The Bill and Kit Excellent Adventure Journal-Issue #10

 Friday, February 6, 2009:

Much warmer this morning so I took a much a longer walk on the beach. Headed east to the US Coast Guard station…..about 5 miles round trip. And once again I observed and photographed some pretty interesting stuff.

Not sure what kind of bird made that print on the upper left…..I just know it was huge! That’s my 11 ½ boot print next to it!! Here is another shot of its path up the beach.

The rookie pilots were up in their T-6 and T-45 training aircraft at 0700. In fact one can set their watch by the time that these planes take off and land. They are in the air at 0700, return to base for lunch between 1130 and 1230 and up again until 2000. Ah….the peacetime Navy.

In addition to the above aircraft there is a resident squadron of B-1RD’s at the base as photographed below.

Later we just had to return to the National Naval Aviation Museum. It is very hard to absorb the entire collection in one day. Below are some of the additional aircraft we enjoyed seeing.

In the afternoon we went out in town to shop for some folding lawn chairs because Kit forgot to remind me to put our camping chairs in the truck before we left Maine. Since Kit is an avid and very accomplished knitter and apparently it is physically impossible to enjoy the activity of knitting unless one has the proper chair…..off we went.

Based on a tip from Betty and David, of Plant City fame, we were off to K-Mart. Now K-Mart is not quite as upscale as The Wal*Mart but still has some pretty decent products. The chairs that Kit desired were from The Martha Stewart Collection and I figured if the chairs were up to the rigors of use in the penitentiary they should be sturdy enough for a combat knitter. Actually, that last crack has an element of truth because Kit has been using special yarn and knitting camouflage helmet liners to keep our service men and women warm in the Iraq.

Now Kit frequently knits while I negotiate the truck through city traffic. However I was concerned that as we returned “home” and approached the Navy gate that the knitting might be an issue. So I asked Kit to hide the knitting paraphernalia…..I sure didn’t want the armed security guards to think she was knitting an Afghan!!

Tomorrow we continue to head west…..well sort of; we actually will be heading north a bit for a very special reunion.

Stay tuned,

Love, Dad/Mom, Poppy/Guma, Bill/Kit