Never turn down an opportunity to hang out with new friends.

The other day, I was invited to a steak dinner at what I call the Huey Camp: the area where three Huey helicopters are parked for cherry season. I met one of the pilots, Stan, late last season when I brought him and the other pilot a pizza after chatting with him on the radio while we were all drying cherries. Later, he let me fly his helicopter and I returned the favor by helping him load the helicopter onto its trailer while it was attached to my truck.

As I tweeted when I shared this photo on Twitter, I think that helicopter looks pretty good behind my truck.

I ran into him again in Arizona over the winter and was glad to hear he was coming back to Washington for cherry season, camping in his motorhome at the same place. He and another one of the Huey pilots came for my annual pilots’ BBQ a few weeks ago. So when he invited me for a steak dinner with all the Huey pilots and some others in attendance, I said yes.

Thinking of Excuses

Of course, when that afternoon rolled around, I wasn’t feeling like going out. The heat really knocks me out sometimes and I’d spent the afternoon napping after doing too much work in my garden. It was hot outside in the sun and I didn’t think there would be much shade up at his camp. I thought about all the excuses I could use to back out.

But then I thought about the previous year’s steak dinner up there. (I apparently didn’t blog about it because a quick search came up empty.) In any case, it was one of those magic evenings when things are just a little bit weird and a little bit wonderful. One of those evenings you remember for a long time, mostly because they’re out of the ordinary. That one involved a frantic trip to a car parts shop with a woman I’d met just an hour before, arriving just before they closed to get a part she needed for her truck. Then repairs on the truck with steaks coming off the grill after 10 PM. It was after that that I learned the woman was a falconer and I got a really neat shot of her with one of her birds.

That night might be just as interesting, I told myself. Or more. You can’t experience new things when you stay home. Get the hell out.

At Huey Camp

So I showered and dressed and hopped in the truck for the 20 minute drive up to Huey Camp. I left my pups behind — I didn’t want to have to worry about them wandering off into the weeds where there might be snakes. The only reason I took the truck was because it was the only one of my three vehicles with a top — I keep the top down all the time on the Honda and the Jeep was in the process of getting a new roof — so it had the best air conditioning.

Huey camp is situated between two ponds that are linked by a waterway when the water levels are full. Two Hueys were parked on one side and the third was parked some distance away. Stan’s motorhome and dune buggy were parked between them, near one of the ponds. He’d positioned it so the side we’d sit on was in the shade of the big rig. The helicopter’s truck (with crane) and trailer were parked nearby, along with all kinds of orchard equipment. The spot is on a flat area on a hillside, surrounded by apple and cherry orchards, including one I’m contracted to dry. It had an excellent view of the sky, which came in handy later on.

Huey Camp from across one pond.

Two of the helicopters at Huey Camp.

We settled into chairs in the shade to chat while Stan prepped his portable BBQ grill. Stan, Brandon, and Dave were the Huey pilots. Brandon’s friend Emma, who is a new helicopter pilot, was also there. (I’d invited both of the pilots still working for me this season, but one had taken his paraglider to Spokane (!) again and the other was taking a motorcycle training course out at the airport.) Later, CJ (a JetRanger pilot) and Isaac (a falconer) joined us.

It turned out that we knew a lot of the same people and helicopters. Brandon had flown my helicopter when he was training at Quantum in Arizona, although he claims it was a different color. He’d also flown my friend Ed’s old S55 with the turbine conversion, which was now based up in Brewster on cherry work. One of the Hueys had actually been flown in Vietnam by a local guy who had come up to visit it all these years later.

Isaac had to do some work in two of the orchards and invited us to come watch. Some cherry growers use falconers to help chase birds away from their orchards. By repeatedly flying the falcons (or hawks, etc.) over the orchard blocks, birds like robins, which like to eat cherries, become convinced that a predator has moved in and they leave. That’s the idea, anyway.

