No Place Like Home

I'm just back from a weekend in the Fort Lauderdale area. We were there to visit my sister-in-law who was having a lavish party to celebrate a milestone birthday. I'd tell you which one but if you're a woman (or know one) you can guess why I won't. In any event the trip was fun, even though I couldn't see myself calling south Florida home. The heat and humidity seemed to cling to everything. However, I did really enjoy the thunderstorm that rolled in on Sunday afternoon. We just don't get good "thunderboomers" here in the Pacific Northwest. I also got to spend time on the inside of a stretched Hummer limosine, something else I doubt is in my future. Of course the best news is that our two-year-old weathered the trip like a pro, despite the lack of daily naps and a house full of unfamiliar people. We let her sit in the window seat and made a big deal of takeoff and landing. ("Here we go! Up in the sky!")  It's all part of my not-so-secret effort to build in an interest in aviation.

 

For example, we were in the Bellingham area a few weeks ago. The two of us had some time to kill while my wife, the interior designer, was visiting a client. As so often happens when I have time and a motor vehicle we wound up at the Bellingham airport and I noticed a small sign next to one of the hangars that read, "Flight Museum Open Today". This led to a barely marked door in one of the hangars and the Heritage Flight Museum. As it turns out they are only open once a month and we just happened to hit it right. We went and looked around and my daughter was amazed. I even got her to recognize one of the aircraft as a "Beaver", something I made sure she shared later when we picked up my wife. She had a bit more trouble pronouncing "de Havilland". <g>