Head Tale

I alluded to this in Thursday’s post when I wrote “the years have flown by” about my mom and dad’s 50th Anniversary.  But I didn’t want to give away the big surprise I had planned for their anniversary gift knowing they read my blog.

Honestly, it was a bit tough trying to come up with an idea for a 50th wedding anniversary gift for a few reasons:

* Covid being out of control in Saskatchewan made any large-scale anniversary tea/gathering too risky.  Same with some splashy expensive all expenses paid trip to Hawaii or Mexico (plus I love my parents but that’s stretching my budget quite a bit too!) 😉

* Mom and dad probably don’t need any more “stuff” at this point in their lives so that rules out golden dishes, golden chalices, golden anything really!

So what else can you do that’s unique and memorable and symbolic?

I had tossed around a few ideas but then it hit me – in separate trips to Hawaii, we did both a submarine and a helicopter excursion with M&D.  But, as far as I knew, they’d never been up on a small plane.

I also saw on Facebook recently that someone I knew from the Sask Book Awards board of directors had done a trip in a small plane over the Qu’Appelle Valley.  As well, I knew Shea’s parents had flown with a family friend over Weyburn so all that inspired me to do something similar with my parents.

Originally I booked the charter for Saturday October 23 which is their actual anniversary date but the plane we were recommended to use was for sale and the Regina Flying Club couldn’t guarantee it would be available later this month.  As well, in Saskatchewan, no guarantees the weather will hold either and though they could go up if it was cold and snowy, that didn’t seem as enjoyable as a nice fall day.

So I moved the date up by a couple weeks and, other than a bit of a forest fire smoke reducing our long distance visibility somewhat (but not nearly as bad as it could’ve been), we had an amazing flight to various spots that have a lot of meaning to mom and dad – the Qu’Appelle Valley, Katepwa Beach where all of us have spent so much time in our lives, over our family cottage, a few times circling our family farm, into town over the farms of numerous family friends and past the historic Bell Barn then a few circles over the town of Indian Head spotting so many spots that have deep meaning – our house, the high school I attended, the hospital where mom worked as a nurse for 30+ years, the elevators where dad hauled so much grain over the years.

After that, we followed the #1 highway back into Regina and our pilot treated us to a couple extra circles over the city skyline and Mosaic Stadium (I think maybe we were waiting for permission to land?) then finally, touch down and we were back on solid ground.  (And a chuckle at the fire trucks by the Regina Flying Club – “are those for us?”)

It was better than I could’ve ever imagined and if you’re reading this and looking for a unique outing/experience/gift for yourself or someone you know, I highly recommend the Regina Flying Club.

Here’s a video I took of our takeoff – sorry my pan of the cockpit is so poor – it was a pretty cramped space!