August 17
When I woke up in the morning, I was full of energy and ready to take on the new day, even though it was just barely light outside.
I decided that I was going to make myself an omelet, so I got out my last little carton of unshelled eggs, lit the stove, and put my frying pan on it so it would warm up, and then I thought about what I could put in it. I tried to chop up a carrot but it was really difficult and the little carrot ends kept flying everywhere, so it took me a while to get enough for my omelet.
The hay was easier to chop up, and I mixed it with the carrots and then decided I’d put anchovies in it too, along with the cheese, so I got them out and added them to the mixing bowl and it already smelled like it was going to be pretty good.
I’d misjudged the amount of filling, so I had some left over and I snacked on it while I was waiting for my omelet to cook. Then I folded it over and it hardly tore at all, and it was a little tricky to slide it out onto the plate without Meghan to help me, but I got it without dropping anything on the floor.
When I got back to Equestria, I was going to miss cooking. I was starting to get good at it.
After I’d washed the dishes and put them in the rack to dry, I got out my flight gear and got dressed.
It was clear and cloudless, and I wanted to get in a good, long flight today, so I decided that I’d go southwest and follow the railroad tracks that way. I could go all the way to Niles, maybe.
So I filled up my camelback and put on all my flight gear and called the airplane directors and got permission, and Dori told me that I’d be passing near an airport in Dowagiac, and that when I got to Niles I’d be inside South Bend’s control area, so I’d have to call them.
Well, it would be good for practice, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to fly into their airspace because it’s difficult sometimes for other airplane directors to deal with me, and I didn’t want to cause them any trouble if I could help it.
And it was really nice of Dori to tell me ahead of time. There was a lot about the airspace that I still didn’t know, and I thought that I really ought to buy a chart, so I wrote a note to myself to ask Mister Salvatore where I could get one.
I flew across Western Michigan’s campus until I got to the railroad tracks, and then turned and followed them out of town. I stayed low this time and went under the 131 Highway bridge after making sure that there weren’t any trains coming in either direction, then I started to climb.
The first part of the route was really familiar to me, and I waved at the big S sign that was at the gas station near where me and Mel watched the weather. Big signs would be useful to traveling pegasuses, but I don’t think that anypony had ever thought of that.
Then I announced on the radio that I was near Kerby Field, and a man said that he was also near it at two thousand feet flying an ultralight and asked for my position, heading, and speed.
Well, I told him that I was just past Mattewan on a heading of 232 degrees at five thousand feet and flying at about fifteen miles per hour (that was a guess, ‘cause my watch didn’t know how fast I flew) and he asked me what kind of aircraft I was again, so I told him that I was a pegasus.
He said that he’d finally found something that flew slower than his ultralight which was kind of insulting. I could go faster if I wanted to, but then I tired out more quickly.
I saw him below me as I went by the airport, and he didn’t have too much of an airplane. It was hard to be sure, but it looked like a hang-glider with a Go-Kart underneath it. And maybe it was faster than me, but I bet I could out-turn it.
I saw a few other airplanes off in the distance; a couple of small ones and there were big ones flying overhead making clouds. I'd like to get permission to fly up as high as I can one day and see what the world looks like from up there.
The tracks turned a little bit more south when they passed by Decatur, and I kept following them. I thought that maybe I was getting close to Dowagiac, so I called on my radio again to make sure that any airplanes around me knew that I was there. Off in the distance I could see an airport near a town, but I wasn't quite close enough to see if that was Dowagiac.
I could also see an Amtrak sitting on the tracks, probably at the train station since it wasn't moving. And after I'd flown on for a few more minutes, it started to move and it looked like it was going pretty slow at first but it gained speed really quickly, and by the time it passed under me it was really moving.
I passed over a pretty big forested area just south of Dowagiac, and then I saw a dirt mine with an attractive topaz lake, and I was getting a little bit sweaty, but I thought that maybe it was a bad lake like the one I'd seen at the other dirt mine.
Just south of that was a big concrete pad that had a metal gridwork that electrical wires went to. I couldn't figure out what it was for—the wires just went into it and then back out again and it didn't look like they did anything there at all, besides weave around the framework. Maybe it was a switching yard for electricity.
I could see the Niles airport ahead of me and that meant that I should either turn around now or call the South Bend airplane directors and let them know that I was here. And I decided that I didn't want to; I was still a little bit grumpy that the man with the flying Go-Kart had made fun of me, so I turned around and headed back for Kalamazoo.
I'd gotten back to Dowagiac and told any airplanes who were nearby where I was—nobody answered, so I guess there wasn't anybody—and I noticed that it was starting to get cloudier and cloudier off to the west. I hadn't looked at what the weather was supposed to be, which I probably should have.
