Category Archives: Family

Time, Frozen

July 3, 2017FamilyJohn Goerzen

We’re expecting a baby any time now. The last few days have had an odd quality of expectation: any time, our family will grow.

It makes time seem to freeze, to stand still.

We have Jacob, about to start fifth grade and middle school. But here he is, still a sweet and affectionate kid as ever. He loves to care for cats and seeks them out often. He still keeps an eye out for the stuffed butterfly he’s had since he was an infant, and will sometimes carry it and a favorite blanket around the house. He will also many days prepare the “Yellow House News” on his computer, with headlines about his day and some comics pasted in — before disappearing to play with Legos for awhile.

And Oliver, who will walk up to Laura and “give baby a hug” many times throughout the day — and sneak up to me, try to touch my arm, and say “doink” before running off before I can “doink” him back. It was Oliver that had asked for a baby sister for Christmas — before he knew he’d be getting one!

In the past week, we’ve had out the garden hose a couple of times. Both boys will enjoy sending mud down our slide, or getting out the “water slide” to play with, or just playing in mud. The rings of dirt in the bathtub testify to the fun that they had. One evening, I built a fire, we made brats and hot dogs, and then Laura and I sat visiting and watching their water antics for an hour after, laughter and cackles of delight filling the air, and cats resting on our laps.

These moments, or countless others like Oliver’s baseball games, flying the boys to a festival in Winfield, or their cuddles at bedtime, warm the heart. I remember their younger days too, with fond memories of taking them camping or building a computer with them. Sometimes a part of me wants to just keep soaking in things just as they are; being a parent means both taking pride in children’s accomplishments as they grow up, and sometimes also missing the quiet little voice that can be immensely excited by a caterpillar.

And yet, all four of us are so excited and eager to welcome a new life into our home. We are ready. I can’t wait to hold the baby, or to lay her to sleep, to see her loving and excited older brothers. We hope for a smooth birth, for mom and baby.

Here is the crib, ready, complete with a mobile with a cute bear (and even a plane). I can’t wait until there is a little person here to enjoy it.

Family Spring: A Story in Photos

June 5, 2017Family, TravelJohn Goerzen

This has been a spring with times to relax, times to be busy, times of anticipation of a new baby, and times of enjoying our family.

Rather than write a lot of words about it, I’m telling the story in photos.

To view, click here, then click Show Info in the upper right to see captions. You can pause it with the button in the lower left, and use arrow keys to advance.

Alternatively, there’s a captionless slideshow available here.

Here’s one photo to get you started:

Flying with my brothers

June 4, 2017Aviation, Family, TravelJohn Goerzen

Picture one Sunday morning. Three guys are seemingly-randomly walking into a Mennonite church in rural Nebraska. One with long hair and well-maintained clothes from the 70s. Another dressed well enough to be preaching. And the third simply dressed to be comfortable, with short hair showing evidence of having worn a headset for a couple of hours that morning. This was the scene as we made a spur-of-the-moment visit to that church — which resulted in quite some surprise all around, since my brother knew a number of people there.

For instance:

Pastor: Peter! What are you doing here?

Peter: [jokingly] Is that how you greet visitors here?

And then, of course, Peter would say, “Well, we were flying home from South Dakota and figured we’d stop in at Beatrice for fuel. And drop in on you.” Followed by some surprise that we would stop at their little airport (which is quite a nice one).

This all happened because it was windy. This is the fun adventure of aviation. Sometimes you plan to go to Texas, but the weather there is terrible, so you discover a 100-year-old landmark in Indiana instead. Or sometimes, like a couple of weeks ago, we planned to fly straight home but spent a few hours exploring rural Nebraska.

The three of us flew to Sioux Falls, SD, in a little Cessna to visit my uncle and aunt up there. On our flight up, we stopped at the little airport in Seward, NE. It was complete with this unique elevated deck. In my imagination, this is used for people to drink beer while watching the planes land.

In South Dakota, we had a weekend full of card and board games, horseshoes, and Crokinole with my uncle and aunt, who are always fun to visit. We had many memories of visits up there as children — and the pleasant enjoyment of the fact that we didn’t need an 8-hour drive to get there. We flew back with a huge bag of large rhubarb from their garden (that too is something of a tradition!)

