9/18/2010 OTTAWA AND SKYDIVING

Image by akeg via Flickr

SUNDAY

MILES TRAVELED: 0

What I thought would be a totally laid back day turned out to be filled with much activity.

After fixing breakfast and cleaning up, Debbie and I took off on a walk and, again, ended up in the new housing development. We took a tour of the mode home and both fell in love the darling house. With much effort, we managed to drag ourselves away and hiked back to Quest.

During our absence, Dan had installed the new dryer belt. Yes, that did induce happy faces from us ladies. Thanks Dan!

Thumbing through the LaSalle County magazine, Debbie found that the 2010 USPA National Skydiving Championships were being held right here in Ottawa at Skydive Chicago. Off we went, seeking vicarious thrills from those daredevils in the sky. It was a cloudy day but we saw lots of jumps and a rainbow of chutes floating sown around us.

http://www.skydivedhicago.com/

NO SHIT!

PLANE AND JUMPERS

THE ONLY OLD STYLE CHUTE WE SAW

PERFECT LANDING

TANDEM RIDE AND LANDING

SHOW YOUR COLOR!

This derelict jump plane, an old DC3, was parked at the far end of the field. “Lucky Lady” must have been something in her day.

DC3

LADY LUCK

SHALL WE TAKE HER UP?

Fun sideline: Adam, one of the stowaways we picked up in El Salvador, left us in Key West to return home for graduation and then went on to the Chicago area to attend a skydiving Advance Freefall Program. You guessed it. We found Adam Hoffman’s 2010 graduation picture on the wall and we had missed him by only a week or so. It is a small world.

ADAM'S GRADUATION PHOTO

After we got our fill of sky thrills we stopped at the nearby Grumpee’s Weenie Wagon for a real Chicago Hot Dog. It consists of the bun, dog, mustard, relish, pickle, cucumber, tomato, onion, jalapeno pepper and celery salt. We were told not to mess with the ingredients and try it in the original style. Pretty darn good!

We cruised around for a bit, crossing over the river a couple of times, and found our Leland friends tied up at the Ottawa City Dock. Of course cocktail hour began immediately and we all told stories of our journey since Leland. The guys helped a new arrival tie up Liz and Tony joined in the fun too. It was good to see the familiar faces of Connie and Ed and Joan and Jerry.

DAN CHATTING WITH ED AND JERRY WITH NEWCOMERS,

 LIZ AND TONY, SANDWICHED BETWEEN

We spent a quiet evening back on Quest; reading, blogging and doing prop research.