Adventures of an Adventurer: July 23rd: Lazy Oshkosh Day

Ahhhh. Good morning, Oshkosh!! :)

Since we were able to fly in so early, we had all day Saturday to hang out and relax. None of the food venues on the airport were open yet, so we decided to venture off the field and find some tasty breakfast.

We didn't have to go far...LaSure's is just a short walk from the airport gate. It was packed with other pilots and volunteers, but we didn't have to wait long for a table. Everything was really good...we'd definitely have to sneak back here at some point!

We were lucky enough to get a bus ride back to our campsite, which saved a fair bit of walking. During the airshow there are a bunch of school buses that drive the perimeter road around the North 40; you can hop on and off to get around a bit faster.

We still had a good bit of the morning left, so we decided to wander onto the airshow grounds. It was crazy to see everything so empty!

There weren't even any airplanes at Van's Aircraft, so I couldn't drool over any of the RV's. Yet.

There was a Dyke Delta in the homebuilt area, and a very weird yellow plane that I couldn't identify next to it.

The Brown Arch...we're officially at Oshkosh! :)

We eventually made it all the way over to Vintage. This Twin Navion was for sale.

A bunch of the Cessna 195s were taxiing into the Vintage camping area as we walked by, so we stopped to watch for a few minutes.

This C172 was parked in the Vintage area. I really liked the colors...they're pretty unusual for an airplane!

I had been watching the radar all day since a few of my friends were supposed to fly in later in the day. There were a lot of storms moving through to the south, but they all somehow stayed away from the airport itself. It made for slower arrival traffic than normal, but there were at least a few planes to watch. We started to wander back toward the North 40, stopping every few minutes to watch some arrivals.

These guys were parked a few rows ahead of us in the North 40. They flew their C182 all the way up from South America! I didn't happen to bump into them while we were there, but I heard that it took them about 3 weeks to make the trip.

The North 40 cafe was open so we grabbed some hamburgers for lunch, took a few minutes to check out the North 40 grocery store (which was a very cool addition from the last time I'd camped out), then...

...watched some people fly in. I managed to catch part of the mass Bonanza arrival. There was a solid line of airplanes taxiing by for about 20 minutes.

We had to sneak back to the plane for a little while to wait out some rain showers. The weather that had been creeping along just to the south was slowly moving north; it had cut off many of the arrivals and the airport was getting pretty quiet.

We hid under the wing as long as we could, but the rain picked up a little too much and we hid in the tent for a little while. Oh well...it's all part of the experience. :)

The rain let up for a bit so we grabbed a bus to Friar Tuck's for dinner and drinks, then came back and grabbed showers before heading back to the plane. The forecast was calling for lots of storms overnight, so we figured we'd make it an early night and get some sleep while we could.