The Camera Caper

Last weekend I was at the airport, doing my flying thing and soaking in the jet fuel. I took these pictures while they were moving Joe's 2 planes around. The Red one is the Sea Fury and the yellow one is the Mustang. I love the bright colors on the planes almost as much as I love the planes themselves. Of course the beautiful blue one is my Whiskey Girl and she's #1 in my heart.



This is Ryan, his dad has a plane in the hangar next to Joe's. Whenever I am at the hangar and Ryan is around, he is my constant shadow. I took him flying one day and we both like rocks. He brought a bag full of rocks he had picked up to trade me, I'll have to get a picture of my cooga. He told me the other day that I'm the most fun girl he ever knew, he's 7. He's told me some other things that would make his dad turn green, but he's a little boy so what do you expect? So what does this all have to do with a camera?

We'll when I got home from the airport and went to download pictures, I couldn't find my camera. I torn my car apart, dumped out my flight bag and sent Bruce in to look around the hangar with no luck. I had gone back in to the hangar last night for one more fruitless search and was pretty devastated that I had lost all the pictures AND my camera when Joe pulled up to my hangar. He asked me if I had lost my camera, duh, yeah! Well someone had found it and given it to Joe. I assumed that I dropped it in front of my hangar or something. Joe gave me the phone number of the guy who had found it so I called him and left a message thanking him for getting it back to me. I guess they had turned it on and saw the pictures of Joe's plane, that's why they brought it to him.

Turns out the story has a bigger twist and a lot more luck to it. The guy who found it called me back today. He hangars a few rows over from me and happened to be driving home. He spotted the camera (in its case) laying in the middle of the road at a very busy intersection where I would have turn to leave the airport, probably a mile from my hangar. He stopped and picked it up. Of course my name or nothing was in the case so he had no idea, except for they recognized Joe's beautiful planes. The guy had never met Joe, just admired the planes from afar like a lot of people, you see, Joe is a legend at the airport. The restaurant is decorated with pictures and trophies and memorabilia of Joe's flying career. He's just a great guy that is very much admired. So taking the camera back created the opportunity for this guy to meet Joe, he was totally gobsmacked. After thanking him, I told him that both Joe and I would be at the hangars on Saturday this weekend and that he should come over and hang out for awhile, the guy was giddy...almost as giddy as me getting my lucky red camera back. And now you know the rest of the story!