Friday, May 22, 2009

Living with our seaplane

I love just about everything aviation. The people, the scenery, the utility, and the feeling of being in the air are all wonderful. I also love being at the lake for many different reasons and some of the same. When we bought the seaplane and parked it at our dock (actually in the yard, on a trailer for a while) it really finished off the feeling of absolute perfection of being at the lake with our plane.

We had a Cessna 206 at Bessemer airport, and I loved that plane too, but it is a 20 minute trip to the airport and 10 minutes pulling the plane out and getting airborne. When done flying the whole process starts over. I am sitting here right now, enjoying the smell of the yard after a spring rain, watching the clouds move away, and watching my plane sitting out there peacefully in the water, waiting for me to come and play. Unfortunately I only get to play at the lake on the weekends, as my grown up job is in Birmingham about 90 minutes away, but that is part of what makes the lake special. I do have the stress of worrying about the plane when I am away during stormy weather, which we get plenty of during the spring, that is actually the reason that I am here now.

The weather people were talking tornados and 70 mph straight line winds, and the radar showed a line of red 150 miles long and bowed out like it meant business. So we got into the truck and drove down here to batten down whatever hatches that I could. We made it just before the storm and everything survived. Now we have to drive home in a few minutes. Tomorrow is a school/work day and we have no power since the storm knocked everything out.

Having the plane at the dock allows sunset flights before or after dinner. It allows unheard of utility for getting around the lake. It makes it really easy to tell people which house is ours. You say “It's the house with the plane in front of it” and you get “oh yeah, that is so cool," and a conversation is started up. One day I hope to live here full time, but that will remain something to dream about.

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