It was a fun weekend to spend with my brothers — first time we’d been able to do this in a long while. And it marked the 11th state I’ve flown into, and over 17,000 miles of flying.

Singing with Kids

December 21, 2016FamilyJohn Goerzen

For four years now, we’ve had a tradition: I go up to the attic one night, make a lot of noise, and pretend to be Santa. The boys don’t think Santa is real, but they get a huge kick out of this anyway.

The other day, this wound up with me singing a duet with my 7-year-old Oliver, and seeing a hugely delighted 10-year-old Jacob.

All last week, the boys had been lobbying for me to “be Santa”. They aren’t going to be able to be here on Christmas day this year, so I thought – why not let them have some fun. I chose one present to give them early too.

So, Saturday night, I said they could get ready for Santa. They found some cookies somewhere, got out some milk. And Oliver wrote this wonderful note to “Santa”:

That is a note I’m going to keep for a long time. He helpfully drew arrows pointing to the milk, cookies, and even the pen. He even started Santa’s reply at the bottom!

So, Saturday night, I snuck up to the attic, pretended to be Santa, and ate some cookies, drank some milk, and wrote Oliver a note. And I left a present.

Jacob has been really getting into music lately, and Laura suggested I find something for the boys. I went looking for something that could record also, and came up with what has got to be a kid’s dream: a karaoke machine.

The particular one I found came with two microphones, a CD player, audio recording onto SD card (though it’s a little dodgy), and a screen for showing words on any music that’s karaoke-enhanced.

Cue gasps of awe and excitement from the boys when we came down in our PJs and sweats at 6:45 Sunday morning to check it out.

Jacob excitedly began exploring all the knobs and options on it (they were particularly fond of the echo feature), while Oliver wanted to sing. So we found one of his favorite Christmas songs, and here he is singing it with me.

When you have a system with a line in, line out, and several microphone jacks, you can get creative. With a few bits of adapters from my attic, the headset I use for amateur radio worked with it perfectly. Add on a little mic extension cord, and pretty soon Oliver was pretending to be an announcer for a football game!

Then, Oliver decided he would act out a football game while Jacob and I were the announcers.

Something tells me there will be much fun had with this over the next while!

Just wait until I show them how to hook up a handheld radio to it in order to make a remotely-activated loudspeaker…

Giant Concrete Arrows, Old Maps, and Fascinated Kids

December 8, 2016Aviation, FamilyJohn Goerzen

Let me set a scene for you. Two children, ages 7 and 10, are jostling for position. There’s a little pushing and shoving to get the best view.

This is pretty typical for siblings this age. But what, you may wonder, are they trying to see? A TV? Video game?

No. Jacob and Oliver were in a library, trying to see a 98-year-old map of the property owners in Township 23, range 1 East, Harvey County, Kansas. And they were super excited about it, somewhat to the astonishment of the research librarian, who I am sure is more used to children jostling for position over the DVDs in the youth section than poring over maps in the non-circulating historical archives!

All this started with giant concrete arrows in the middle of nowhere.

Nearly a century ago, the US government installed a series of arrows on the ground in Kansas. These were part of a primitive air navigation system that led to the first transcontinental airmail service.

Every so often, people stumble upon these abandoned arrows and there is a big discussion online. Even Snopes has had to verify their authenticity (verdict: true). Entire websites exist to tracking and locating the remnants of these arrows. And as one of the early air mail routes went through Kansas, every so often people find these arrows around here.

I got the idea that it would be fun to replicate a journey along the old routes. Maybe I’d spot a few old arrows and such. So I started collecting old maps: a Contract Airmail Route #34 (CAM 34) map from 1927, aviation sectionals from 1933 and 1946, etc.

I noticed an odd thing on these maps: the Newton, KS airport was on the other side of the city from its present location, sometimes even several miles outside the city. What was going on?

(1927 Airway Map)

(1946 Wichita sectional)

So one foggy morning, I explained my puzzlement to the boys. I highlighted all the mysteries: were these maps correct? Were there really two Newton airports at one time? How many airports were there, and where were they? Why did they move? What was the story behind them?

