January 17, 2005 - We enjoy another day with Beth and her family.

We all awoke fairly early, so Carson got to see the sun rising over the lake from our front window. We read in his aviation book a bit and discussed subsonic versus supersonic versus hypersonic flight regimes and the difference between rocket planes like the Bell X-1, ramjets like the SR-71 Blackbird, and normal jet engines on commercial aircraft. Carson absorbed all this information like a sponge, and I was repeatedly surprised when he would bring up topics we had discussed on previous days when discussing a new point of aviation trivia. I discussed Rutan and a swing-wing design I thought I remembered from that shop, and Carson later tried out a swing-wing position on his balsawood gliders. It was fun to encourage direct experimentation and learning like that with a young 'un.

Getting a bit puckish, we converted his bed back into a table and I cooked a pancake breakfast for all of us before we took him back to his home, where we were treated to another breakfast. Beth finished the quilt she had started the previous day while we made a list of what we had to purchase that day. It was a medium sized quilt, about 4' by 4', but she really was blazingly fast sewing all those pieces together.

Our list of things to buy included, oddly enough, doll clothes. Carrie had a school project requiring a doll dressed in Colonial clothes, so we had to find appropriate clothes for a Ken doll. It turns out that although many outfits are available for Barbie, very few outfits or accessories are being sold for Ken. I had a distinct feeling of gender discrimination, I mean, who do they think buys all these doll clothes, anyway? However, they found a "Handsome Groom" doll that looked a lot like Ken to my untutored eyes, and he had the right shoes and a tuxedo that Lois thought she could convert to an 18th Century frock coat, so they ended up buying the doll plus his outfit.

Figuring we couldn't really be much help buying doll accessories, Carson and I sloped quietly off to aisles that had more interesting stuff like cars, airplanes and rockets. We discussed the flying abilities of the foam versus balsa wood airplanes-his experience was that the foam airplanes didn't fly very well-and I found a die cast metal model of the Goodyear Blimp. I had been looking for one of those for years, so despite the $13 price tag I picked it up, not being sure when I would ever see another one; and Carson got his mother to buy him a kit of 2 balsa gliders and 3 parachute men for $3, which you have to admit is a pretty good toy-per-buck ratio.

When we got back to the house, Carson and I tried out the glider and parachute men in the 2-story foyer in the front of their house. It was just about perfect for the parachute guys and pretty good for the gliders, the only exception being that it was too small for the gliders to be thrown for a complete loop. But we did discuss the wing placement and center of gravity issues in flying gliders, followed by practical experimentation demonstrating each point.

Meanwhile, "Handsome Groom" Ken doll was converted to Colonial Ken by Carrie and Lois working as a tag team. The poor guy ended up with a powdered wig, a lace "jabot" at his throat, lace cuffs, a waistcoat, formal frock coat, and white stockings coming up to his knees (white-out applied neatly to the leg). And a lot of that was glued on, so this was definitely going to be a one-way trip for Ken.

I also managed to spend some time on the web reserving our car for the Ireland trip, checking bed and breakfasts, and checking in with Heinke and Gustl about an upcoming cruise around Italy. Rapidly shifting focus from Texas to Ireland to Italy interspersed with conversations about supersonic aircraft with Carson and frenzied petting with their pet dog Ping, proved somewhat disconcerting, something like a cognitive version of the "Whack A Mole" game where a new topic popped up every second or two, but certainly never boring. When Beth and the kids trooped off for the weekly piano lessons, we also took our leave and returned to the trailer for the night, where we had a quick dinner and worked on the computers for several hours to bring the journal and pictures up to date.