Fun Fun Day

I left Highland Park in the late morning and took route 80 west to La Salle, Illinois. Before I left, Grandpa discovered he likes motorcycles...


In La Salle I met my cousin Arnold. He runs a scrap metal recycling business, so I met him at his office by the scrap yard. We played a little with the giant metal-lifting magnet crane, then drove a few minutes to an airfield where his plane is hangared. It's a Piper Saratoga, 1 engine, 6 seats. In a short time we were taxiing down the runway and up in the air.

We went around the area, following the Illinois River and route 80, going over the scrap yard and his house. I got the controls for a while and had a lot of fun with that (see the video).

(Press Play)

There was a rainstorm off a distance so it was a little choppy. We were probably up for about an hour, then landed and refueled.
From there we drove to his house. It's at the end of a long gravel path, so I took one of his ATV's and had some fun on that before dinner. His wife Jewel is quite a good cook. After dinner it was already dark and we were all tired so we put on bathing suits and got in the hot tub outside for another hour...now I'm pretty much ready to hit the hay. I'll stick around here for some more fun in the morning and then depart for the next leg of my journey.