Duality and Omni-ality

Well, I just got back from a humdinger of a weekend. I'll start at the beginning because the best parts happen later on and I have no desire to be anti-climatic today. Also, this is the second time I've typed this story out. I typed it all in last night, and after a breif AIM chat Firefox crashed and I lost the whole long thing (and it's pretty long, get ready for some heavy page-down-ing). I can't explain the feeling of depression after that, but it was seriously like someone ran over my dog. Here's to obsessive compulsively saving my posts from now on.

Anyway, my weekend: it, like most weekends, started on Friday. I took off to see my friend Karen in a play. Or musical, whatever. It was Jekyll and Hyde and was very well done by Quincy University. Let me tell you, that Hyde seemed to be having an awesome time. I almost wanted to hang with him. But then the frivolous murders got to me and I decided that, despite my love of vibrant characters, I draw the line at those who claim to be "filled with evil" and have the devil at their very side. Yeah. Look out for that. On the way back I got the privilege of driving Jake's car. A 1988 Dodge Omni. That thing has literally tens of horsepower at my disposal. Despite it being the only car I've ever been in that has an echo, it rode surprisingly well. Jake and I parted ways at Jacksonville and Linds and I headed back to Springfield.

Lindsey had to stay at my place because she had a Methodist Church conference thing the next morning. And because her Christian confrence was at such an unholy hour, I was up in time for to get some McGriddles. I usually don't eat at McDonalds, but those things are just too bad and delicious for me to resist. Filled with the toxic, harmful, potentially deadly McGoodness, I helped Lindz find her conference center, and took off for Jerseyville. The plan for the day was to go sailing. It was going to be a family thing but mom and Ross don't like when the boat leans. Pfft. Pansies. So we went on by ourselves. We made some great time getting down to Caryle, so when we past the little airport that catches everyone's eye we decided to stop.

Now why does this little airport catch the attention of so many otherwise dilligent drivers? Well the highway being within feet of the end of the runway does have something to do with it, but more importantly it's the headquarters of the St.Louis Soaring Association. And yes, they are stretching the alliteration a little bit too far. But they make up for it by being pretty awesome. They fly SailPlanes. Yes, those sweet gliders. We went to con our way into a ride in one of them. We got directed to the "club house and control tower" which turned out to be a tin shack of a building next to the long grassy runway. A skinny bearded guy named Peter gave us the low down on their organization. We weren't really all that interested, $42 dollars a month for access to 8 planes, an airport and a hangar was pretty impressive, but we were after a ride not a brochure.

Ok, I'm breaking this post up and finishing it in the next installment. I originally posted it as one uber post, but that was daunting even for me. So I figured I'd solve my little dilemma with a good friend from elementary school; division. Scroll down for the exciting conclusion.

- Scott