Broken at 2500

That's what the forecast was for today, which for pilots basically means no visual flight above 2500 feet. Luckily, blue skies came through and I was able to finish out my second block of flying. I had a bad run-in with a pretty tough instructor last week but my flight today was a much better "teaching" experience and I'm on my way to the next block of flying tomorrow. It's mostly a review of everything I've already learned, but more advanced. They'll really be throwing in everything but the kitchen sink to make sure I'm safe to fly by myself in 5 flights.

I hope everyone enjoyed the 4th. We prayed for rain here and finally got it: almost a whole week of it! Should be clear by this weekend and back to sunny blue skies again in south Texas. I didn't get to enjoy any fireworks this weekend, but John and I did go on a bit of an adventure. Just under 4 hours Northwest of Corpus Christi, and about 45 minutes West of San Antonio is a little town called Bandera, known as the "Cowboy Capital of the World". We really just drove through on our way to camping in Hillcountry State Natural Area, but it was a neat little town. We camped out for 2 nights, hiking close to 10 miles during the day, and went horseback riding at one of the many nearby dude ranches. Saturday night we attended a local rodeo that's held each week. Besides the encounters with the wildlife that wanted to take over our campsite once the sun went down, camping was a great time and I want to do it again soon. Most of all, it was good to see Texas as I had imagined it would be: cowboys, horses, longhorns and ranches. Now that's American. Enjoy the pictures below.