Around the World in 12 Days - Introduction

"Never have children, only grandchildren." ~ Gore Vidal

Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,

I am at present on the third leg of flying around the world on a general easterly progression.  The itinerary is like this.  Road trip from Home to Ames, Iowa to Little Rock, Ark to Memphis TN, a jumpseat commute to Anchorage to begin the operational portion.  I operate Anchorage, Indianapolis, London/Stanstead, Great Britain, Paris, Athens, Dubai, Guanghzhou, China, Osaka, Japan, Beijing, Seoul Korea and finally back to Anchorage.

There will be some fun tales to tell on this trip, methinks, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to start the tale.  The rest of this post will be a jumbled, incoherent mess.  I apologize in advance.

You probably noticed that this saga starts with a road trip.

Soon, within a month, I will become a grandfather. Gunther James Whisler is due around the beginning of December.  A quick note on the name.  There are a lot of James in all the families.  My grandfather was James Roy Vanhooser.  Ann's dad was a James - about the finest man and best father in law there ever was.  Jaybo is really a James and finally and most important, Brook's dad is a James.  I like all that.  But here is what I really like.  "Gunner Jim" will be the third generation of G. Whislers.  

Some months back, Brook and George announced the intention to have a Baby Shower in their home in Little Rock, Ark in early November.  Ann and I began plans to make it and one of the factors for having the soiree' on that date was that I had vacation then and knew I would be free.

So, last Thursday - Halloween , Ann and I loaded up the Urban Assault CX-9 and started south down IH-35.  We stopped in Ames, Iowa at Iowa State University to see Katie and to pick up her gift.  It's always good to see the Katester.

The next day we continued on down to Little Rock. That night we had a pleasant evening out on the town with George and Brook.  More on that below.  Saturday was spent in preparation for the following days' Shower.   George and I and a friend of George's went to a local firing range and had fun punching holes in targets.

The shower itself was great fun.  Introductions were made, hugs were exchanged, food was eaten, games were played and gifts where showered.  George and Brook's facebook pages are full of pictures of the festivities and I don't want to steal their thunder here.  

I had to cut the shower short and leave early to drive to Memphis to catch that evenings' FedEx Boeing 777 / Toolbox freighter up to Anchorage.  A good friend of George's lives in Memphis assigned to the Memphis Air National Guard and he volunteered to give me a ride back after the shower.  We had a very pleasant conversational 2.5 hour drive over to Memphis.

As I've said before, my goal with this blog is try to find different viewpoints as I travel around the world - striving for whimsy and humor.  I noticed something Friday night in downtown Little Rock that I think meets that goal. 

On Friday evening, Ann and I had George and Brook to ourselves.  We went to dinner in downtown Little Rock at Boscos, sat out on the balcony overlooking the Arkansas River and the Junction Lift Bridge.  On the way out, Brook got a craving for a fried pie at the Flying Fish. 

A small trip back into ancient history.  My brother and I grew up water skiing on Lake Eva behind our house.  Back in the day of 25 cent per gallon gas you could water ski all day.  Water skis back then had not reached the pinnacle of fiberglass perfection you find today and I remember being really happy when we got a nice set of Cypress Gardens Nash skis.  This was the ultimate expression of water ski performance in the 60s and we could cut on that slalom like the pros..... or so we thought anyway.

Back to the Flying Fish now.  The walls were cluttered with hundreds of Big Mouth Billy Bass placques personally modified with the names of customers.  I thought that was cool until I saw this:

Nash Ski

Yup.  There on the wall, looking like a museum piece from the Paleozoic with yellowed and cracked rubber foot bindings was the water ski that I thought was the epitome of skiing technology in my youth.

Which reminded me of another museum piece that made me feel old.  My first flying training was in the Soaring Program at USAFA and my first solo flight was in a Schweizer 2-33 glider - probably the safest, most forgiving training airplane ever built.  Hanging from the ceiling in the USAFA Barry Goldwater Visitor Center is this 2-33.  If it isn't the actual glider I soloed, it might as well be.

Schweitzer 2-33

So...Gentle Reader, I find it humbling and an indication of my rapidly advancing maturity that two of the pieces of technology of my youth that I treasure have been relegated to displays hanging on walls and ceilings.

On that humbling note, I remain,

Dad / Geoff