Busy Weekend

On Saturday morning, I got back in the air flying the Tiger. Tony had completed his annual inspection and I needed my biannual flight review. The flight review was an hour of ground instruction followed by 1.7 hours of flying with an instructor that worked with me for my instrument rating. Although the winds aloft were pretty stiff out of the North, it was a beautiful clear day to fly. We worked through various maneuvers prescribed for the flight review and also flew a couple instrument approaches. Since it was such a nice day, I had to wear glasses that restricted my vision to only the instrument panel. Surprisingly, I did pretty well with the landings even though I hadn't been flying for a couple months.

Saturday afternoon Dianne and I went to the Sharon Woods park. It was the first public park in Hamilton County -- it's quite large and includes a nice lake, a golf course, a heritage museum, and lots of shelters and grilling sites. We walked all the way around the lake (nearly 3 miles) and also rented a paddle boat. Dianne and I never rented a paddle boat before. We pedaled around the lake a bit and then just 'parked' in the middle, put our feet up, and drifted while watching the ducks, fishermen, boaters, and people walking. It was the perfect day to relax on the water.

Sunday we got up early, had a quick breakfast at Marx's Bagels, and then drove to Columbus to see the "Bodies...The Exhibition" display at the Easton Town Center. If you're looking for it there, it's on the West end of the complex near Staples. We saw the Body Worlds exhibit in L.A. a couple years ago and wanted to see this version. Click around on both sites to see an explanation of how the actual human bodies are preserved (plastination) and prepared for the displays. This exhibit wasn't as extensive as the one we saw in L.A. Neverthless, it's an amazing way to see all the various systems in the human body -- both when they're functioning properly and when they aren't.

We also walked around the Easton Town Center area. It was another beautiful, sunny and cool day -- quite a contrast to the humid, 100 degree days were suffered through a few weeks ago. Although a lot of the stores are typical mall material, there are some places we don't have in the Cincinnati area and it's a nice setting with some open areas and green space. The large fountain at the right is one example. The sky was very blue today with the cooler temps and no haze. The photo below shows two girls that were having a great time playing in a fountain. The fountain had many independent water jets that were synchronized to pump water at various pressures for different durations to make the water "dance." You can see the two arching streams, caught in mid-air, that were heading towards them. The kids were enjoying it. I got a photo of a different, similar fountain as well as a sculpture and a model train near the area shown in the photo below.