{"id":200,"date":"2017-05-01T14:17:19","date_gmt":"2017-05-01T14:17:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/?p=200"},"modified":"2017-05-01T14:17:19","modified_gmt":"2017-05-01T14:17:19","slug":"day-fourteen-sumter-sc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/day-fourteen-sumter-sc\/","title":{"rendered":"Day Fourteen – Sumter, SC"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I’m sure you recall, I was once again packed into my rain gear when I left Petersburg, VA.\u00a0 Thankfully, after about an hour I was out of all<\/strong> my extra clothing and cruising peacefully on my way to Sumter, SC.\u00a0 Sumter is the home of Shaw Air Force Base and the 20th Fighter Wing.\u00a0 Currently they are flying F-16 fighters but in the past they have flown P-51’s and F-4’s among others.\u00a0 I will NEVER get tired of the sound of fighters flying overhead – the sound of freedom<\/strong>.\u00a0\"\" I have a friend that was stationed here while training to fly F-16’s.\u00a0 Previously he had been flying the A-10 Warthog (tank killers).\u00a0 He said that flying an A-10 was like flying a barn door from the inside of a bathtub (A-10’s have a titanium enclosure that protects the pilots from enemy fire), and flying an F-16 was like sitting on top of a rocket.\u00a0 Sounds like a difficult transition.\u00a0 I’ve never flown in a fighter, but Robin has ridden around in an F-4, I’m sure she would be happy to tell you all about it some time.<\/p>\n

I’m here to visit with Eric, Dawn and their daughter Kira.\u00a0 Dawn is the daughter of a very good friend of mine that I was stationed with back in my Air Force days in Del Rio, TX.\u00a0 I’ve known her and her sisters since they were born.\u00a0 All three of them went into the Air Force and two of them have made it a career.\u00a0 Dawn is a Master Sergeant and about ready to retire.\u00a0 However she’s not going to be done working, she will continue doing what she does now, just as a civilian contractor to the Air Force.\u00a0 Toughest thing at that point will be trying to decide what to wear to work.<\/p>\n

Last time I was here Kira wasn’t even two years old and very scared of the big biker guy.\u00a0 Two years later – she was thrilled to have someone new to play with.\u00a0 We had a great time playing hyena vs. zebra (a chase game), and rough housing on the couch.\u00a0 I am amazed at the energy of these kids!!\u00a0 However after she stopped, she was sound asleep in no time.\"\"<\/p>\n

I had a very nice (albeit short) visit with Dawn & Eric.\u00a0 I have to say that their guest bedroom is my favorite room in their house.\u00a0 It’s got lots of pictures of the girls as they were growing up and lots of stuff from the ranch days in Texas, including saddles and the registration for the brand.\u00a0 I spent a lot of time out at that ranch.\u00a0 It’s really cool stuff and I always see something new.\u00a0 Dawn’s dad was one of my best friends ever and he passed away several years ago.\u00a0 Their guest room fills my heart with fond memories.\"\"Dawn took the next day off and after breakfast at IHOP she and Eric took Kira to the zoo in Charleston.\u00a0 Next time I’m going to plan an extra day here so I can go to the zoo with them.\u00a0 We had a great breakfast; then it was time for one last picture.\u00a0 You can’t see them in this picture but this little girl has a pair of cowboy boots that she just loves to wear.\u00a0 Her mom says she even wears them with her pajamas sometimes – my kinda girl for sure.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I’m sure you recall, I was once again packed into my rain gear when I left Petersburg, VA.\u00a0 Thankfully, after about an hour I was out of all my extra clothing and cruising peacefully on my way to Sumter, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8BM7q-3e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237,"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}