From President Doug Fee
One of the really magic things about this invention that Orville and Wilbur gave us, is the ability to whisk ourselves off to places that would, otherwise, be inconvenient to get to. A good friend of mine and his wife departed home here in Auburn a few days ago, drove down to Sacramento International, and hopped on an airplane to Minneapolis/St. Paul. There, they connected to another flight to Amsterdam, followed by one more short flight to their destination. Some hours after leaving Auburn, he sent me a photo of them lounging and sipping beverages at a sidewalk cafe in Stockholm, Sweden. One hundred-and-fifty years ago, that trip would have taken them twenty days, not twenty hours.
But if Sweden is beyond your travel horizons, how about something a bit closer to home? Maybe the 60th Annual Camel Races in Virginia City, Nevada? Too long of a drive, you say? Auburn to Carson City Municipal Airport was only twenty-seven minutes in our RV-6 a couple of weeks ago. Mountain West Aviation had a rental car awaiting us as promised, and another thirty minutes by road put us in the small, old west mining town of Virginia City.
While they're called Camel Races, they also had zebra, ostrich, emu and chicken races. The bottom four rows in the grandstands were marked off as being the "camel spit zone". However, I'm not certain that there was any actual risk of a close encounter with dromedary saliva. It's possible that those cautions were made purely for dramatic effect. However that was a hypothesis that we elected not to test. We sat up high in the stands and remained, thankfully, spatter-free. The whole spectacle was rife with all the ambiance that you'd expect of the pig races at the state fair, but with more showmanship. And of course the aroma of . . . . well . . . . camels.
It was a high-energy, fun birthday outing for my bride, and gave us a good excuse to go flying. But, next time, we'll be sure to take along ear plugs.
It's magic what these airplanes can do for you.
Blue skies,
Doug
