Sunday, February 22nd, 2004

Yesterday I went to Didsbury,

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Yesterday I went to Didsbury, to visit an old family friend (who has known me ever since I was a baby.) We took off this morning and flew around in his plane, but first I’ll describe my journey there.

I took off right after lunch, and got onto Highway 2 around 1 p.m. or so. Everything went fine until I got to Calgary and took the wrong exit. Instead of heading for Deerfoot Trail, I soon realized I was headed towards Saskatchewan. I quickly remedied this (well, actually it took me about a half hour to double back), and then headed to Olds. Yes, Olds. For some reason I had it in my head that I was supposed to go there, even though the map I had been faxed clearly said “Didsbury.” Anyway, I missed two exits trying to get to Olds, and to paraphrase Will Rogers, I think “I’ve never met an exit I didn’t miss.” Then after tooling around Olds and not being able to find my friend’s house (not surprisingly, since it wasn’t in Olds), my tiny brain clued in and I headed back to Didsbury. By this time I was dangerously low on fuel, so I eked my way into Didsbury, filled up, and finally arrived at my destination.

So today we went out to Dal’s plane. It’s a 1953 Cessna, and the best way to describe it is that riding in it is like being in a miniature Studebaker that happens to be able to fly. By which I mean it’s pretty damn cool, as well as having lots of old school knobs and gauges.

I was surprised that I wasn’t more wound up while we were flying around at 8500 feet. It really is sort of like being in a car. I even got to take the controls for a minute, though that was more than enough for me. 🙂 But quite frankly, I found the drive through Calgary on the Deerfoot on the way back much more stressful.
I put pictures of the day’s activities on the Real World Adventures section, and you can also click here.

Warren Frey is a journalist, freelance writer, podcaster, video producer, and all-around media consultant currently based in Vancouver, Canada. His written work has appeared in such publications as Metro Vancouver, the Westender, Mac | Life and the Japan Times.

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