Road Trip 2024—Ohio and Kentucky

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Friday night, after an early vegan dinner in Indiana, we drove our rented Malibu through Cincinnati to a Kentucky suburb to see our best friends Mike and Amy Canary. We stopped for some flowers and a few provisions along the way, and actually got there before Mike got home from work that night.

We met Mike and Amy at a skydiving boogie in Cabo San Lucas in 2013, before either couple was married. Amy and Kathryn both did tandem skydives on to the beach at that event, and we all hit it off famously. Since then, we have met at similar events in Costa Rica several times, usually extending the trip to see a bit of the country either before or after the skydiving. They were at the event in 2017 that put me in the hospital, and they came out to California in 2018 for our wedding.

We had never seen their house before, and enjoyed staying there for three nights. Their backyard is lovely, featuring a fountain, a gazebo with a hot tub, and a large collection of wind chimes they have gathered on their travels. Their indoor cat, Daisy, is far friendlier than our Kitty, and their outdoor cat, Macie, is very friendly too. Being from California, we were impressed by their basement, which is fully finished and essentially doubles the size of their house.

On Saturday, Mike and I drove to Skydive Cincinnati in Warren County. He is a Tandem Instructor who had a couple of passengers to take on their first skydives. We had hoped to make a jump together, but in the event I just made a solo jump and a two-way with a novice jumper.

In skydiving, there is a tradition that when you experience a first, you buy a case of beer. In my experience, this is mostly observed through the mention of it, and the actual purchase of beer is rare. For this trip, I owe a number of cases. First jump at that dropzone, first jump in Ohio, first time spotting on my first jump at a dropzone, first jump from a Cessna 206, first time packing my new Pilot 168 myself, and first time packing for myself in a few years, to name a few.

Meanwhile, Kathryn and Amy spent the day together, presumably bragging to each other about their husbands.

When Mike and I got back, we all went out for fajitas and margaritas.

While we were leaving the restaurant, Amy got a call from one of adult children, to tell her about the assassination attempt on former President Trump. Naturally, that was quite a distraction for the rest of the evening.

Sunday, there was cooking, eating, coffee, cats, dominoes and Nertz.

On Monday, we were scheduled to fly home from Cincinnati to Ontario, by way of Phoenix. It did not quite happen as planned, but that will be told in the next installment.