Exactly one year ago today we were flying back from West Virginia and dropped in on a dirt strip. The owner of the dirt strip, Jeff Smith, drove up to see the airplanes and said he was having a gathering down in the hollow. We had stumbled upon a party celebrating weapons of moderate destruction and the second amendment. It was on that day I knew we were safe from King George and his unfair taxation without representation.

At the time I was very green with this flying thing. Ripping in and out of different people's lives and mini-cultures on the ground would blow my mind (now it's just an addiction).

This year we actually got invited and the perfectly flat 1000 foot airstrip had some grass on it. This was the third annual Smokin' Smith Shootout. Smokin' barrels, Smith's Smokin' Ribs (tm), and Uncle Brent with his smokin' plane.

The village idiot even showed up in a Kevlar flannel shirt to provide a moving target.