Was the Jackson Trip Fun or What?
The weekend began with a happy hour by the pool on Friday night. As usual, the gang brought lots of food and beverages. We had a beautiful a view of cows roaming in the pasture and of the Amador County hills. On Saturday, we toured four towns in the area starting out in Plymouth which had some nice eating establishments. We found the corn maze at the Amador Flower Farm and managed to wind our way through it. Next was Amador City where many of us bought our picnic lunch at Andrae's. Then we headed to Sutter Creek. Sutter Creek was having its 4th Annual Musical Organ Rally, so we were lucky enough to hear some of the music coming out of those beautiful instruments. Next was a picnic in at the Kennedy Tailing Wheels Park and then off to the city of Jackson. We completed our tour at Drytown Cellars where we were treated to a private wine tasting. Many of us went our separate ways for dinner on Saturday night but, we all found something delicious to eat. Sunday brought perfect weather (and a bit of a tailwind) for the trip home.
Thank you to everyone who came on the trip to Jackson! We hope you all had a good time!
...Liz & Peter.
Jeopardy Redux
Larry Chapman did a fabulous job again in putting together the DAF version of Jeopardy. Participants were actually able to grasp the instructions for playing the game. The winners were Jodie Chapman and teammate Dave Weir. The losing teams were Stacy Livergood / Lisa Hahn and Jack Kenton / Tom Lagrelius. Because a score was kept, the losers suffered a humiliating loss of self esteem. Larry deserves a big "atta boy" for putting on a great program given the overwhelming odds against him.
World Flying Adventure
The September program featured Robert F. Gannon who presented "World Flying Adventure ... a decade of global exploration." In 2000 Bob departed San Diego in a Cessna 182 named "Lucky Lady Too." For the next 10 years he circumnavigated the globe twice, once in each direction. He has flown to Antarctica, over the North Pole, into Iraq, Iran and Israel. He has landed in 1,200 places in 155 countries on all the continents. Bob did a great job in presenting an unbelievable trip. Thanks Bob.
Those Who Can't Fly - Walk
September 11, 2011. Well, it was bound to happen sometime. While it was expected, it surely wasn't expected in September. I'm talking about weather!
As we all met at the general aviation building Saturday morning, the skies looked tempting but the forecast looked somewhat threatening with thunder storms and hail in the surrounding areas and moving north in the direction we wanted to go.
What to do? We discussed the options and took a vote (never take a vote :>). Because we had all of the food for the BBQ, we decided to divert to a local airport with less chance of being stranded. Surprisingly this turned out to be one of our better attended fly-ins. As we sett up at the east end of KTOA's Tee's in the grassy area, folks drove by and pitched in bringing chairs, sodas and something we seldom see at a lunch flyin, BEER! I understand that one of the pilots went out to fly the pattern just to make this an official fly-in.
Because there were 4 BBQ's, Mitch, Larry and Wayne shared the chores at the stove while many others pitched in setting up the serving tables and preparing the other dishes. At the end everyone pitched in to help clean up and some of us headed home to watch college football. As I tried to watch the USC game, Ii found it somewhat irritating that every 10 minutes they had an emergency announcement about thunderstorms, hail, and flash flooding throughout the Los Angeles basin, as well as a stationary thunderstorm over San Luis Obispo. Seems we made the right choice.
...Wayne
Editor's Note: A big thank you goes to Wayne for flawlessly executing his Plan B, "The First Annual Del Amo Flyers' Walk-In".
Aviation Goes Hollywood!
The August Program was the annual Del Amo Flyers' Hangar Party. Once again the party was a great success. This year's theme was "Aviation Goes Hollywood." We had an excellent turnout. Mitch worked his Photoshop magic on the movie posters, putting DAFers' faces on movie star bodies to die for. A planeload of thanks goes to all the DAFers who helped make the party a success. A special thank you once again goes to Lambi & Sally Haralambos for donating their hangar for this event.
Spectacular Telluride
July 21-24, 2011. After watching the weather for weeks and seeing nothing but thunder storms day after day, 32 Del Amo Flyers launched into what turned out to be absolutely wonderful weather.
Not only did we have clear skies but also a nice tail wind. Some of us flew to the south of the Grand Canyon no fly zone and got a great view of Monument Valley. Others flew to the north.
Lisa and Stacey had cocktails in their room Thursday night and we all had dinner on our own that night. Friday we toured the town trying to get used to the 9100'+ elevation which turned out to be much easier after the lunch time beer. Friday night Lisa arranged a wonderful group dinner at Restorante Rustico.
Saturday morning we picked up our Jeeps and headed out for a full day of trail riding, a nice picnic in Silverton, a tour of the town, more jeep riding including a stop at a ghost town, a tour of Ouray followed by MORE jeep riding. We took these jeeps up to 12,500' in one area and up to 13,000'+ in another area, not to worry, the drop off was never more than a few thousand feet.
Sunday morning we awoke to beautiful skies as we all departed for home or other locations. A good time was had by all and once again Lisa planed a great trip and executed it to perfection.
A big hand to Lisa from all of us.
...Wayne