We all loaded into my truck and followed Isaac to his first worksite, which turned out to be very close. We watched him get a bird out and attach a GPS tracker to it (just in case the bird decided it wanted an extended break). Soon he’d removed the bird’s hood and it was flying over the cherry trees. Isaac had a long pole with a string and bait attached to it and swung the bait around. The goal was to get the bird to dive at the bait but not let him get it. He did this from a few locations alongside the orchard block before the bird “won” — it caught the bait. That cut that bird’s session a bit short, but Isaac had another bird with him and moved on to the next orchard. We went back to camp, mostly because Dave was hungry and I think Brandon and Emma were bored.

Stan started cooking right after that. He’d bought a rib roast and had carved it up into enormous bone-in steaks. I’d brought along my little grill and some uncooked marinated tri-tip that someone had left at my house at the BBQ and I’d frozen. I got that going and it was a good thing I did because Stan didn’t have enough room on his grill for all of the steaks so one ended up on mine. A while later, the sun was setting and we were eating steak — with horseradish, of course — potato salad, and salad off paper plates. Isaac was back by then and he joined us; I wound up giving him half the trip-tip for later in the week because there was enough regular steak for all of us.

Stargazing

After dinner, we moved over to a spot where we could see the sky to the northwest more clearly. Comet NEOWISE was a feature in the sky after sunset and I think we were all vying to be the first to spot it. One of the younger people saw it first — Brandon, I think — and over time we all saw it. The view from up there didn’t include the lights from the city, but it did include the glow from sunset.

We all started watching the sky, pointing out stars that flickered weirdly or seemed to change color. I saw a fast moving white light pass by and consulted the GoISSWatch app on my phone — sure enough, it was the space station. When I pointed it out, some of my companions were blown away. “You mean that’s the actual space station in orbit?” Dave asked. I told him it was and that there would be an even better pass just before 11 PM, right overhead.

That got us looking for satellites. Again, the younger folks with their sharper eyes spotted them quickly. Brandon got excited when he realized that he was seeing a bunch in a row. Believe it or not, I had an app for that, too: Find Starlink. Sure enough, we were seeing a Starlink satellite train that was passing overhead. I’d tried before to see one and failed miserably — now I know why: they really aren’t that bright at all.

We spent the next hour or so just watching the sky and talking. It was relaxing and kind of interesting. Our ages ranged from early 20s (Emma) through possibly 70s (Stan and Dave?). We talked about things we knew and told stories about experiences. No one had their head buried in a phone. No one argued. There was a lot of laughter. Politics stayed pretty much out of our discussions.

At 10:56, right on schedule, one of my companions spotted the space station again. We watched it travel across the sky, right overhead. I thought about the people on board and how tiny they were but how many people on earth watched them go by whenever they could. When it was gone, I decided it was time to leave. It had been a pretty good night for stargazing: a comet, two ISS passes, a Starlink train, and did I mention seeing Jupiter and Saturn in the southeastern sky?

Finishing Up the Night

It was a quick drive home. I left my truck on the driveway apron instead of putting it in the garage, mostly because I knew I’d need to drive it again the next morning on a garbage run. I let my pups out and my cats came over from wherever they were hunting to say hello. It was nearly midnight when I climbed the stairs.

But I wasn’t done. Outside, Comet NEOWISE was hanging in the sky near the lights of Wenatchee. I set up my Nikon and took a few shots with various settings, pausing now and then to study it through my binoculars and wonder what it would look like through my telescope.

Comet NEOWISE with the Wenatchee night skyline.

I was asleep by 1 AM.

Postscript

I love living alone for the privacy and freedom that it gives me. I don’t get lonely because I stay busy. Sometimes, I’m so busy that I forget to get out and socialize when I should.

But one thing I’ve come to realize: any time I’m at a gathering with friends is time well spent, especially when the friends have unusual lifestyles that involve travel and unique jobs. The other day, I had dinner with five other helicopter pilots and a falconer. How can a gathering like that not be full of fun, interesting stories and experiences?

I have a friend I call “the man of a thousand excuses” because he’s far more likely to say NO when he’s invited to do something different than YES. I don’t think he has any idea of what he’s missing.

I have an idea of what I could be missing, so I try to say YES whenever I can.