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// August 17 [Almost Niles] 
// Story: Silver Glow's Journal 
// by Admiral Biscuit 
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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.