And I offered them the chance to be history detectives with me. And oh my goodness, were they ever excited! We had some information from a very helpful person at the Harvey County Historical Museum (thanks Kris!) So we suspected one airport at least was established in 1927. We also had a description of its location, though given in terms of township maps.

So the boys and I made the short drive over to the museum. We reviewed their property maps, though they were all a little older than the time period we needed. We looked through books and at pictures. Oliver pored over a railroad map of Newton from a century ago, fascinated. Jacob was excited to discover on one map that there used to be a train track down the middle of Main Street! I was interested that the present Newton Airport was once known as Wirt Field, rather to my surprise. I somehow suspect most 2nd and 4th graders spend a lot less excited time on their research floor!

Then on to the Newton Public Library to see if they’d have anything more — and that’s when the map that produced all the excitement came out.

It, by itself, didn’t answer the question, but by piecing together a number of pieces of information — newspaper stories, information from the museum, and the maps — we were able to come up with a pretty good explanation, much to their excitement.

Apparently, a man named Tangeman owned a golf course (the “golf links” according to the paper), and around 1927 the city of Newton purchased it, because of all the planes that were landing there. They turned it into a real airport. Later, they bought land east of the city and moved the airport there. However, during World War II, the Navy took over that location, so they built a third airport a few miles west of the city — but moved back to the current east location after the Navy returned that field to them.

Of course, a project like this just opens up all sorts of extra questions: why isn’t it called Wirt Field anymore? What’s the story of Frank Wirt? What led the Navy to take over Newton’s airport? Why did planes start landing on the golf course? Where precisely was the west airport located? How long was it there? (I found an aerial photo from 1956 that looks like it may have a plane in that general area, but it seems later than I’d have expected)

So now I have the boys interested in going to the courthouse with me to research the property records out there. Jacob is continually astounded that we are discovering things that aren’t in Wikipedia, and also excited that he could be the one to add them. To be continued, apparently!

Two Boys, An Airplane, Plus Hundreds of Old Computers

September 13, 2016Children & Computing, Family, Hardware, TravelJohn Goerzen

“Was there anything you didn’t like about our trip?”

Jacob’s answer: “That we had to leave so soon!”

That’s always a good sign.

When I first heard about the Vintage Computer Festival Midwest, I almost immediately got the notion that I wanted to go. Besides the TRS-80 CoCo II up in my attic, I also have fond memories of an old IBM PC with CGA monitor, a 25MHz 486, an Alpha also in my attic, and a lot of other computers along the way. I didn’t really think my boys would be interested.

But I mentioned it to them, and they just lit up. They remembered the Youtube videos I’d shown them of old line printers and punch card readers, and thought it would be great fun. I thought it could be a great educational experience for them too — and it was.

It also turned into a trip that combined being a proud dad with so many of my other interests. Quite a fun time.

(Jacob modeling his new t-shirt)

Captain Jacob

Chicago being not all that close to Kansas, I planned to fly us there. If you’re flying yourself, solid flight planning is always important. I had already planned out my flight using electronic tools, but I always carry paper maps with me in the cockpit for backup. I got them out and the boys and I planned out the flight the old-fashioned way.

Here’s Oliver using a scale ruler (with markings for miles corresponding to the scale of the map) and Jacob doing calculating for us. We measured the entire route and came to within one mile of the computer’s calculation for each segment — those boys are precise!

We figured out how much fuel we’d use, where we’d make fuel stops, etc.

The day of our flight, we made it as far as Davenport, Iowa when a chance of bad weather en route to Chicago convinced me to land there and drive the rest of the way. The boys saw that as part of the exciting adventure!

Jacob is always interested in maps, and had kept wanting to use my map whenever we flew. So I dug an old Android tablet out of the attic, put Avare on it (which has aviation maps), and let him use that. He was always checking it while flying, sometimes saying this over his headset: “DING. Attention all passengers, this is Captain Jacob speaking. We are now 45 miles from St. Joseph. Our altitude is 6514 feet. Our speed is 115 knots. We will be on the ground shortly. Thank you. DING”

Here he is at the Davenport airport, still busy looking at his maps:

Every little airport we stopped at featured adults smiling at the boys. People enjoyed watching a dad and his kids flying somewhere together.

