A letter from my sister

As I might of mentioned in one of my prior blog entries, or might not hav ementioend... I don't remember, my our sister joined us for a portion of the Southern road trip. The following is a recap, in her own words, of her experience.

This is a little bit of a travel journal for the last week, April 28-May4th. I figured that you might enjoy hearing about the American Heartland - a pretty "normal" kind of place where people still wave at each other when they pass on the road. Where the church is the center of the community and the Pastor knows each of his members by their first name having attended each of their christenings, marriages, visited them while they were sick and gave last rites. Where the billboard just outside of town reads: My Way is the Highway -- God.

Arin and Kevyn, who have been touring the Southern part of the country for a month, picked me up in Atlanta, Georgia. We drove to my friend Beth's wedding in Alabama (a fellow female pilot at AA who married a great guy- pilot for United). It was all very Southern/Antebellum and beautiful. Two and a half days of events starting with a dinner at a historic southern mansion dating from the Civil War era. There were great antiques and paintings on the wall of people whose eyes seemed to follow you around the room, or maybe that was just the champagne! The Magnolias were in bloom and the Spanish Moss swayed in the soft warm winds blowing through the Tulip and Sycamore trees. The church service was very moving and we sent them off with live butterflies. The next day her dad had a brunch at his house on the lake with plenty of Mimosas served. There is nothing like a mix of Southern relatives and booze. It was like watching a Tennessee Williams play. You got to hear all about loony relatives and the dirt oozing out of the closets. Southerners are peculiarly proud of their crazy relatives and the dramatic episodes in their lives, and only too happy to share them with relative strangers!

After the wedding I joined my brothers on their "road trip" and we camped in the Vanagen camper for three days, on a gorgeous lake in Tennessee and in a Walmart shopping center (safe place to stop, rest, use the bathroom and buy junkfood). We took in the scenery, caught up with each other's lives and listened to Kevyn play his steel string guitar, really a treat. We also visited with some other pilot/skydiver friends of mine, Val Thal and Jim Bob who live in Moscow, Tennessee. They have done a great job creating a perfect living/playing space with aviation truly at the heart of it. They have about 110 acres with a lovely green grass 4000' landing strip and five acre lake as the center piece. There are two big hangars with a Twin Beech, C-195 and couple of friend's airplanes in residence as well. They converted half of one of the hangars into a very cool living area with plenty of windows to view the inside of the hangars and landing strip. Jim Bob is an expert sheet metal worker and was busy restoring a second Twin Beech. Once a year they have a big bash and skydivers come in from all over. They just adopted Val's two nieces (8 and 10), beautiful girls, who's mom is a meth addict. Thankfully, they seem very well adjusted and are very lucky to have Val and Jim as their new parents. Val found a young gal who is trying to work her way into an airline career to be her nanny, for a little while. It looks like she'll be joining the Guard soon and hopes to fly C130s.

We ended up the last night on Beale Street in Memphis where we went to half a dozen jazz and blues clubs, including BB King's - the original! We even rode the trolley to a funky bar on Main St. that looked like it hadn't been upgraded (or even cleaned) since the 50's. But I think Elvis played there. Arin, danced the Lindy with a couple gals there. There was good music to be had everywhere - I got my fill of the blues!

I hitched a ride home after the late night in Memphis, in the back of a FEDEX freighter - just me and 300,000 lbs of freight, through a spectacular lightening storm! It was really interesting and awesome to see the size of the FEDEX operation in Memphis (their central headquarters). They launch 150 flights per night to destinations all over the world. We got all loaded up and closed up around 2:30am and then the blue lights came on (this means that a lightning storm is too close for anyone to be on the ramp. We sat on the ground for over an hour while a hellacious lightening and rain storm dumped overhead - it was quite the show. We hit a few peripheral cells on the way out when we finally launched with continued displays of lightening, strong turbulence and lots of St Elmo's Fire (this is "mini" lightening that continually sparks across the windshield). Once the show was over, about 4:00am, I went in the back and curled up on all four of the jumpseats just forward of all the containers, waking only when the wheels touched down in LA.

I think I got a good taste of what the “Heartland” has to offer!