell asleep in the brief coolness.
The rain provided a welcome relief in a week filled with temperatures in the upper 80s and low 90s, with something like 90% humidity.
I’m going interject here to talk about the importance of having a good tent if you’re camping at Oshkosh. We have a Cabela’s Alaskan Guide, bought to replace another of the same model I’d bought at a garage sale. In fact, we have two Alaskan Guides, a four-person (for Osh) and and an eight (for car camping).
In our many years of tent camping at Airventure, we’ve seen many, many, many storms, followed by the sight of many planes draped with tents, bedding, and clothing after those storms ended.
We’ve also seen tents destroyed by wind.
Our tent stays where we pitched it; our bedding and clothing remain dry. And as the years have past, we’ve noticed more and more people in our group replacing their discount store tents with Cabela’s.
This sounds like an endorsement, and I suppose it is one, though I’m not compensated by Cabela’s in any way. (Of course, if anyone at Cabela’s reads this, please note I’m not above accepting swag.)
Certainly, there must be other good tents that can stand up to weather, but Cabela’s makes a great tent for a reasonable price.
The only downside I’m aware of might be the weight — too heavy for backpacking or self-supported bike tours. But no doubt people into that kind of camping wouldn’t be looking at this type of tent anyway.
And, now, after that brief digression, let’s return to Oshkosh, shall we?
One event I particularly enjoy is having balloon pilots inflate their aircraft in a display of light and color.
They start in the evening, and as darkness falls, the balloons are illuminated by the flames keeping them afloat.
What’s even better is the display takes place right at the end of our rows, which means I can watch from our tent if I like.
Our Oshkosh ended a few days little early this year. The plane’s annual was up at the end of July, and we wanted to allow time to return home and get it to the shop that does our work.
No “get-home-itis” for us! There’s nowhere we need to be if we can’t get there safely.
We packed up our tent and belongings, now 81 pounds lighter.
A friend was kind enough to take us and all our gear south to the plane. En route, I was taken by the sign on this jeep.
It looks like one from the WWII encampment near the Warbirds, and I can only assume the newlyweds spent their honeymoon providing a living history lesson at Oshkosh. I think that’s pretty neat.
Finally, we took to the air, and a glance at our iPad showed we were not alone. In the photo of the chart below, each N-number represents a plane … and Friday isn’t even a big day for departures.
As we flew away, I looked down and happened to see these DC-3s waiting to have Basler Turbo Conversions perform their magic.
It was here that “That’s All, Brother,” the lead plane on D-Day was discovered. And it was Basler who was contracted to restore the plane to airworthiness in time to take part in the Daks Over Normandy event for the 75th anniversary of the event.
We went to France partly for this in June 2019, and you can read here about how that worked .
Our flight home was — as the best flights are — uneventful. Upon landing, we ended this year’s Oshkosh with a ceremonial cutting of wristbands.
Bee Update
AIl those frames of honey I mentioned in my earlier post turned out to hold about 146 pounds of honey. That translated to most of a day spent extracting and the rest of the week spent finishing up the many tasks involved in straining and bottling. (If you want to learn more about the process, I’ve written about it in previous blogs here and here.)
Yesterday and today, we finally had the chance to begin the long process of helping the bees prepare for winter by starting to take off the honey supers. This involved removing a nearly empty super from Hive #6S (the swarm hive) and putting the escape boards on Hives #2 and #2A.
Today, we removed the supers and escape boards off those two hives as well as the super on #3 (the little hive). The two #2 hives each had some full frames, giving us thirty-three more that need extracting (plus whatever is on #4 and #5).
We hope to get to those next week and maybe have a peek in LoLa too. At some point (hopefully sooner, rather than later), we’ll need to do a thorough check of all of them. But with all the airplane work next week, we may be being overly optimistic to even think we’ll have time to get the supers off before the following week.
Addendum: Today I went out to quickly open two hives and insert some frames. Thinking I’d be in and out, I stupidly wore only gloves and veiled hat. Wrong! LoLa’s bees were not happy to have their hive opened and immediately went on the defensive.
Dropping my tools, I backed off ran until they quit following me. I got stung three times before retreating to the house for our full bee suit so I could finish my task. It was my own dumb fault for not gearing up properly, but I have to admit to feeling a certain sense of vengeance that the ones that stung me died, rather than my usual sorrow on seeing a dead bee.
The Byrd and the Bees 