Arrival at AirVenture Oshkosh 2008

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I stayed at work almost all night Monday night and then packed the car and left around 10:00 EDT Tuesday morning. We arrived at Oshkosh around 6:00 CDT (nine hours through the Chicago construction, etc.).

First order of business was to get to the Orion FBO at the far end of the North Forty for Dan Gryder’s DC-3 charity event. Dan was hosting the event for Challenge Air and had assembled the DC-3 All Star Bluegrass Confabulation. I got to join in on mandolin for a few numbers and Dan was even kind enough to plug me in (my mando is set up for electric, although I rarely play it that way).

Cole spoke of nothing but the DC-3 on the way across the airport grounds and was really thrilled to hang out around the airplane. I think he got in and out at least a half dozen times. Here he is in the left seat.

We also got a shot out on the wing. Cole seemed to be genuinely impressed that I was typed in the airplane. He’s usually pretty difficult to impress. Or maybe it’s that he gets pretty regular access to stuff like airplanes and recording studios and radio stations and other relatively cool things and just takes some of those things for granted. In any case, I think a DC-3 is pretty impressive regardless of whether you hang around other airplanes on a regular basis.

The party was lousy with podcasters, too. UCAP, The Pilotcast, The Student Pilot Cast, and yours truly, as well as Rod Rakic from myTransponder.com, the new aviation-centered social media site. (Ask for your beta account by e-mailing rod@mytransponder.com!)

We got back to the campsite around midnight and managed to set up our condo-sized tent in the dark with some assistance from some very kind EAA Radio teammates. Cole was bushed and slept until 8:00, by which time the tent became a sauna and we started up the day Wednesday.

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