Well, when I got to Lawton it was still a ways off but definitely getting closer, and the way the clouds were piling up it looked like it was going to be a thunderstorm. I hadn't seen any flashes of lightning yet but it was still pretty light out, so they'd be hard to see.
The wind was picking up, too, just a little bit, and it was carrying the scent of rain with it.
So I changed my radio so that I could talk to the Kalamazoo airplane directors, and I asked for a weather report. Dori said that they were predicting overcast and the possibility of an afternoon thundershower, and so I told her what I was seeing so that she could tell the other airplanes. And then I thought about what I should do.
I was pretty sure I'd beat the storm back to my house—it was still a long ways off—but then I'd have to either get a ride from Mel, or fly back out on my own. And it would be more practical to just stay out here and wait for it to arrive.
But I didn't have my weather radio, 'cause I hadn't thought I'd need it. So I could land and talk to Mel on my portable telephone, and see what he wanted to do.
That was probably the best idea, so I told Dori that I would be landing in Mattewan and that I would let her know when I was in the air again.
I landed in the parking lot of Pizza Hut and went inside to have lunch. It was a little early for me, but then I'd had an early breakfast and flown all morning so I thought I deserved it.
I got a little pizza just like last time, but I was smart and ate all of it because I knew it would get soggy if I carried it with me in a storm. And I thought about having a beer with lunch too because they had Oberon, but I thought that I probably shouldn't, and just got water instead.
The storm still hadn't come when I was done with lunch, but it was darker and I could hear distant thunder, so I called Mel and told him that I was already out in Mattewan and that I didn't have my stormwatcher radio with me. And he said that if the weather was severe I could also use my airplane radio and tell the airplane directors and that they would make sure that the right people knew.
He said that he was on his way out and would be there in a quarter hour, and he said that it didn't look like it was going to be too bad on the weather radar but you never knew.
Dori said that I could fly up again but not above the clouds, so I went diagonally out of the parking lot and angled towards the 94 Highway as I climbed. The winds were getting gusty as the storm moved in, and they kept catching me off-balance. It didn't help that I was tired from my morning flight and also had a full belly.
The first stormcloud that went by was all noise but didn't have any bite to it. It was grumbly and full of lightning but didn't have enough water in it to do more than dribble. And when it was gone I didn't see anything too close, so I flew back to the parking lot and sparked off on a tree than greeted Mel and got a look at the weather on his folding computer.
There was another stormcloud not too far behind the first one but after that it looked like there wasn't going to be anything dangerous, so I went back up just in time to get rained on by the second cloud. That one had more downdrafts, too, but they weren't too serious so I didn't think it was worth reporting on my airplane radio.
Once it had passed I followed it until I got back above Mel's truck, and then I circled down around the big S sign and then glided over to his truck. I had my sights on a tree that I was going to spark against, but I flew too low over the parking lot and got a truck with big tires instead. I hit it with a forehoof and I looked down just in time to see my airplane radio flicker for a moment, then it lit back up like normal.
I got a ride back to Kalamazoo with Mel, and started to tell him what the cloud was like and he said that since I was in the truck with him I might as well make the report myself, so I used the radio in his truck to make my report.
When I got home I took off my gear and took a shower and then I was going to call Mister Salvatore and ask where I could get an airplane map but I thought that maybe I could find one on the computer, so I turned it on and found that I could buy them from a store called Amazon and they'd send it right to my door for me which was very convenient. So I ordered one of Chicago which was the one that had Kalamazoo on it and I also ordered one of Detroit because that had the other half of the bottom of Michigan. And the computer told me that I'd have it in two days, which was really fast.
Then my computer chirped at me and I saw that the little tag for Facebook was blinking, so I chose it and it was Aric.
We were talking about things that we wanted to do and I said that I still hadn't gotten to go to the topless karaoke bar or a nudist camp and he said that there was one in Indiana that wasn't all that far from him and one of his friends had been telling him about it and he wasn't working on Saturday so maybe we could go there, but then he said it was kind of far to come up to pick me up and then go there and then go back again and maybe we should just wait until he was back in Kalamazoo.
Well, I asked him where it was and he said it was close to South Bend, and I told him that I'd almost flown there today, so I could fly down and meet him there on Saturday and he said that sounded like it would be fun. So we agreed to meet there, and he said that he'd send me a telephone telegram with the exact address when he figured out what it was.
By the time that we were done talking, it was pretty late in the afternoon so I went over to Meghan's apartment. I got there before she did and took a little nap on the porch 'cause there was a sunbeam that was in the perfect spot.
She let me help her make dinner, which was a spaghetti casserole again. She wanted me to do most of the work and I was pretty proud when I put in the oven, 'cause I'd only had to ask her a couple of times for help.
