Where to begin…

Man o’ man… There is so much to catch you up on. I’m not really sure where to start to be honest. I mean, there is that time Seth took Curt’s Champ for a joy ride:

…And then Jim’s Tri-Pacer. Or that lesson I had where I was working on short field landings and hit more sink than an appliance store. #Clenching. Or even that time Bobby went up in a flying go-kite. Like, it is a go-cart, with a kite glued to it. Don’t believe me? See exhibit B:

I could even tell you about this other crazy idea we’re kicking around. But, what I think you’ll really want to hear about is: Beaufort.

Beaufort is a cute little town on North Carolina’s coast, complete with some fine eateries, a quaint boardwalk, and a historic area connected with Black Beard. At the end of April, one thing Seth and I had was some free time. What we didn’t have? Lunch. Rumor was though, Beaufort could fix that for us. Our mission: Find Clawsons.

We met around 3-ish… or so. The departure was pretty uneventful and our flight down to KMRH was quick with a little tail wind.

The only surprise we hit was right as we started to taxi after landing. I opened my window and a hornet decided he wanted a lift to the tie-down area… It was a nerve wreaking couple of minutes until we were able to get out. But once we did…

So much aviation eye candy. With the hand of the handy airport hands, we handed our plane of to have the gas handled. As an aside, the trip down took a whopping 7 gallons. Not bad at all.

One of the airport operators mentioned they had a courtesy car for us to use. We were expecting a ’93 corolla. What we got was this:

Ummmmm DOOOOOPE!

We also bumped in to a couple of pilots who were flying a citation around, and they let us pick their brain. Aaaand, there was this sign in the restroom. Both are great, but I identify immensely with the one at the bottom:

We made our way in to town, where parking was free, and Clawson’s was open.

After eating enough to put us well over gross weight, we walked off our lunch along the boardwalk before making our way back to the airport.

We did a thorough check of our little plane to make sure the hornet got off at their stop, and then we saw it…. the plane of our dreams.

Yes, this was the turbo version. Yes, I’d fly cocaine back from Panama in that plane… #AmericanMade. Also, Seth and I have a standing disagreement on the attractiveness of these Mooneys:

I think they are stunning in flight and love the look of the tail. If you agree, feel free to message him continuously letting him know that I am right. I’d greatly appreciate it.

We left any contraband behind as we lined up on 26, umm, I mean 21 (Yeah, we may have called out, then checked the number and back-taxied… looking at you, Seth), to head home. But we made it. Coming back was a little slower than we expected, but really, we didn’t mind. We had a beautiful light show.

All in, total travel time in our little plane was 2.5 hours round trip. Considering driving the same trip is 2.75 one way, I’ll take it.