Saturday morning found us with no bike race but a ton of options on things to do! Sadly all of which involved us not being able to sleep in :(
First we headed to the local tiny airport where a group was giving out FREE flights to kids between the ages of 8 and 17. Kaden was super excited! Salem was NOT! But Salem did not mind waiting around to watch Kaden fly. We got in line and had to wait about an hour until it was Kaden's turn. Not too bad, we got to watch all the planes take off and land, so kept the kids busy for the most part. Finally it was Kaden's turn!! He was going to ride in a little 2 seater plane with just him and Pilot Tom. We all got to walk out and watch them do a preflight inspection on the plane, climb in a take lots of shots. Kaden was thrilled when he got to put on the headphones! He waved by and we walked back to the "safety zone" since they had to start up the plane and we couldn't be in the way. Off they went taxing and into the air!! We could watch them for a little before the sun got in the way and they got too high. The flights lasted about 10 minutes. Kaden said they followed the highway up to Anamosa and then back. Pilot Tom pointed out all sorts of sights along the way and explained the controls and GPS and answered all of Kaden's questions. They went 150 mph!! Pilot Tom also asked Kaden if he wanted to fly the plane!!! Holy cow! But Kaden said no, he said he was a little scared to dot hat, but maybe next year. Oh man, that would have been super cool! I told Kaden I'm sure Pilot Tom would have made sure Kaden was doing the right thing. But that's okay, flying was exciting enough for him! After he landed we got to walk back on the field to meet them and get some more pics. The kids got a certificate signed and some other little goodies.
Definitely a highlight for Kaden and what an experience for him! Salem says maybe next year!
After flying high, we had wanted to hit Toys R Us for a Bakugan competition thing. It's some new boys toy that Salem's friends are into. I don't get the whole toy, but that's okay. We didn't get to make it though as the flying took so long. Salem was okay with it, it wasn't something he really wanted to go to, just wanted to check it out if we had time. No biggie he said.
Stopped home for a quick bit, but ended up going to get Taco Bell when nothing else sounded good to me. From there we headed up to Anamosa (couldn't fly there this time) for their Pumpkinfest! Small town Iowa festival. They have a pumpkin weighing contest which was neat to see all the big pumpkins! The 1st place was 1354.5 pounds!! There was one that was 1370.5 but it had a hole in it, so it was only for exhibition, couldn't count for the judging. They also had huge watermelons, biggest being 143lbs! And the longest gourds, don't recall the largest but they had some over 74 feet!
There was also a building with some pumpkin carvings in it. About 20 pumpkins or so. Keith and Salem went and looked while Kaden and I held our parade spots. Then Kaden and I went over. Pretty cool ones! Nothing I could ever do though.
Also they had a parade! Parade was "interesting" to say the least! First off, they had main street closed due to vendors, but when the parade came through, no one moved the street closed signs, so the first float through had to get out and move them! Then there was another sign that needed to be moved as well. And the one intersection street was not blocked so cars could cut through the parade route! At the end of the route the road broke off into left and right, and nothing was blocking cars from coming right into the parade route! Which sure enough it happened! 2 cars started driving up the parade route!! They got stuck at an intersection, There was a couple ambulance guys standing by with their backs turned and oblivious these 2 cars were going the wrong way into the parade. So I went up and told them they might want to direct these 2 cars. The one guy said "to where?" I said "maybe out of the parades way". And he replied "maybe they're just here watching the parade!" Ugh, in their freaking car in the middle of the parade? Seriously dude, get a clue!! I said whatever and walked away. The cars finally were able to turn out of the way, but geez! Parade people...close the roads!!
We saw a couple of Salem's friends in the parade, they threw us some good candy :) Parade was over an hour long! Some pretty hokey floats, lots of basic blah entries and not much candy at all! Didn't help we were at the end for that. One float was for the Republicans and they had imitation McCain and Palin people on it. The Obama people had a truck, no fake people, they did throw out a bunch of tiny tootsie rolls to our kids. Hum..trying to bribe people??? But the kids had a good time. Oh we got beads!!! Only a couple from the same place, but still got beads!!
After the parade we walked down to see the vendors and bought some slushies and hot dogs then headed home.
Keith says never again, I say it's a one time deal. Something you've gotta do while in Iowa. Kinda like the sweet corn festival, still need to take the kids there, maybe next year!
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