Being a plane owner, Russ no longer settled for going to places we could simply drive to. He selected places where we could get there easily by plane when it would have been an all-day event otherwise.
For this weekend's adventure, we flew to the airport closest to Lurray Caverns. (The caverns offered shuttle transportation from the airport to the caverns.)
While Russ has his instrument flight rating, this was the first time I'd flown with him where I couldn't see anything. It was really unnerving for me to be flying through clouds knowing we had mountains on both sides of us and that a wrong reading of his instruments could lead us "to fail to maintain altitude" (FAA "investingation speak" for crashing into a solid object.
Russ did his best to distract me from the weather (while still keeping a close eye on the instrument readings. Here he showed me his "namesake" for the navigational beacon. (Notice our airspeed was much slower than it had been with the tailwind when returning from McGuire AFB a couple weeks ago.)
But this is what I saw when we finally descended below the clouds. The area was beautiful with the fall foliage in an array of colors. I was glad at this point that I hadn't asked him to head back to our starting point.
It was pretty cold in the caves, so I was glad I'd brought an extra jacket. But it was pretty need to see all the features with the electrical lights wired in. There was a point in the tour when the guide turned off the lights for a minute. It reminded me of Tom Sawyer being lost in the caves. "Head toward the lights" takes on a whole new meaning.
Russ always has to do something silly looking. He's really a little boy trapped in a man's body.
The reflections on the pools of water are so pristine it's difficult to tell where the ceiling leaves off and the pool of water begins.
What a great day!
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