Oliver kept busy too. He loves to help me on my pre-flight inspections. He will report every little thing to me – a scratch, a fleck of paint missing on a wheel cover, etc. He takes it seriously. Both boys love to help get the plane ready or put it away.

The Computers

Jacob quickly gravitated towards a few interesting things. He sat for about half an hour watching this old Commodore plotter do its thing (click for video):

His other favorite thing was the phones. Several people had brought complete analog PBXs with them. They used them to demonstrate various old phone-related hardware; one had several BBSs running with actual modems, another had old answering machines and home-security devices. Jacob learned a lot about phones, including how to operate a rotary-dial phone, which he’d never used before!

Oliver was drawn more to the old computers. He was fascinated by the IBM PC XT, which I explained was just about like a model I used to get to use sometimes. They learned about floppy disks and how computers store information.

He hadn’t used joysticks much, and found Pong (“this is a soccer game!”) interesting. Somebody has also replaced the guts of a TRS-80 with a Raspberry Pi running a SNES emulator. This had thoroughly confused me for a little while, and excited Oliver.

Jacob enjoyed an old TRS-80, which, through a modern Ethernet interface and a little computation help in AWS, provided an interface to Wikipedia. Jacob figured out the text-mode interface quickly. Here he is reading up on trains.

I had no idea that Commodore made a lot of adding machines and calculators before they got into the home computer business. There was a vast table with that older Commodore hardware, too much to get on a single photo. But some of the adding machines had their covers off, so the boys got to see all the little gears and wheels and learn how an adding machine can do its printing.

And then we get to my favorite: the big iron. Here is a VAX — a working VAX. When you have a computer that huge, it’s easier for the kids to understand just what something is.

When we encountered the table from the Glenside Color Computer Club, featuring the good old CoCo IIs like what I used as a kid (and have up in my attic), I pointed out to the boys that “we have a computer just like this that can do these things” — and they responded “wow!” I think they are eager to try out floppy disks and disk BASIC now.

Some of my favorites were the old Unix systems, which are a direct ancestor to what I’ve been working with for decades now. Here’s AT&T System V release 3 running on its original hardware:

And there were a couple of Sun workstations there, making me nostalgic for my college days. If memory serves, this one is actually running on m68k in the pre-Sparc days:

Returning home

After all the excitement of the weekend, both boys zonked out for awhile on the flight back home. Here’s Jacob, sleeping with his maps still up.

As we were nearly home, we hit a pocket of turbulence, the kind that feels as if the plane is dropping a bit (it’s perfectly normal and safe; you’ve probably felt that on commercial flights too). I was a bit concerned about Oliver; he is known to get motion sick in cars (and even planes sometimes). But what did I hear from Oliver?

“Whee! That was fun! It felt like a roller coaster! Do it again, dad!”

All Aboard

August 2, 2016Family, TravelJohn Goerzen

“Aaaaaall Aboard!” *chug* *chug*

And so began a “trip” aboard our hotel train in Indianapolis, conducted by our very own Jacob and Oliver.

Because, well, what could be more fun than spending a few days in the world’s only real Pullman sleeping car, on its original service track, inside a hotel?

We were on a family vacation to Indianapolis, staying in what two railfan boys were sure to enjoy: a hotel actually built into part of the historic Indianapolis Union Station complex. This is the original train track and trainshed. They moved in the Pullman cars, then built the hotel around them. Jacob and Oliver played for hours, acting as conductors and engineers, sending their “train” all across the country to pick up and drop off passengers.

Opa!

Have you ever seen a kid’s face when you introduce them to something totally new, and they think it is really exciting, but a little scary too?

That was Jacob and Oliver when I introduced them to saganaki (flaming cheese) at a Greek restaurant. The conversation went a little like this:

“Our waitress will bring out some cheese. And she will set it ON FIRE — right by our table!”

“Will it burn the ceiling?”

“No, she’ll be careful.”

“Will it be a HUGE fire?”

“About a medium-sized fire.”

“Then what will happen?”

