What a wonderful day Friday was. Warm temps and blue skies. Left home around 10 headed for Shelbyville, TN. Reached Bell Buckle about 1:30. Darling little town with neat shops. Hmmm. Have at least an hour before Gene is due. And look ahere. they are having a daffodil festival. How can I pass this up. So the next hour was spent shopping in Bell Buckle. If you are ever here or near here, the Bell Buckle Cafe has the best down home cooking you have ever tasted. It is here that I once had blueberry salad (like a dessert...to die for). But today I just shopped. Nothing really wanted to come home with me, so I headed on for Shelbyville Airport about 10 minutes away. Oops! Yard sale with interesting looking furniture. Saw a neat Sheraton mahogony table for $75. Top needed refinishing but not bad and real solid, no wiggle. Alas, I am going in my Mitsubitshi to pick up 3 XL sized guys. (Read: Gene is the smallest of the three) so I have to pass it up along with the lyre ended coffee table that I love, but really have no place for. Shelbyville is nestled in lovely rolling hills mostly used for horse pasture as this is the center of the Tennessee Walking Horse world. I am told that the real champions are never let out of the barn except under supervision so all the ones in these pastures are wannabees, I guess. George Dennis, founder of the Flagship Detroit Foundation, and his wife Kay, own a horse that was Grand Champion a few years ago.
I arrive at the airport
and am told the plane is running an hour late. That is par for the course in this world so I settle in with magazines and a book on tape. I see another woman with a small dog obviously waiting for someone and start to strike up a conversation, but I don't. An hour passes, Gene calls. They stopped for fuel and he taxied the plane into a position from which it could not recover. So all hands at the airport were pushing this large plane back and forth to wiggle it back out. Finally at 6PM they arrive. The woman I have been eyeing for the past 4 hours also approaches the plane. She is Ann Drake, wife of one of Gene's best buddies. Really railed Gene and Lewis for not telling me she was coming. They live about two hours away in Kentucky and she has come to ferry one of the crew to Huntsville for a flight back to Dallas. Man, all that good gossip time missed. We grab dinner and head for George's "cabin" a 4BR, 4bth log house on a grass landing strip that is about 15 miles from George's residence. It serves as the Foundation's bunkhouse when needed. We turn in early as it is to be wheels up at 6:30 the following morning.
and am told the plane is running an hour late. That is par for the course in this world so I settle in with magazines and a book on tape. I see another woman with a small dog obviously waiting for someone and start to strike up a conversation, but I don't. An hour passes, Gene calls. They stopped for fuel and he taxied the plane into a position from which it could not recover. So all hands at the airport were pushing this large plane back and forth to wiggle it back out. Finally at 6PM they arrive. The woman I have been eyeing for the past 4 hours also approaches the plane. She is Ann Drake, wife of one of Gene's best buddies. Really railed Gene and Lewis for not telling me she was coming. They live about two hours away in Kentucky and she has come to ferry one of the crew to Huntsville for a flight back to Dallas. Man, all that good gossip time missed. We grab dinner and head for George's "cabin" a 4BR, 4bth log house on a grass landing strip that is about 15 miles from George's residence. It serves as the Foundation's bunkhouse when needed. We turn in early as it is to be wheels up at 6:30 the following morning.
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