This past week has been a great adventure with Michael, Crystal, Christina, and Paul Goforth in Clinton, South Carolina. Michael’s family is preparing to serve as missionaries with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) as an information system specialist. He asked me to come help with some major yard work created after Hurricane Helene came through this area about one year ago. They still had lots of tree limbs down throughout their yard, so we spent 4 days clearing and burning this vegetation, cutting up some large logs with a chain saw, and taking some damaged fencing and other items to the recycling center.

On Saturday, September 27th, Michael, Paul and I went to special air show at the Triple Tree Aerodrome in Woodruff, South Carolina. They had many private planes land at this private airfield for the week-long fly-in event. I enjoyed some great seminars:

1. Dale Ellis, a charter pilot who was hijacked from Arizona to Mexico, ended up in a Mexican prison, and managed to be released after one week.
2. COL (Ret.) USAF Richard “Duke” Woodhull shared his story of flying the high-flying reconnaissance U-2 “Dragon Lady”, KC-135 tanker, and C-54 aircraft. I was fascinated by his explanation of how U-2 pilots were selected and trained. The U-2 flew at 70-80,000 feet collecting photos and air samples (for detecting nuclear fallout), so pilots had to wear a pressurized suit while crammed into a very small space. A failure of the pressurized suit would result in a major decompression injury within seconds. We usually think of decompression sickness just in divers ascending too quickly, but this same issue is a problem for very hig-flying aircraft like the U-2 and SR-71.
3. I missed hearing Ron Straus, Elvis Presley’s pilot, but did speak briefly to him since he was sitting next to me during Duke Woodhull’s presentation. Michael and Paul wanted to see another section of the fly-in, so we enjoyed seeing lots of airplanes and eating some homemade ice cream.

Today, on Sunday, September 28, 2025, Michael and I hiked the Blue LIne of the Swamp Rabbit Trail in Greenville, South Carolina. This beautiful, roughly 10-mile trail ran from Mauldin Road to nearly downtown Greenville. A large portion of the trail was paved and passed some beautiful lakes, wooded areas with gorgeous homes near the Reedy River, a wastewater treatment facility, and ended at Cleveland Park near downtown Greenville. We parked the car at the southern end and took an Uber car back to my car when finishing the blue line. Other hikers and cyclists were also using this trail which runs from Traveler’s Rest to Greenville, SC. We plan to hike the 18-mile Green Line over the next two days. Compared to my experience with the Maine section of the Appalachian Trail and the Panhandle sections of the Florida Trail, the Swamp Rabbit Trail is very user-friendly for all fitness levels and extremely well-maintained. We did have to walk through some neighborhoods to get to the next section of the Blue Line Trail. I was surprised at the number of ups and downs on the trail, but the smooth trail made these fairly easy.