“She’ll yell ‘OPA!’ and we’ll eat the cheese after the fire goes out.”

“Does it taste good?”

“Oh yes. My favorite!”

It turned out several tables had ordered saganaki that evening, so whenever I saw it coming out, I’d direct their attention to it. Jacob decided that everyone should call it “opa” instead of saganaki because that’s what the waitstaff always said. Pretty soon whenever they’d see something appear in the window from the kitchen, there’d be craning necks and excited jabbering of “maybe that’s our opa!”

And when it finally WAS our “opa”, there were laughs of delight and I suspect they thought that was the best cheese ever.

Giggling Elevators

Fun times were had pressing noses against the glass around the elevator. Laura and I sat on a nearby sofa while Jacob and Oliver sat by the elevators, anxiously waiting for someone to need to go up and down. They point and wave at elevators coming down, and when elevator passengers waved back, Oliver would burst out giggling and run over to Laura and me with excitement.

Some history

We got to see the grand hall of Indianapolis Union Station — what a treat to be able to set foot in this magnificent, historic space, the world’s oldest union station. We even got to see the office where Thomas Edison worked, and as a hotel employee explained, was fired for doing too many experiments on the job.

Water and walkways

Indy has a system of elevated walkways spanning quite a section of downtown. It can be rather complex navigating them, and after our first day there, I offered to let Jacob and Oliver be the leaders. Boy did they take pride in that! They stopped to carefully study maps and signs, and proudly announced “this way” or “turn here” – and were usually correct.

And it was the same in the paddleboat we took down the canal. Both boys wanted to be in charge of steering, and we only scared a few other paddleboaters.

Fireworks

Our visit ended with the grand fireworks show downtown, set off from atop a skyscraper. I had been scouting for places to watch from, and figured that a bridge-walkway would be great. A couple other families had that thought too, and we all watched the 20-minute show in the drizzle.

Loving brothers

By far my favorite photo from the week is this one, of Jacob and Oliver asleep, snuggled up next to each other under the covers. They sure are loving and caring brothers, and had a great time playing together.

A great day for a flight with the boys

June 27, 2016Aviation, FamilyJohn Goerzen

I tend to save up my vacation time to use in summer for family activities, and today was one of those days.

Yesterday, Jacob and Oliver enjoyed planning what they were going to do with me. They ruled out all sorts of things nearby, but they decided they would like to fly to Ponca City, explore the oil museum there, then eat at Enrique’s before flying home.

Of course, it is not particularly hard to convince me to fly somewhere. So off we went today for some great father-son time.

The weather on the way was just gorgeous. We cruised along at about a mile above ground, which gave us pleasantly cool air through the vents and a smooth ride. Out in the distance, a few clouds were trying to form.

Whether I’m flying or driving, a pilot is always happy to pass a small airport. Here was the Winfield, KS airport (KWLD):

This is a beautiful time of year in Kansas. The freshly-cut wheat fields are still a vibrant yellow. Other crops make a bright green, and colors just pop from the sky. A camera can’t do it justice.

They enjoyed the museum, and then Oliver wanted to find something else to do before we returned to the airport for dinner. A little exploring yielded the beautiful and shady Garfield Park, complete with numerous old stone bridges.

Of course, the hit of any visit to Enrique’s is their “ice cream tacos” (sopapillas with ice cream). Here is Oliver polishing off his.

They had both requested sightseeing from the sky on our way back, but both fell asleep so we opted to pass on that this time. Oliver slept through the landing, and I had to wake him up when it was time to go. I always take it as a compliment when a 6-year-old sleeps through a landing!

Most small airports have a bowl of candy setting out somewhere. Jacob and Oliver have become adept at finding them, and I will usually let them “talk me into” a piece of candy at one of them. Today, after we got back, they were intent at exploring the small gift shop back home, and each bought a little toy helicopter for $1.25. They may have been too tired to enjoy it though.

They’ve been in bed for awhile now, and I’m still smiling about the day. Time goes fast when you’re having fun, and all three of us were. It is fun to see them inheriting my sense of excitement at adventure, and enjoying the world around them as they go.

