The Meet & Meat is always fun, so we decided last Wednesday to head on down, I-5 not currently being on fire. Our first meat-related event was a visit to Five Guys in Salem, Oregon, the all-you-can-eat Indian place to which the GPS led us not having existed. I'd read about Five Guys being good, but hadn't tried them. Their thing seems to be quantity. I ordered a cheeseburger, but the guy behind the counter suggested I order a Little Cheeseburger, which was plenty big. He also suggested that Marilou and I split a regular-size order of fries. Although we usually do that, the competition for each party's share is intense. Not so at Five Guys. Regular size is a huge bucket. The burger bun was so soggy I assumed it to be gluten-free. The fries were similarly soggy, and we merely made a dent in the bucket. I discarded the remaining fries at a rest area, rather than give them to the resident beggar, for whom I had too much respect to give him such substandard fries.
Oregon must not have full employment, because their freeway rest areas all have had beggars for the last two years. This year the theme is "out of gas". Each beggar has a gas can. I don't know how he or she would use the can. A gasoline donor would have to have his or her gasoline already in a can, in which case it could be transferred to the beggar's vehicle without the involvement of the beggar's can. Were one to give the beggar money for gas, the beggar could get the gas dispensed into his or her vehicle at a gas station without the intermediate can.
Our next meat event was in Redding, where we thought we found the Lost Mexican Restaurant. Years ago on the way home from the Golden State contest we ate at a wonderful Mexican place. We forgot where it is, and have been looking for it ever since in Redding, Anderson, and Red Bluff. Marilou was pretty sure we had found it Friday while we were lost in Redding. It looked like she remembered it looked, but the food was not wonderful.
We got to the Davis field Saturday morning and spent most of the day visiting and eating other people's food (including meat: a hot dog in my case). I watched Ted Fancher and Brett Buck help Scott Dinger trim his airplane. I added a suggestion that cost Scott a prop, but I mainly just observed the masters at work. Ted raised an eyebrow at my handle spacing, so I increased it. Weather was pleasant and flyable all day. It got a bit windy, but it wasn't turbulent-- a pleasant change from my home circle on breezy days. Lanny Shorts was amused at the sound my airplane makes in outsides. There must be a lot of flow separation, because it sounds like a flag in a hurricane.
Jim Aron, whose airplanes have gotten 20 appearance points at the Nats and VSC, was dazzled by Kestas Dvarvydis's airplane. It is indeed perfect, except for some not-as-good-as-they-could-be vortex generators.
We adjourned to dinner at a burger place in Woodland to eat meat and tell stunt stories. The burgers were good, although one poisoned our CD.
We arose uncharacteristically early Sunday and went to the field to fly stunt, eat meat, and merely watch people hurl Foxes, my personal shoulder being unhurlworthy. Brett and David flew first in the first round in dead air. I had excellent air and flew some pretty good stunt. I was ahead of Brett and within a point of the Big Bad Wolf. We broke for meat, and I ate a plethora of Larry Fernandez's excellent chili, which is so good that each year the vat empties before Larry gets any. I had nice weather the second round, but didn't think that I flew as well as I did in the first round. The judges agreed. Perhaps I was distracted by Lanny and Ted laughing on the downwind side of the circle. Lanny took Ted there to hear my flow separation.
Except for a little grass stain on his vertical stabilizer on his first outside loop, Brett flew some nearly perfect stunt the second round. I beheld that his inverted flight was exactly at judge eye level on every lap. It was disgustingly evident that he had put me in my place. I did come out on top of those Junior Varsity fliers who flew.
Nobody flew Beginner, so Jimby gave the Beginner first-place trophy to Brian Moore, as Beginner Deputy CD. Doug Barton, the hardest working man in stunt, won Intermediate. Dennis Nunes, who flew Intermediate last year, won Advanced by a large margin and also dominated the Hurl. Bob Duncan won Old Time and was inducted into Lanny Shorts's brotherhood of guys over 80 who can still do an overhead eight. I wish I could do an overhead eight at 72. Ted Fancher (remember him?) won Classic with his Ruffy.
We left in a cloud of dust. We overnighted at Red Bluff and looked around a little for the Lost Mexican Restaurant. We didn't find it, but I decided that, being in California, we should go to a Mexican restaurant. We did, at which Marilou, who doesn't know Spanish, argued with the waitress about the definition of birria. After this meal we realized that, although California does have a lot of Mexican restaurants, picking one at random gives you a probability of .5 of picking one that's below average. Back at the hotel, Marilou, who doesn't know Japanese, told me that my observation of takusan kaze was grammatically incorrect.
Going south we passed the area where the fires were after dark, so all we noticed was a whiff of smoke. Northbound was during the day. Wow, a vast landscape of trees had burned, and it was obvious that houses among them had been saved. Lots of machinery had moved in and was dealing with the charred logs. The freeway overpasses in Redding were covered with homemade signs thanking the firefighters and the CHP. The most impressive thing to me was seeing the sincerity of the signs, an anomaly in these times.
John Holliday and Randy Cuberly will remember the wonderful English muffins at Wolferman's bakeries in Kansas City. Wolferman's was bought by Harry and David, a fruit stand turned tourist trap in Medford, Oregon. We stopped there Monday and bought 98 English muffins and one avocado.
At an Oregon rest area Monday afternoon, everybody was parking at one end of the lot to avoid the beggar who had set up camp at the other end. The beggar took his gas can and moved to the end where the action was. I observed when passing him that among his equipment on the ground was a cigarette lighter. I advised him not to use it near the gas can. I regret that I did not hear his response over the traffic noise.
We stopped at a good Thai place in Portland for dinner with Tim Wescott. We eschewed tofu for more meat.