flying & vacation

Arnie (one of the pilots in our church) rented out a piper warrior, and took me flying thursday evening. a spectacularly beautiful evening for flying. sky dotted with small clouds, sun setting, humidity haze hanging on the horizon. we flew from KARB (the ann arbor airport) to KJXN (the jackson airport). Arnie has a lot of experience as a flight instructor, and let me do basically everything except set the radios and talk to the control towers. i started up the plane, taxied to the runway, did the run-up tests, took off, flew to jackson and landed, taxied to parking, and turned off the engine. it wasn't the smoothest landing (i flared a little too much and we floated before coming down with a slight bump), but no harm done. we grabbed some boston cream pie and ice teas at the jackson airport restaurant, and Arnie gave me some pointers to implement on the way back. we flew back to the ann arbor area, where we flew over the church and our neighborhood. here's a pic i snapped from maybe 1000 ft above the ground:




















Ronni heard the plane overhead, got Colin out of bed, and they stood in our back yard waving at us...I snapped some pictures, but they were a little too blurry to post.

if you've never been up in a small plane, this short video i took might give you a sense of it... (you'll need the quicktime plugin from apple to see it, i think):















we're leaving in the morning for our family vacation - up to long lake with Mom, Dad, Grace, Amy, Ben, and Nick, then to Mackinaw Island for a couple of days, and then to the Washington, D.C. area. we'll be back before the first weekend in august. if i come across some internet cafes, i'll see about doing a litte blogging while we're away.

it's funny, as much as i'm looking forward to being on vacation, i'm sure going to miss being at church. i met with Al, Cathy, and Steve (the people who are speaking the weekends we're away) yesterday, and they've got some awesome messages in the cooker. at least i'll be able to catch them on CD when i get back. then Ronni showed me the songs the worship team learned at rehearsal this week, songs that Manny and the team will be leading over the next couple of weeks. great tunes! can't wait to hear them. plus, compassion ministry is approaching 1 million lbs given away since it's inception 8 years ago, and preparations are in full swing for a celebration to give thanks to God for his faithfulness and allowing us to play. hopefully, i'll be able to be back before the actual milestone hits.