The lady at the museum asked how we had heard about them, and noticed I drove up in an airport car (most small airports have an old car you can borrow for a couple hours for free if you’re a pilot). I told the story briefly, and she said, “So you flew out to this small town just to spend some time here?” “Yep.” “Wow, that’s really neat. I don’t think we’ve ever had a visitor like you before.” Then she turned to the boys and said, “You boys are some of the luckiest kids in the world.”

And I can’t help but feel like the luckiest dad in the world.

Mud, Airplanes, Arduino, and Fun

June 15, 2016Children & Computing, Family, Hardware, TravelJohn Goerzen

The last few weeks have been pretty hectic in their way, but I’ve also had the chance to take some time off work to spend with family, which has been nice.

Memorial Day: breakfast and mud

For Memorial Day, I decided it would be nice to have a cookout for breakfast rather than for dinner. So we all went out to the fire ring. Jacob and Oliver helped gather kindling for the fire, while Laura chopped up some vegetables. Once we got a good fire going, I cooked some scrambled eggs in a cast iron skillet, mixed with meat and veggies. Mmm, that was tasty.

Then we all just lingered outside. Jacob and Oliver enjoyed playing with the cats, and the swingset, and then…. water. They put the hose over the slide and made a “water slide” (more mud slide maybe).

Then we got out the water balloon fillers they had gotten recently, and they loved filling up water balloons. All in all, we all just enjoyed the outdoors for hours.

Flying to Petit Jean, Arkansas

Somehow, neither Laura nor I have ever really been to Arkansas. We figured it was about time. I had heard wonderful things about Petit Jean State Park from other pilots: it’s rather unique in that it has a small airport right in the park, a feature left over from when Winthrop Rockefeller owned much of the mountain.

And what a beautiful place it was! Dense forests with wonderful hiking trails, dotted with small streams, bubbling springs, and waterfalls all over; a nice lake, and a beautiful lodge to boot. Here was our view down into the valley at breakfast in the lodge one morning:

And here’s a view of one of the trails:

The sunset views were pretty nice, too:

And finally, the plane we flew out in, parked all by itself on the ramp:

It was truly a relaxing, peaceful, re-invigorating place.

Flying to Atchison

Last weekend, Laura and I decided to fly to Atchison, KS. Atchison is one of the oldest cities in Kansas, and has quite a bit of history to show off. It was fun landing at the Amelia Earhart Memorial Airport in a little Cessna, and then going to three museums and finding lunch too.

Of course, there is the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum, which is a beautifully-maintained old house along the banks of the Missouri River.

I was amused to find this hanging in the county historical society museum:

One fascinating find is a Regina Music Box, popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It operates under the same principles as those that you might see that are cylindrical. But I am particular impressed with the effort that would go into developing these discs in the pre-computer era, as of course the holes at the outer edge of the disc move faster than the inner ones. It would certainly take a lot of careful calculation to produce one of these. I found this one in the Cray House Museum:

An Arduino Project with Jacob

One day, Jacob and I got going with an Arduino project. He wanted flashing blue lights for his “police station”, so we disassembled our previous Arduino project, put a few things on the breadboard, I wrote some code, and there we go. Then he noticed an LCD in my Arduino kit. I hadn’t ever gotten around to using it yet, and of course he wanted it immediately. So I looked up how to connect it, found an API reference, and dusted off my C skills (that was fun!) to program a scrolling message on it. Here is Jacob showing it off:

The Simple Joys of the Plains

May 8, 2016Aviation, FamilyJohn Goerzen

We love to go exploring as a family. Last year, we gave Jacob and Oliver a theme: “find places older than Grandpa.” They got creative really quick, realizing that any state park counts (“dirt is older than grandpa!”) as did pretty much any museum. Probably our hit from last year was the visit to the tunnels under Ellinwood, KS.

Beatrice, NE

This year, our theme is “places we can fly to”. A couple of weeks ago, Laura had a conference in the beautiful small town of Beatrice, NE. So all four of us flew up, and Jacob, Oliver, and I found fun activities while Laura was at her conference.

We walked around Beatrice a bit, and I noticed this rails-to-trails area. Jacob and Oliver were immediately interested (since it was railroad-related). They quickly turned it into a game of kick-the-dandelion, trying to kick dandelions off their stems and see how high in the air they could get them. The answer: pretty high.

