This weekend I flew over to Des Moines to visit our family friends on Saturday. The landing at KDSM was probably the worst one I have experienced so far - I bounced up pretty high a few times before the training took over and I pushed the nose down while adding full power and going around without even thinking about doing it. On Sunday, I came back flying through southern Iowa and doing touch-and-go's at six airports along the way (I75, KTVK, 4K6, KFFL, KAWG, KIOW). All in all, I logged over ten hours over the last four flights. Hopefully, I can keep this up.

On Monday I went sailing with Fernando. I was planning on grabbing a Hobbie Wave, but it was already taken so we ended up rigging an FJ and taking that out for a spin for over 3.5 hours. We had a few very decent runs where we both were on the same side and I was leaning out just to keep us from tipping over. I also met a couple of guys from Bulgaria that are going to school at the University of Iowa and have been sailing competitively so hopefully I will get to sailing a bit more. Only four more hours until I get my Advanced Weather Helnsman raiting, woohoo!

On a side note, I was setting up to do some ironing on Thursday when Dymka decided to jump on to the ironing board, setting the whole thing flying. I caught the board so it would not land on him, but the iron flew straight at my 32" Olevia TV. Now there is a crack in the LCD screen and the bottom third is unusable. It will cost more to repair it than I paid for the TV last year. Time to revisit the watch-all-dvds-I-have goal?

It was another beautiful weekend to spend outside the great state of Iowa. I flew out to Boston to meet with a good friend of mine from Ukraine that just got married and another friend of mine that just moved there from Florida.

We met up with Sasha and his wife at Copley Square and walked over to the famous Cheers pub. The food was actually pretty average and their bloody mary was so horrible I had to swith to beer after two sips. Afterwards we walked past the Boston Common and the State House on the way to the Government Center.

Next day I picked up the Freedom Trail at the Government Center, took a troley ride over to the USS Cassin Young and the oldest navy ship still in service - USS Constitution built in 1797. Afterwards I headed over to Cambridge and jumped on a double decker bus tour of MIT and Harvard followed by a cruise down the Charles river. It starded going downhill from there. I rode the T to Sam Adams brewery just to find out that the next tour would not start until 5:30. I could not stay that late since I already had a reservation for the Sunset Cruise aboard the Liberty Clipper. So I took the T back downtown and figured I could walk around for a bit before jumping on the trolley. After making my way over to the Prudential Center I could not find the trolley stop and then the sailing company called me to cancel the sail because of the bad weather coming. That also meant we had to scrap our plans for hanging out downtown in the evening. Great evening...

We had a late start on Saturday, checked out the Boston Museum of Science and jumped on the T to go on the Sunset Sail but were not able to get there on time so we had some some clam chowda at the Quincy Market and then walked over to the Newbury Street. There we had some way average food at a way too expensive French restaurant and went up the Top of the Hub to check out the evening skyline.

On Sunday we drove to the Mt Washington in New Hampshire. By the time we got there it was already covered in dark clouds and we were strongly advised against going up. Instead we hiked up to the A falls and then went on a trail around the lake next to the Highlander lodge. Afterwards we decided to stop by at the famous Mt Washington Hotel built in 1902 and were pleasntly surprised when we were actually allowed to enter. We had some drinks while enjoying the amazing view of Mount Washington and then drove back.

My friend Geovani was getting married this weekend in Milwaukee so I figured I would drive up early to check out the town and its famous breweries and then go to the wedding. It is about a four hour drive from Cedar Rapids, so by the time I got there, I only had a few hours until the wedding. First, I ran through the Milwaukee public museum, which was actually pretty cool with exhibits ranging from a recreation of a 19th century European village, to geology, indian culture and much more. At some point, I would like to come back and actually check out each exhibit.

After the museum, I parked downtown and walked around a bit before sitting down at the Rockbottom brewery right on the river. It was good times and good beer. Soon I had to leave to make it to the Lakefront brewery tour praised by many. Took me some time to find the place since it is basically inside this warehouse under the bridge. The tour was ok and the beer was not that great actually. They give you four samples, but I only had two since it was time for me to drive to the wedding.

By the time I got to the church and changed, everything was ready and I walked in just about 30 seconds before the bride. Talking about using my time efficiently! The wedding was pretty small, followed by a reception at the Wisconsin Club downtown. I stayed longer than I planned to and ended up driving home at night time which was not much fun. Definitely a city I would like to come back and visit for a few days at some point!

AirVenture - the world's largest aviation expo/convention/airshow/get-together was wrapping up this weekend in Oshkosh, Wisconsin so we drove up there to check it out and then went to Noah's ark - world's largest waterpark on the way back in Wisconsin Dells. AirVenture was big, with airplanes, helicopters, and ultralights buzzing everywhere. We walked around checking out a bunch of exhibits including a tour of KC-10 aerial tanker and then headed out to the museum and then the airshow. Those Raptors are definitely a sight to see even though I do not care that much about military stuff. Formation flights with old warbirds were pretty cool too. By that time we were pretty toasted and drove down to the Dells and spent the night camping there.

We got to the waterpark just after it opened and were able to go through about half of the rides without hardly any wait. Then the lines started building up and we spent over an hour waiting for the Black Anaconda - supposedly the longest water slide. After lunch we hit the rest of the park and got through all but the kids' slides. It was alright, but I did not think it would justify a four hour drive for a water park trip just by itself.