Riding Around West Chester

Today's weather in West Chester was awesome. I know the word awesome is used way too much these days, it almost cheapens the word somehow when it's used for every slightly better than good thing, but really, mid August, 85 degrees, blue skies, low humidity? If I closed my eyes and imagine that the Pacific Ocean is just down the hill, it's like it's Carmel, California or something. Sure there are a lot of other sensory inputs missing, like the barking of the sea lions, and that musky salt air smell, but driving through tree lined streets of nice homes, quaint shops, hipsters and wealthy folks, it's like you'd expect to see Clint Eastwood walking his dog while he contemplates going to get an ice cream. (Yea, kind of weird imagery there, but he's not always shooting punks you know.)

When the weather is this nice, I think of flying. I really need to get on my horse and finish this pilot's license thing. Joe is about a 2 hour flight away by Cessna 172 in Norfolk, and I've always wanted to fly out to Rick Kohberger's compound near Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania. (That's not a typo, there is a town off of I-80 in central PA called Jersey Shore.) So to torture myself, I went out to Brandywine airport, (you know the one that had a little excitement a couple of weeks ago) and watch planes in the pattern do touch and goes. I got a few good photos, like the one of this absolutely beautiful T-28 Trojan,

some planes taking off and landing,


and of course the Helicopters in front of the American Helicopter Museum.


After about an hour of this, I hopped back on the scooter, but before I left the airport I managed to take one more photo, I couldn't resist.


Back in West Chester proper, I'm fooling around with my new Nikon Coolpix S550, and decided to take a few small movies so I can upload my first official videos on You Tube. I just held the camera close to my chest with my left hand, my right hand on the throttle. Probably not the safest thing in the world to do, but until I can build a mount for my helmet for the camera, it was an interesting experiment.



Before I went home though, I wanted to check out this new business on High Street. Imagine you're in that classic scenario, you need to get your hands on some high end Olive Oil, but it needs to be within walking distance. Well, West Chester now has A Taste of Olive, where you can get extra virgin Olive Oils from around the world.....On Tap! You go in, and you can taste them BEFORE you buy. I couldn't walk out without buying a bottle of some Olive Oil from Italy, now if I could only figure out what to cook.


All in all, a pretty good day in West Chester.