Every year some of the guys fly down to a fellow pilots field for a week-end of flying and relaxing by the Merced river. I have flown to Eddies a few times before, but a flying buddy of mine, Marty, has not. In fact, Marty hadn't been very far at all, he was fairly new to flying and had his share of bad luck lately with his Cuyuna.

I talked to him the week before about going to Eddies, and he said that he had rebuilt his engine, and had ran it a lot on the ground, and was confident that his engine problems were over. Marty was at Oakdale airport Saturday morning and I went over the plan for the day. He would drive up to Mikes (where his Cobra was) and I would fly up there to meet him. Then we would fly back to Oakdale, top off, and head for Eddies.

About an hour after Marty left, I was in the air and headed for Mikes, 20 minutes away. The air was a little bumpy at 1500 feet so I climbed at bit and found smooth air at 1700. I was thinking that this must really be exiting for Marty. His first time of really going anywhere, other than around the pattern at Mikes.

I land at Mikes and Marty is just about ready to go. With his sleeping bag and other goodies bungeed to the plane, I discuss our route and altitude to Oakdale. I make it clear that he understand where we will be going, and what to look for, in case something happens to me. Marty tells me, no problem, if nothing else, he can get back to Mikes. So off we go, taking off west, into the wind and circling once to gain altitude. We turn southeast towards Oakdale, and continue to climb.

I am flying at 45MPH, which is usually a little fast for a Quicksilver, but it makes a better speed match for Marty, because a Cobra cruises along at 45 to 50. We are having some fun along the way, flying in formation for a while, then playing with stalls. I get a little distance from Marty and have some fun with wing-overs. As we approach the city of Oakdale, I fly a little ahead of Marty to lead the way over the river and into the pattern. Soon we are landing at Oakdale and taxiing up to the hangar. As I get the gas cans out for us, Marty is just getting out of his plane, grinning from ear to ear. "How's she running?", I ask. Marty says,"Great!" and we proceed to top off our tanks. I go over the next part of our journey, to Eddies field, and explain what to look for along the way. I also tell Marty to look for the cliff edge and the cell phone towers when we get there, and for him to signal me when he sees them.

We are ready to go now, and I ask Mike if he's coming down tonight. He says,"Yeah, maybe after my last lesson, I'll hop down there." I say okay, and we make our final preparations for takeoff. We get to the run-up area, and I radio for both of us our intention of taking the active runway. Once again we take to the air, turning left just at the end of the runway. Marty and I fly along in formation, settled in at about 1800 feet. We pass Waterford and continue south. I notice that we got there pretty quickly, and thought, cool! a tailwind! We continue on until we are just to the left of Turlock airfield, also known as Bulico. I know we aren't far now! Off in the distance I can see Castles 11,800 foot runway, and the ridge line I am looking for is starting to appear.

We get within a few miles and I can see the towers. I start to look Marty's way fairly often, and within a minute, he starts pointing out ahead. Yup! He sees it! I cut back my power a bit and start an easy descent. After I am about 50 feet lower than Marty, He figures out what I am doing, and he starts his descent. We fly over the landing field and circle the house once, then set up for landing down in the freshly mowed hay, a nice long 2,000 foot grass strip! I land first, taxi to the side and shut down. As I get out of my plane, Marty is taxiing up as well. He's still smiling! "So, what do you think?", I ask. Marty says,"This is cool!". I ask if he saw Castle, and he said he didn't. No big deal, we'll go there tomorrow if you want, it's only three more miles.

About this time, Eddie was driving up the runway from the house, a considerable distance. When he got to us, greetings were exchanged, and we started setting up camp, within 30 feet of the river under a large tree. A large cooler was already there and a permanent barbeque pit as well. Eddie said he'd be back after a while and went back up towards the house, while Marty, Terry, and I sat down to talk. Terry is another flying buddy of ours that lives near Eddie, so he drove out. By this time it was about 4pm. We were enjoying the scenery and the river, telling Terry about our trip down.

After we ate and did some more hangar flying, Marty looked at me, then towards the sun, then the sky. I needed no further prompting, as we walked up the hill towards our planes. We got into the air and played around for 30 or 45 minutes before coming back down. Mike appeared during that time, and we all talked until late into the night over a camp fire.

The next morning, Marty and I made definate plans to go to Castle, while Mike bid us all goodbye to get back to Oakdale, since he had a lesson that morning. It was a nice calm morning with no bumps and no real wind to speak of. Marty and I headed off towards Castle, and once we got to 800 feet or so, Marty pointed at Castle. It's kinda hard to miss a two mile runway when you're looking straight down it. We land and taxi off to one of the main taxiways at Castle, itself a runway for most ultralights. After a short look around, we take off back for Eddies, to pack up our gear and head home.

We help break down the tent, thank Eddie for having us down, tie all our gear to our planes and head back for Oakdale. We cruise at 1700 feet and it's a bit bumpy along the way, but not too bad. When we get back to Oakdale, Marty tells me that the bumps were wearing him out, tyring to maintain straight and level flight. I tell him, first of all, not to be too concerned about it, just go with the flow, and that on the flight back to Mikes, let's just climb a little higher, we'll probably find smooth air not much higher than where we were. At 2300 feet we did find smooth air, and had a pretty relaxing ride back to Mikes. Marty set up to land first, and I gave him room, so that he could be taxied back to the tie-down area before I set down. After I landed and shut down, I walked over to where Martys tie-down was. "Any better?", I asked. "Oh yeah! Much better! Who'd have thought a few hundred feet would make such a difference!", Marty exclaimed. He thanked me for taking him and I said no problem. We talked for a little bit more and Marty said,"We'll definately have to do this again!" to which I replied,"Of course!". I said goodbye and headed back for Oakdale thinking, "Yeah! a great week-end!"