WEDNESDAY

. . . .This was a great day…..For Christmas last year Terri bought me what turned out to be a flying lesson. It was not until today that we were able to schedule it so we could both go on the ride. The airplane was a Cessna 182 1969 model. My flight simulator has a 172 that I had been ‘practicing’ on and believe it or not I was impressed with how familiar I was with the instrument panel when I entered the plane.  As it turned out Terri was not feeling well enough to go up but I was very happy to do so. I was able to sit in the plane at the pilots position during the flight and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The instructor was good at letting me do most of the flying after we got to our 1500 ft altitude. We flew twice around downtown Portland and I took some pictures while he was at the controls. He asked me if I wanted to circle one more time and I told him no, I wanted to have control of the plane again. He laughed and allowed me to fly back to the airport in McMinnville down to 800 feet during the landing pattern at which time he took over. I was allowed to have my hands and feet lightly handle the controls while he did the actual landing [and takeoff]. It was a great adventure! After the flight Terri and I drove back to Beaverton for dinner at the Outback Steak house and after the commuter traffic died down I drove home. The drive home was very nice but the approach to the bridge at the Columbia River was slow as could be. It took me an hour to get from the Steak house to the middle of the bridge. I didn’t care one bit, it was a first rate day! Thanks , Terri!

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