Then we finally got to our big trip.
My two older boys (11yo and 6yo) were preparing to take our deuce and M105C (camper) to the Oshkosh airshow. This was it. This was our big excursion for the year. This is what has replaced Iola for us.
We had the ride of our lifetimes.
We left home on the Saturday before the show's official launch. Loaded up everything in our truck and camper. And honestly, we put blankets, pillows, sheets, and our food tote in the trailer and it was ready to rock. That was the whole point of the trailer. Oh, wanna go camping? Hook the trailer, load it with food and bedding, and leave. The only things we had to pack and load up were clothes, bikes, and truck essentials (tools, jack, oils, etc).
We had pre-purchased as much as we could. I got our EAA membership to help with discounts. I got our wristbands for the entire week. And we were camping there for an entire week.
Sunday the grounds aren't "open" per say. The vendors are all still setting up and what not, but you can still go recon. We used sunday to get used to the tram routes, and to recon what we wanted to see in comparison to how the map was laid out.
Monday is the first official day. We were woken up by the B1 Bomber buzzing the campground. What a feeling/sound that makes. What a magnificent bird. We woke up and headed towards the war birds area. Thats where my soul resides. Watching all the P51's and F4's taxi in, literally a couple feet in front of you. Listening to their engines pop and the propellers slap the wind out of the way while they idle by.......music you never hear on the radio.
The food on location was a little spendy, but it's no different than a football game, or something similar. We were prepared for that.
Tuesday was the first day we paid attention to the actual air show portion of it. Again, the sounds and feelings created when some of these are within a couple dozen feet of your head.....breathtaking.
I literally have THOUSANDS and thousands of pictures. I didn't take one of them. Next year, I won't even bother taking pictures of the aircraft. Some of the photography equipment there was probably as expensive as the private planes. But the pictures some of these folks took were out of this world. My hats off to them. I did take pictures of the boys, and our personal things that we did on the ground. But the aircraft photos......leave it to the pros.
Wednesday. This was the big day in our itinerary. This was the day I had dreamed about since I was a kid. This checked off so many items on my bucket list I could have died before dinner time. I'm still not even sure that my kids understand the scope of what we did. Wednesday we took a ride on a 1945 B17 Flying Fortress. This is the only photo that I took of that. During the flight I did a live stream on fb, and both kids had gopro cameras on them during the entire flight. We were in the air for about 40 minutes total. About an hour for the entire trip, tire chock to tire chock. I found that my 11yo doesn't really do well in the air. He swears he had fun, but his tummy wasn't sure about the whole flying thing. The 6yo on the other hand.....he was hooting and hollering the entire time. Once we were airborne we could move about the craft. I couldn't catch him after that. He was all over that thing. But the nose.......the nose was something I could never find the words to express. Seriously. I'm getting all emotional just sitting here typing this. This B17 experience was something i've done with my boys that will always be immortalized. I'm currently editing the footage from all 3 cameras. Then I will figure out how to post the video here (never done video on here before).
We landed. got lunch. And just talked. About 4 million miles an hour. All three of us at once. People around us were entertained i'm sure. I got a lot of high fives and, "nice job dad" from folks. The boys were telling random strangers about riding in the B17 and some of them didn't even believe them. haha. Once we calmed down a bit, and got some food in our bellies (we went up with the tanks empty just in case), I told the boys that I didn't care what we did the remainder of the week. I would follow them to anything they wanted to do.
Thursday we spent the day at Kidventure. This place was really cool. We could have spent the entire week there if we had the time. It was here that they watched a video about the Tuskegee Airmen. They thought it was "neat." But then....upon walking out of the little theater, they were able to get an autographed picture from one of the original Tuskegee Airmen himself!! He was 99 years old. The boys got a selfie with him too. Like I said, they thought the video was "ok." But after meeting him, and getting their pictures taken, then it just seemed to become REAL for them. The 11yo was obsessed at that point. Talking about the p-51 and asking tons of questions about segregation and trying to wrap his head around the whole thing. It was cool to see him completely immersed in history like that. See honey, he's not the mailman's kid. He's definitely mine after witnessing that passion for history.
Friday we did more wandering. Hit up Warbirds again. Did more flight simulators. My oldest was digging the Apache simulator at the Army trailer. We hit it every single day. By Thursday/Friday the guys working the simulator would crank up the difficulty and were quite impressed at how my boy did. I had to tell them repeatedly that he was only 11, they can't have him just yet. He would start flying, and they would lean out the door, "hey guys get in here and watch this kid. This is the kid I told you about from yesterday!" lol. It was pretty awesome.
Saturday we just hung out. Did some more airshow type things. Hit up the sea plane base. Just sat back and took a deep breath and tried to process everything that we had just experienced.
Sunday we rolled out, and headed home.
Now, i'm going to rewind a bit. Upon arriving at Oshkosh, we stopped at the KT just outside the gate to contact my dad for directions to where he was parked. While sitting there, my son noticed a puddle under the truck. Oh yeah, it was ours. Oil. Right where the bellhousing attached to the engine. #$##$^#$%&$%&$%*%^*$%!!!!!!!!!! You know what, don't care. We are going to enjoy the week and i'll figure this out as we go. As the week went on I started by taking the little cover off at the bottom of the tranny. Lots of oil in there. Got some brake cleaner, and hosed everything down that I could up in there. Asked around a bit and decided that just to get us home we were going to throw some Bars Leaks in there. Glad I did. I put 5 cans of it in the engine. Once we got home, there was no more leak. Since then I've putted around town and no puddles at my stops. Looks like a clutch and rear main seal has been shoved WAY up to the top of the list of things to do on this truck. Luckily I figured it would be a thing eventually, so i'm not even intimidated. Just waiting for the time to knock it out.
