[Gary and Isa visit: Day 1 Here]
The trip to the air show was low-key.
Gary was really “chuffed” to see a B-17 bomber, and get to take a tour inside. Also, he was like a little kid when he got to see it take off.
The boys talked to several WWII veterans, and were at their most polite and attentive. They asked good questions. They talked to a guy who had been a ball-turret gunner, and had flown 28 missions. He had copies of the bomber’s mission logs, and photos of the damage taken in every mission. Also, he had dummies of the sorts of shells that were used in the aircraft-to-aircraft fighting.
They talked to two guys who flew with Doolittle, and a guy who was the co-pilot in a B-24. They got an autographed copy of the book that told the story of the two Pacific Theater pilots.
Oh yeah, and an astronaut. Gary and Isa purchased an autographed copy of the astronaut’s photo to donate to a charity auction for their local fan convention, and a mission patch.
The WWII veterans seemed surprised and pleased when my boys shook their hands and said “thank you”.
The nice thing about the Eden Prairie air-show is that it is very poorly attended compared to some of the bigger shows.
Then we went to see the Star Wars animated movie. It is cute and fun. It probably didn’t deserve to get the savaging that it got from the critics…but if it was anything other than issued by the Star-Wars franchise, it probably would have been released direct-to-video.
Then, the big news.
We went to a BBQ dinner. The part that makes it the big news was that the BBQ dinner was being hosted by the parents of a girl that Adventure Boy met at Convergence. She’s a really nice girl. Cute as a button and a total fan-girl.
They, her brother, and Grasshopper disappeared into the basement to play Ecofluxx. We visited with the parents and their friends. Nice people. Gary and Isa had a good time.
On deck for today, Tim will go and practice in the Marching Band all day, Rocky will work on his next book, and Gary, Isa, Grasshopper and I will go to the Minnesota Zoo.