July 20th, 2008
Since we were still in the area, we talked Fred into coming to visit us in the ultralight so we could get another flight – not knowing how long we’d be there. There was quite a bit of searching as we tried to find someplace he could land. The local crop dusters said no because of insurance reasons, and we still didn’t know the area well enough to know what to do. If only we’d known Pat Hair then! We finally heard that there was an old strip near the “parish barn” just outside Gueydan. We described it to Fred as best we could, and after church on a very hot Sunday, we headed out to find it on our bicycles. We thought it was only a mile away. Sure enough, just outside town, there sat Fred in his ultralight, in a field right next to the highway.
It didn’t look at all like a strip – it was just an empty field with tall grass. Fred told us we’d have to find someplace else, as he was just barely able to land in that spot, and couldn’t take off with the extra weight of another passenger. We hadn’t been there more than a minute or two, when a late-model white pickup truck pulled up next to a levee where we were standing. A guy got out and walked towards us, hollering at us, “Do y’all need help?” introducing himself as Steven Plaisance. At the same moment, another guy pulled up on the highway in an iridescent beige pickup, asking the same thing (he was Volley Mayer). We all powwowed for a minute, ending with Volley taking Steven home to get his Bush Hog (a really big lawn mower). Steven calmly started mowing an airstrip out of the grass, and when he was done, Fred simply taxied up to the highway (while Volley halted traffic) and took off down the strip.
Meanwhile, Chelsea and I found out that the airstrip we had been looking for was still another stretch down the highway. After a few miles I was sure we were lost, but Max, who had given us the directions originally, decided to follow us and make sure we were okay – he realized that he hadn’t told us it was a good 4 miles or so out of town.
We finally found Fred again on the new airstrip, and each of us took turns going up with Fred. The sun was so hot and the humidity was so high, that Chelsea and I took turns sitting in Max’s car with the air conditioning at full blast while the other one was up in the air. There wasn’t a bush or tree in sight for us to get shade under!
We loved our rides as usual. This was the first time that Fred had taken me hedge-hopping in the ultralight and it was seriously fun! I came back just euphoric! We wanted to stay and go longer, but the winds were picking up and the heat was nearly devastating, so Fred took off within an hour.
Chelsea and I still had a 4 mile ride back in the heat on the busy highway, which wasn’t any fun at all, but 4 miles is nothing to us now, and we were so happy with the ultralight rides that it went quickly. We rode by the newly mown “airstrip” again, and reflected on how awesome life is in a small town, when folks will just pitch in automatically to help, like Steven and Volley did for us. Because of their generosity, we had a ball. They get our Heroes of the Day for that one!