Meghan was kind of sad that I was going to be gone on Saturday and I was thinking that if she'd wanted to go to a nudist resort with me I would have, but she'd said that she didn't want to. And I promised her that we would sleep together on Friday night but I wanted to leave kind of early, and I said that I'd be back late on Saturday and we could spend all of Sunday together doing whatever she wanted to, and that made her a lot happier. She said that maybe we could go to her uncle's and use his hot tub.
I told her about the fire that I'd seen and I said that I had a movie of it, and I guess I should have brought my GoPro but I hadn't thought of it. But I told her that we could watch the movie on Friday, and then she could put it on YouTube, and she said that she was going to talk to a friend of hers who knew how to edit them because they were interesting but maybe people wouldn't want to watch three or four hours of me flying.
I thought that was pretty smart: Gates had taken lots of movies and made them shorter and just showed the fun stuff, and left out the stuff that was fun while you were doing it but not so fun to watch later, like riding the chairlift.
When it was time to get ready for bed I helped her get undressed, and I hadn't even finished yet before she pulled me into bed with her.
Apparently it's entirely possible to get an ultralight for less than $10k. This may be a worthy savings goal.
Good thing she isn't RD. You wouldn't want to be in an ultralight and have a Rainboom happen next to you.
The SG is best cat.
I've always considered SG to be a VTOL/STOL Ultralight.
Maybe Silver will get in the habit of checking the weather Before making heavy breakfast, long distance flight plans, otherwise she would be running herself through what would be the equivalent of The Slog?
Electrical switchyard is pretty much what it is, even when its a step up, step down yard as well. Need good eyesight to see them as well given the bus bars are so thin relative to the needed spacing and ground coverage.
I really hope the guy wasnt sleeping in the rig that she accidentally Zapped. Kenny 5 is Alive.
Still wondering how a frame tent with a lawnmower engine costs more than a decent saloon car.
Can Amazon deliver one of these to my front porch?
haha silver dragging along some oxigen, heaters and stuff, setting "world" record for pegasus high flying.
Heh. It's going to be interesting when her uncle finally cleans the filters on his hot tub.
Also, I'm surprised SG hasn't had any run-ins with drones, yet.
Everybody remember to wave at the big S sign.
Hmm. Well, it's not like Silver has to stop cooking when she goes back home. It's just a question of getting access to the right facilities. Tricky, but not impossible. She just has to want to cook enough to go through the trouble.
In any case, the weather sure was active at this point. Hopefully it won't stay that way too much during Silver's vacation; I don't want her feeling bad about not doing her duty.
Also, if the GoPro was running when that police officer decided to bully the alien horse... Yeah, that is not going to look good for him.
(Now, let's see how long I can stay caught up this time...)
I am surprised that she isn't getting reminders that school will be starting agin soon. Just a few weeks to go!
If you don't mind the large download, you can find all the charts on the FAA website, ( https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/aeronav/digital_products/vfr/ ) plus a bunch of other stuff that's useful. She could load them up on her phone and have them as a backup for the paper charts. You can also find a link to the users guide which is more detailed then what's on the front flap of the charts.
Ohh no, Amazon just sucked Silver into Amazon Prime.
7654299 I don't think drones/quad copters are that big a thing here in Michigan. I could be wrong about that, but I have never seen one. Plus not nearly as many people have them as the media would make you believe anyways.
7654289 I'm actually writing a fic about just that topic right now. I hope it'll be done eventually.
It's being tricky.
Just a curiosity, in case you didn't know: Petrichor
Lol! that ultralight pilot has a sense of humor!
I'm not sure if this is normal Silver Glow adorableness or if she's blowing off steam.
It works well either way.
If she goes down and says hello to an ultralight, do the two of them have to announce that they're flying in formation? Or only if someone - light an airport - asks?
7653385
No, you're good. The correct form of a plural possessive, when the plural ends in S, is to put the possessive apostrophe after the plural's S, and to drop the possessive's S that would normally come after the apostrophe.
Day — singular
Days — plural
Day's — singular possessive
Days' — plural possessive
When it's an irregular noun whose plural doesn't end in S, that's when you use the full apostrophe-S treatment, i,e. mice's, geese's, etc.
Now, singular possessives where the word ends in S are a whole 'nother ball of wax entirely — especially when it's a word like Arkansas, where the final S isn't even pronounced, or a word like boss, which ends in two S-es already. "Begun, the Style Guide Wars have..."
awkward phrasing
Birds and bats fly over twice as fast as Miss Silver Glow.
You and Meghan turn your apartment into a nudist resort every weekend, Silver.
7656386
Rephrased as "anchovies in it too, along with the cheese."
7654042
Not for me. I have enough trouble with bicycles; I can only imagine how quickly I'd hurt myself with an airplane.
7654045
Yeah, no kidding. Rainbow would't take that insult sitting down.
7654056
Yeah, she basically is. Could also be considered a helicopter, given that she can hover.
