It's hard to believe a year ago I didn't even know something like this existed. I was listening to live.atc.net for the ATC broadcasts to help with my communication skills in the plane. Usually I listened to JFK, as the transmitions were back-to-back-to-back. However, I looked on the list to see the most listened to transmistion and it said "Oshkosh, WI" and it was more than double the listeners that JFK had on their best day. My curiousity was peaked - why would a little town in WI suddenly have a sharp peak in listeners? So I tuned in to find out they were having an air show... and it continued each day that week. No WAY!!! A week long air show?!?! I listened to the broadcast intently (and with growing envy each day), thinking to myself, "I MUST go here one day!!"
One of the transmitions I heard that first day caused me to burst out laughing in my office:
"Oshkosh Tower, 123 Alpha Bravo, 15 miles to the NE, inbound for landing"
"123 Alpha Bravo, negative, unable."
"Unable? Should I go around?"
"Negative. Unable to land"
"Unable to land?? Why the hell can't I land???"
Slight pause.... "Um... because there's an airshow, sir"
"Oh.... okay then."
Not exactly how it went, but close enough. I had never heard them speak over the radios like that before and I laughed sooo hard. How did he not see an air show going on beneath him??
I wanted so very badly to go, but I wasn't sure how I'd go about doing that. I had never been on a roadtrip with friends before or anything like this... and Oshkosh, WI was so very far away from Atlanta, GA. But I thought about how I didn't want to be sitting in my office chair listening in absolute envy by the time the next one rolled around. So I thought about what would be my first step in accomplishing all of this if I was going to accomplish it? Step 1 - take off time from work. Afterall, if my boss said "no", then at least I tried. And if he said yes and I didn't make it, I could use that week off for something else. Easy peasy.
Step #2 - researching. This was probably the hardest part of the whole thing. Once I got up there, where would I stay? Camping looked like the cheapest option from their website... and the website mentioned about how it was the best place to connect with the aviation community. Okay, so that's settled. So that meant I needed a tent and a sleeping bag (at the very least). Second part was how I was going to get up there - fly (Commercial or private), bus, train, or drive (w/ friends or self). I tracked commercial flights from 6 months out, and they were too expensive all the way. Plus, then the logistics added in of getting from the airport to Oshkosh. Maybe I'd have to rent a car on top of everything... and then figuring out bus schedules/times if they had them...
I hesitated buying the ticket, wondering what if I didn't make it up there? About 3 months before the show, I bit the bullet and did it. Whether I made it up there or not, it was the first step and needed to be taken care of before the prices went up. And in the off chance, I didn't make it up, the cost was minimal. I must have gazed at that ticket for hours after I bought it, knowing quite well how Charlie felt while looking at his golden ticket in Charlie in the Chocolate Factory. Things were coming together and maybe... just maybe, I might pull this off.
Next step was buying the camping spot and all of my camping gear. It started to become very real at this point. Only thing left was transportation, albeit an important step. I'd crawl up there if I had to. It was the only thing left and I was making sure that by hell or highwater, I was making it up there. I'd gaze at a map of the US, my eyes drifting from GA to WI, wondering if I'd really see it with my own eyes. Wondering if I could actually do this.
Well, original transportation was going to be flying up with Merlin... and it fell through. I had some friends going up, so I asked them if I could drive up with them. No go. It suddenly hit me two weeks out that if I was going to make it up there, I was driving myself up. Alone. Now this might not seem like such a big deal... but the longest I had ever driven myself in a car was probably about 2 hrs. I had never done a road trip by myself and the longest road trip I had ever gone on was 4 hrs to Huntsville with a friend. I'll admit, I was scared. But my reaction wasn't "oh well, maybe I'll go next year", but instead "oh well, guess I'm doing this" (which surprised the hell out of me).
I rented a car - a cute little Nissan Versa, and my budget for the trip exploded. It was okay, although unexpected at the time. So I planned as much as I could and even planned for contingencies. I was as ready as I could ever be, although my heart was beating so fast. I remember sitting up the night before I left, wondering once again if I could actually do this, and thought that I loved driving and had at least been to the border of Georgia before. So I'd hop in the car, turn on some music and just drive till I saw Tennessee and if at any point, I felt uncomfortable, I could turn around to come home. No pressure...and I knew I could at least get a refund for the camping spot.
So 6am the following morning, I took off with this mindset. But by the time I saw Tennessee, I was energized, thinking "I'm doing it, I'm really doing it!!!!!!", and wanted to know how far I could go. Typical runner mindset. :)
I saw things I had never seen before and saw thing I wish I could have stopped for. My mom, in typical worried mom fashion, called every 2 hours... I also called her frequently. Talking to her and friends really broke up the monotony. It made me smile later in the afternoon, when Da Vinci texted me, "I told my zombie friends what you were doing and they said you're impressive. :D". She was doing a zombie pub walk that day that I had also wanted to go to.
In Indianapolis, I saw graffiti on the side of a building that said "YOU GO, GIRL!" and it made me smile ear-to-ear.
My boss was nice enough to lend me a GPS for my trip and that was a life-saver. Although now, if I were to take off for WI, I know the way without one.
One thing that tickled me was about how the music on the radio would change, based on where in the country I was. We have one Christian radio station here in Atlanta, and that number increased the further north I got. Indiana greeted me with polka music on the radio. At one point, I think in Kentucky/Indiana, all I could get was religious music, polka music and country music. Blah. I knew I was in a big city (finally) when a hip hop music station popped up just outside of Chicago.
