There was a car show at the Hart Ranch Rodeo Grounds this morning; I rode my bicycle there to have a look around...
You can probably tell my tastes run towards the 60s Pontiacs.
Live music...
Fun to look around. The car owners seemed to be enjoying things - showing off their shiny cars and answering questions. I heard more than a few: "Back when I was young, I had one of these..." No doubt they hear that a lot.
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My dad was a car guy, and I'm sure he was disappointed that I never took after him in that way. I certainly appreciate the cool old cars, but to me they are just a tool for transportation. Motorcycles were more exciting, but that was never his thing. And airplanes.... been to many an airshow. Oshkosh was this past week. Got out my souvenier baseball hat only to see that we went on 2002. Quite a trip down from Alaska.
105° here today, part of a string of triple-digit days. Even Lucy is staying inside to enjoy the AC. Normally we don't see much of her when the weather is nice. We're hunkering down too. Maybe I'll finish the new set up on my Emerald X30 and play through this afternoon. I converted it to baritone using 68-15 gauge strings tuned C-c and had to make a new nut for those cables. The first one got messed up - I still have no clear idea how I could have filed the slots too low using feeler gauges as depth stops.
Hi Earl. I like all kinds of conveyances. We have had some fun cars over the years, and I do appreciate the classics... the '67 GTO convertible really caught my eye.
We did Oshkosh a few times, including camping under the wing... so many cool airplanes to see. I looked at a KitFox when it had first come out - Joan said, "I would never fly in something you built." Needless to say, we didn't come home with one.
Looks like you are sending that heat this way... forecast for 100º the next two days, and plenty of 90s after that. I have to get my riding in during the cooler morning hours.
Good luck with the X30 - that body should really punch as a baritone. Always good to hear from you.
We camped under the wing too. The hardest part of the whole trip was not navigation, flight planning, weather, or terrain. It was crossing the US-Canada border and dealing with US Customs both times (the Canadians were wonderful and competent. Not so much for the US Customs *weasels*.... all the charm of the IRS but with less skill and compassion). We nearly turned around and flew back to Alaska before we could cross the border back into the US. It was so bad that our initial crossing point was planned for Minot, ND and we kept having to divert east until we finally made contact with US Customs agents. We ultimately landed on US soil again at Piney Creek, MN, which is a 4000 foot paved runway that literally straddles the border. After that, flying into the actual air show was easy-peasy, despite the complex NOTAM.
Our overwhelming impression of Oshkosh was that we were so spoiled aviation-wise living in Anchorage. We routinely saw turbo-Otters and Beavers on both floats and wheels, F-15, F-16, foreign airliners, bush planes on tundra tires, and any number of antique planes. A flying Travel-Air from 1929, and almost every Grumman sea plane. Curtis Jenny's flying OX-5 engines. That was on our daily lunchtime walk around the Lake Hood seaplane base. On the Oshkosh trip we saw four of the five existing Molt Taylor flying cars, and the big war birds like B-17, B-24, etc. A T-34? Yawn. I have pictures of Aluminum Overcast (B-17) circling right over our Anchorage house on their 30 minute flightseeing trips during the summer. In retrospect, I should have paid the $400 and taken one of those flights.
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You are right; the X30 jumbo makes for a powerful baritone guitar. It is almost too boomy for regular use. By comparison a D-28 sounds positively anemic. Tuning down really brings out the BIG low end. I messed up the first baritone nut by cutting the slots WAY too low. Still not sure how that happened?? On the second one I got five of six just right (must have been tired by the last one). I'm using super glue to drop fill the one low nut slot, rather than starting over yet a third time. I hope to fit it tonight and make final adjustments, then put on a new set of 68-15 strings tuned C-c. I might also try D-d with 59-14's.
Hi Earl - glad things are progressing with the X30 project.
Oshkosh was one of those "Hooooweee!" experiences the first time we went. I found out about an "IFR Reservation": which means they have to let you land at the field, even if it is full. They can tell you that you have to leave, but we figured they'd find a place for us once we were down. You have to arrive within a "2 minute window," (after making the reservation 48 hours in advance) and you don't have to do the "cha-cha line" coming in. When we landed, the guy with the signal paddles directed us towards the plane parking... since the field was saturated, they closed the end of the line of parking closest to the main runway and gave us that spot... right next to the Warbirds and an easy walk to the showers! It was an amazing vantage point for the airshows.
We did Oshkosh a couple times after that, but that first time was special.
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