What goes up

Andrew was away in Knoxville for drill weekend recently, in his role as a boom operator for the 151st Air Refueling Squadron, a unit of the 134th Air Refueling Wing of the Tennessee Air National Guard.

He sometimes sends his dad and me pictures and videos of his adventures as he lies on his belly in the boom pod at the rear of a KC-135 Stratotanker.

The view is spectacular and the work is pretty special too. Here's a twelve-second clip of the son and heir finishing up the refueling of an F-16. I love the hand signal of esprit de corps as the fighter pilot breaks away into the vast blue:

The photo at the top of this post is of Andrew refueling an F-22 during the same mission, last weekend.

Andrew texted me one morning to say he'd be flying directly over Columbia and Lake Murray, which is a five-minute drive from where we live.

The green X marks where TG and I live; the red X marks where Andrew lives. Now when I write that we went across the dam to see Andrew, you'll know what I mean. Those two white lines just below the X where we live, is the divided road that goes over the Dreher Shoals Dam.

Click to embiggen:

How thrilling.

Meanwhile, last Sunday, on the ground here in Columbia, we were at church. After Sunday School and until they're released to attend Children's Church classes, Dagny and her contemporaries are in the main service with us.

Dagny had been given a toy in Sunday School -- a pink-sequin-masked stuffed Chihuahua, as far as I can tell -- and she was determined to make a bed of her legs and a blanket of her skirt for the animal's comfort. Notice the dimples on her hands:

I always say, when the dimples on the hands are gone, you don't have a baby any more. We're safe for now.

After church, we were talking in the parking lot before all going our separate ways to home and lunch, as we always do.

Dagny was in some landscaping, shaking a crape myrtle to see its tiny red leaves shower down. We told her to stop manhandling the tree, and simply stand under it. She complied and I was trying to get her to talk about that toy dog she got in Sunday School.

But she was fixated on the sucker. Dagny's more or less obsessed with suckers. You should see her concentration when she's at the end of one and is biting every last sweet sticky crumb from the white stick.

So much leaves everywhere! And even more, since then. They must come down. We are inundated. It's the middle of the end.

And in two weeks, Thanksgiving dinner a memory, full-on Christmas season. And the decorations must go up.

I can't wait. I just can't. But I will. It's exciting.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Friday :: Happy Veterans Day :: God Bless America

Comments

[Luna Crone]

So love these airplane posts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mari]

I love seeing Andrew's videos. I'm in a hotel with my sisters and they enjoyed it too, and they thought Miss Dagny was precious! "So much leaves!" We have so much leaves too. Poor Bob took care of them all on Monday, and then Wednesday the yard was full, and we are supposed to get snow with accumulation this weekend. :(

[Cheryl]

I don't know which is more intense, being a boom operator, or driving across a dam. LOL! However, it does look like a big highway going across. It is not like the dam we crossed here in Ohio. This one was scary! Love the video of Dagny. I like the way she cares for her pup and the dimples in her hands. Try to keep her little. They grow up way too fast!

[Judy]

I wondered why I didn't see Andrew in choir--now I know why. He was waaaaaay up there. It all looks scary to me!!
Dagney is adorable. I love her shaking the tree to get the pretty red leaves to rain down on her.

[Barb]

Talk about Wild Blue Yonder! I love the Blue Star photo on your sidebar. Yes, when a person's mind is on candy, nothing else seems important...