Speaking of Chicago, I became energized the closer and closer I got to WI. Hitting Chicago and seeing Wisconsin signs for the very first time was absolutely magical. I knew I was in the home-stretch then, just 3 more hours to go.
There was a song I kept hearing over and over on the ride up there - "Lights" by Ellie Golding. One of the lyrics says:
"You show me the lights that stop me turn to stone,
you shine them when I'm alone,
and so I tell myself that I'll be strong,
dreaming when they're gone.
Cuz they're calling, calling, calling, calling me home.
Calling, calling, calling home."
I knew it was getting to be dark when I'd be arriving, so this kind of connected because I'd be seeing Oshkosh's lights. And they'd be kind of calling me in like a beacon. Around Chicago is when I started feeling it - feeling Oshkosh and WI calling me, pulling me in... like they were calling me home. Each time I heard it after, it only made that draw stronger... and kind of strengthened me.
Dunno if I've mentioned it, but I was born in Madison, WI. However, my parents and I left when I was 6 months ago. This trip wasn't only for the airshow, but also a chance for me to finally see where I was born. I'd get weird looks from people when I told them this, but it was important for me. It was a chance to cross something off my "Bucket List" and to see where I came from.
I finally arrived by 9pm, Central time. Unfortunately, I came in the opposite way and there were no signs for the camping area. I wandered around for about an hour before I found it. I asked 3 people, who sent me in 3 different directions and I was exhausted. So close, yet still so far. Finally I found where I needed to go, found my friends (on the corner of 14th and Lindburgh) and set up my tent by car headlight. I set up only the basic things - tent & sleeping bag - and figured I could do the rest in the morning. Everyone I called or texted that day wanted to make sure I got in safely, so I made sure to do that too. The only person I did was my pilot pen pal friend. He told me to text him when I got settled, but 10pm seemed to late. I would have to text him in the morning.
It was a hot night and I was delighted to find a "window" (lol a upzippable flap) in the side of my text. I unzipped it and slept on top of my sleeping bag, thankful I had the foresight to bring a sheet as well. I fell asleep, looking up at the stars... which I could see because it was almost completely dark outside due to no city lights around.
I awoke to full sun the next morning. Wow... how long did I sleep?? I didn't set an alarm because I needed my rest, but still wanted to get up at descent hour to experience everything. I rolled over and grabbed my watch - 5:30am. NO WAY! I looked outside... the light made it look like 8 or so. The hell with that. I put on my eyemask (which I also had the foresight of bringing) and turned back over for some more sleep.
Later, the light outside burned so intensely that I could see it through the mask. It had to be at least 10am. I took the mask off and looked outside - the sun was high in the sky. Yep, around 10... or maybe 9, seeing how the sun obviously rose earlier here. Checked watch. Wrong. 6:30am. Oh well... with a "if you can't beat them, join them" attitude, I got my stuff together for a trek to the showers.
I used to go camping with my parents when we'd go to Maine in the summer. My mom would always wake me at 5:30 because by 7am, the line would be out the door for the showers and they'd be dirty. I only hoped that was not the case here. Also, in Maine, you would have to pay $0.25 for 5 minutes of shower time. I also hoped that was not the case... especially since I did not have quarters. Fortunately, the showers were free (a fact I gleefully told my mom when I called her that morning) and there were plenty. I never saw a line out the door the entire time I was there.
I walked down the row of showers and a spray came out of one of the stalls, getting me drenched and providing me with a sight no one should see at all, let alone that early in the morning. Note to self: angle my body in the shower so that does not happen to me. So, I started to go into the first shower, but it looked broken, so I went to the next. Same thing. And ditto with the next two. It was not broken, but there was no faucet. Just a spray nozzle hung down from the ceiling - the same time you spray your dishes with at the sink at home. No hot, no cold, just one temperature for all of them. The pressure coming out of it could have properly cleaned an elephant.
"Refreshed" (I kid, the showers did actually turn out to be quiet refreshing after a hot day), I walked back to my camping spot. My friends were awake and I greeted them happily. I asked if they had used the showers, to which one of them replied: "I don't believe I've ever pressured washed myself before". It was quite possibly the best description of the experience in the showers you could possibly get.
After talking and getting some breakfast, we had planned to walk around the air show. They were still setting up, but let people in to wander around. We needed to get orintented with our new surroundings afterall. It was only 8:30am... possibly still too early to text my friend. I could hardly sit still and tried my best to wait until 10am to text him. Needless to say, I was unsuccessful and only hoped when I finally waited out until about 9:15 to text him, that I did not wake him. I cannot tell you how hard it was to wait that long. This brought back memories of waiting and staring at presents on Christmas morning. He wrote back, welcoming me to Oshkosh and said he'd be over around 10am. We had left some things at the campsite, so walked back to grab them before heading into the air show. This is consquently when I also learned that our campsite was about a mile from the air show itself.
Grrr. I'm trying to think of a callsign for him, but can't think of the right one!! I NEVER have this problem, normally they jump out at me. I was thinking "Gunner" because he's like a brother to me now and he builds planes, so BB reminded me of BB Gun (and he shoots too) and then Gunner. But it doesn't seem quite right although he might just get stuck with it anyways because I can't think of anything else.
To Be Continued...
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