Hanging out in Ardmore, OK

On Monday night, my student and I took a flight to Ardmore, OK to eat some BBQ : D

We arrive just after dinner time, ready for some delicious food, only to discover that the restaraunt is CLOSED. Bummer.I knew I should have checked the "$100 Hamburger" book I gave Chris a couple years ago...that book is amazing! It has hundreds of restaurants across the country and often includes times and ratings for the restaurants from people who have flown into the airports. But I did not consult this restaurant bible : (

So, we say hi to the local fire-station that is based on the field and the fire fighters stated that the restaurant is only open on Friday and Saturday nights : ( if Monday were Only Friday. SO we hopped back in the plane and I gave Chris a call to let him know not to head south because he was going to take a flight too. He said that there were some thunderstorms kicking up and pretty colored thunderstorms that were building on the radar between where I was and Stillwater, OK.

uh oh.

Yup. Pretty colors on the radar mean that I am stuck on the ground. So-we manage to get our mean, green, fighting machine of a C172 tied down and go back to visit our firefighting friends. Needless to say, we hung out with them until about 10:30pm until the weather passed. Not exactly how I planned to spend the evening, but it was a good trip. We munched on some rice crispy treats that my student made-Good thinking on my student's part! I was extremely thankful for the snack.

To help the time pass, I asked one of the fire fighters to give us a tour of their fire truck-it's that green-color and looked like a huge caterpillar. It was called something like an "E-1 Arff" or something like that. Needless to say it was an awesome truck! The tires were like $8,000 A PIECE and were up to my shoulder! I had taken a picture, but it didn't turn out very well. My student and I enjoyed the tour and learning about what the fire fighters do and how their truck works/what it does.

When we took off, I felt like a kernel of popcorn with all the turbulence ! We finally got to about 3,500 feet when the air smoothed out. If it had not smoothed out, I was thinking we were going to be landing again and camping out at an airport terminal. Fortunately, it was nice and smoothe for most of the flight home.

We crawled in late, but had a good flight. I went through the drive through to grab a quick bite before I passed out. I have never been so thrilled to get my happy meal. While it may not be the healthiest, it was food and i was hungry. Although, as i was munching away, i was thinking-what toy did i get, and who am i going to give it to?- BUT there was no toy, so I didn't have to worry about who i was going to give it to. I guess they don't think that i needed a toy : ( oh well, i was going to tell them to keep it anyway.

Then I came home and had a short, but sound night of sleep.