A Wonderful Day

I wish I could press the stop button on today and rewind it so that I could relive it over again and again. I am probably making far too much out of this day and I will realize that sometime in the near future, but for now while the emotion and excitement is still fresh and full of possibility it seems like a completely wonderful day. I will now proceed to rehash the day down to the minute details.

To start off with, the day was beautiful and in the low 60's which, after a week of rain and freezing temperatures, was a welcome change. Earlier this week Phil invited me to go to Church with him and I agreed because the Church was on my list of Churches that I wanted to check out. I wasn't able to make it to the Bible study portion before the service due to having SDO duty yesterday, but I made it in time for the 10:30 service. At the church I ran into my friend Willy who I know from OCF at West Point, and his wife Amy who I met when Willy was in processing into Fort Hood last December. I chatted with them until Phil came in from the Bible study. With him was his friend Mike. Phil had mentioned Mike a couple times over the week, but I hadn't realized that Mike would be at church, which is probably a good thing for me to not have known ahead of time. We all sat down together and a few minutes later Ben, Mikes roommate and Phil's friend, and Ben's girlfriend, Danica, joined us. I was sitting in-between Mike and Phil and during the greeting portion of the service Mike told me that I had a very beautiful voice.

After the service Phil, Mike and I were talking together and Mike mentioned that he was going flying today and asked if either of us would like to go. It sounded very cool and I had never been in a small plane before so I wanted to go, but Phil had other activities he wanted to do. All of us, Ben and Danica included, ended up going out to lunch at a nearby deli that is a very popular after-church gathering place to eat. Mike choose to sit on the end of the table next to me even though there were two or three other open seats on the other side of the table. I wasn't sure if I was still invited flying since Phil didn't want to go and Mike and only just met me, but Ben and Danica were also going flying and Phil's not going didn't seem to even be an issue to Mike about whether or not I was invited.

When we all arrived at the local airport Danica asked me if I had met Mike before today, and I suddenly realized that there I was spending an afternoon with three people who were close friends with each other, but I who I had never met before in my life. The really strange thing was that I didn't feel as extremely shy as I normally would under those circumstances. Most likely because they were all very friendly...and we had all gone to West Point and so had something in common.

Due to the airplane being fully fueled it could only carry three people at first, so Ben opted to stay on the ground while Mike took Danica and I up. It was awesome flying around and Danica and I had a wonderful time. At one point he asked me if, when I got up this morning, I had imagined I would be flying around in plane this afternoon. The thought had never even remotely crossed my mind. After about 30 minutes we landed to see if Ben wanted to come along because enough fuel had been burnt off. Before we took off Ben had said that he and Danica weren't going to stay very long and Mike offered that after that they left he could take me up in the plane again. Ben opted not to go up in the plane at all and so he and Danica left after the flight. Mike repeated his offer to take me up again and I readily agreed. He also asked me if I'd like to learn how to fly the plane this time since it was just the two of us. Shortly after we took off he gave me a few instructions on what to do and then let me take control of the plane. I ended up flying the plane for about an hour, though a couple of times he stepped in to help. Twice he referenced us going flying together again sometime in the future. One reference was to us going flying at night so that he could show me how beautiful the lights are. The other reference was that next time he'll have a specific destination in mind, most likely because I had asked if there was anything really interesting to see where we were flying and he couldn't think of anything.

After we landed and Mike was tying up the plane I happened to see Derrick, so I yelled to him and he came over to say hi. I introduced them to each other and we exchanged pleasantries.

As Mike and I were saying goodbye he told me that I could call and ask him to go flying with him anytime and he would always say yes:) When I got back to the apartment Andrea was about to take off on a bike ride, so I quickly changed my clothes and joined her. My original plan for the afternoon had been to go for a run followed by a bike ride, but the invitation from Mike to go flying had changed everything. Being able to still get in a 14 mile bike ride was quite nice. The weather was perfect for both flying and bike riding.

I called Phil later in the evening because he had mentioned wanting Mike and I to meet and I wanted to tell him how great the day had been. Who knows if Mike and I will actually ever go flying again, but today sure was amazing. The wonderful day ended with Andrea and I having a fire in our fireplace and making s'mores :)