Of course, you can’t go wrong with swimming. Here’s Oliver getting ready for some swimming.

Right near Beatrice is the Homestead National Monument. Of course, the bales decorated like a minion got their attention.

Like the other national parks, this one has a junior ranger program. You complete a few things in an activity book and take a pledge to protect the park, and then you get a badge and some stickers. Here’s Oliver proudly taking his pledge, holding the new raccoon he bought in their gift shop.

Canyon, TX

Laura and I have been to Canyon, TX, twice — the first was for our honeymoon. Yes, we did get some strange looks when we told people we were going to Amarillo for our honeymoon. But it was absolutely perfect for us. We both enjoy the simple gifts of nature.

We kept thinking “we’ve got to take the boys here”. So this weekend, we did. We flew a Cessna out there.

Almost every little general aviation airport seems to have a bowl of candy, a plate of cookies, or some such thing for people that are flying through. I often let Jacob and Oliver choose ONE item.

They hit the jackpot when we stopped at West Woodward, Oklahoma for fuel and a break. Two whole fridges stocked with stuff: cans of pop in one, and all sorts of snacks in the other. In typical GA fashion, there was a jar in the fridge asking for $1 if you took something. And it clearly hadn’t been emptied in awhile.

They also had a nice lounge and a patio. Perfect for munching while watching the activities on the ramp.

After landing at the beautiful little Tradewind Airport in Amarillo, we ate dinner at Feldman’s Wrong-Way Diner in Canyon, TX. Oh my, was that ever popular with the boys.

The eagerly looked around to find anything that was “wrong” — a plane hanging upside down from the ceiling, a direction sign saying “Tattoine – 30 parsecs”, movie posters hung upside down, whatever it might be. The fact that model trains were whirring past overhead certainly didn’t hurt either.

They had a giant bin of crayons by the entrance. Jacob and Oliver each grabbed a fistful, and decided it would be fun to do some math problems while we wait. Oliver particularly got into that, and was quite accurate on his large addition problems. Impressive for a first-grader!

Of course, the big highlight of the area is Palo Duro Canyon. Jacob and Oliver were so eager to explore the canyon that they were just about bubbling over with excitement the night before. They decided that we should explore one of the most difficult trails in the canyon – one that would take us from the bottom of the canyon all the way to the top and back, about 2.5 miles each way.

And they LOVED it. We’d stop every few minutes to climb on some rocks, smash up some pieces of sandstone, munch on a snack, or even watch a lizard scurry past.

At the “trading post” in the canyon, both boys explored the gift shop. Jacob happily purchased a Texas magnet and Palo Duro Canyon keychain, which he carried around the rest of the weekend. Oliver loves stuffed animals, and he bought a cuddly little (but long) snake. When we got back to the hotel, he tied a couple of knots in it, and it became “snake airlines”. Here is the snake airline taking off.

He named it “Rattletail the friendly snake”, which I thought was a pretty nifty name.

The hotel’s waffle maker made Texas-shaped waffles, clearly a hit!

Saturday, we explored the absolutely massive Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum. (How does something that huge wind up in Canyon, TX?) Both boys enjoyed spending hours there. Here’s Oliver in Pioneer Town (an indoor recreation of a 1900s town) sending a telegraph message.

Oliver wanted to help with the plane. He helped me tie it down in Amarillo, helped check it over during preflight, basically got involved in every part of it. Jacob studied aviation maps (sectionals) with me, planning our flight, figuring out how fast we’d go. I loaded Avare (an Android app) on an old tablet for him, so he had aviation maps in the cockpit just like me. He would be telling us how fast we were going every so often, pointing out landmarks, etc.

When it was time to head back home, both boys wanted to stay longer — a sure sign of a good trip. They wanted to hike another trail in the canyon, go back to the museum, and “eat at Feldman’s 18 more times.” (We got there twice, which was plenty for Laura and me!)

On our drive home, Oliver said, “Dad-o, will you teach me to be a pilot? You should be my flight instructor. Then I could fly everywhere with you.”

Now that just makes a dad’s day.

The Changelog

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