7654084
It's still hard for her to internalize the idea that the weather isn't planned out weeks or months in advance, but just happens, often at inconvenient times. Even with the rogue storms she dealt with back in Chonamare, she undoubtedly would have gotten a personal briefing before it came; here's she's got to remember to check on her own.
Yup. Given the looks of the installation, it's probably a step-down yard as well as a switchyard.
It would be really funny if she killed all the electronics on it when she touched it.
Probably mostly liability for the company that built it. That, and complying with FAA regs.
7654122
That would just be the best thing ever.
7654289
"I need all this to fly?"
7654299
He'd probably assume that Meghan has some crazy punk friends, although the occasional blue feather would be difficult to explain.
They're surprisingly not all that common in Michigan--I've never seen anyone flying one locally yet.
7654368
The big S sign is our friend. And actually, for SG, it's a pretty good aid to navigation.
7654375
Yeah, it's the facilities that are the issue. Plus, how many earth ponies are going to want to let a pegasus experiment in their kitchen?
IIRC, it was an unusually stormy July and August, but after that got a bit more normal.
It totally was. So Mister Salvatore has that much more leverage if the cop wants to grumble.
7654519
September 12, and she's got lots of catching up to do with all her school friends.
7654638
Hmm, that's handy. Not sure that it would be all that useful for her on her phone, since she'd probably have to land to use it (on the ground or on a cloud), but it would potentially be a good backup all the same.
7654747
7654783
Yeah, I've never seen one around here, either. I'm sure they exist, but the skies aren't exactly cluttered with them.
7655031
Let me know when it's done, eh? Also, I can pre-read if you want.
7655087
Thanks! I was pretty sure that it had a name, but I didn't know what it was.
7655210
She's probably the only thing that has a slower cruise flight than him. Maybe a hot air balloon.
Of course, she can out-maneuver him in every other way. And over a short distance, she can probably outrun him.
7655628
A little bit of both.
7655959
She probably ought to. Although that does raise some questions about how a flock of pegasi might announce their flight.
7656285
Man, mice's and geese's sound so wrong. I can't even imagine where you'd use that. "All the mice's paws left prints on the stove"--would that be legit? (and even if it was, I think I'd re-phrase, because even if it is it sounds horribly wrong)
I run into that with Princess sometimes. "The Princess' shoes," or "The Princess's shoes," for example. If Sliver Glow ever needs plural posessive pegasi, it's gonna get weird. "All of the pegasuses's flight gear was in the room. . . ."
7656477
Her long-distance cruise speed isn't all that fast. Especially not on Earth--she'd go faster in Equestria.
7661741
Yeah, but it's more fun outside and with more people.
7718840
In chorus!
*BABBLE BABBLE*
"This is the tower, we didn't get a read. Can you repeat?"
*BABBLE BABBLE*
"This is the tower again. Can just one of you repeat that?"
7722840
I suppose you'd have to teach the ponies radio etiquette, or else exactly this would happen.
So I'm curious. What is in these mine ponds that makes the water so bright a blue but that smells "off" to a pony who doesn't recognize anything known to be poisonous?
I've seen mine ponds that are brown/red/sludgy, and I've seen lakes that are green/red with toxic algae, and I know about the famous blue lake in Utah at a potash mine which is dyed blue so it evaporates faster and leaves potassium crystals they can scoop up and sell, but not any that look like something you'd want to swim in if you didn't have anything warning you of danger.
8053489
Usually calcium compounds, which tend to give it a nice, blue color, and also make it very alkaline. Odds are good that a pony could smell it and might not know why it was dangerous water, but just that it didn't smell right.
This should link to the quarry in question, and if you pan over to the east a little bit, you'll see a more normal looking lake.
7656285
"My boss came in today."
"Oh. ...how was he?"
"Pretty cool, actually, until his boss came in."
"You're bo-- Wait, your boss has a boss? Does your boss' boss have a boss, too?"
"Three, actually. They came in not five minutes later, and started bossing."
"Bossy boss' bosses, bossing bosses' bosses?"
"Eeyup, something like that."
"I'm so sorry."
"Nah, it was cool. I just sat there and watched."
7718852
I've encountered the same with princesses. Two princesses, it's manageable. Four princesses where two of each share the same name, appearance, and behavioural quirks? That's where you start having some fun with the English language. And don't get me started on when you get to six princesses, in pairs of three.
8132698
Buried in some style guide, somewhere, there are probably rules for that. Or when you have double possessives--I can't think of one right now, but I know I've run into it before.
And, for what it's worth, I'm from the part of America where we like adding 's to things that don't even have them. We don't go to Kroger, we go to Kroger's.
lh3.ggpht.com/b7jdiJiy5CMuMxPeflQg6dRn-SicZ2OUYQbo4gMMpy5GaQckZTnM46_BnhieexBvaRaI=w300
(Really, that's a legit regional accent thing)