Driving the Water Wagon

Now that Dad and I have switched roles, and I’m the one driving the water wagon and he’s the one drinking the water, I’ve been asked how it feels to be in the logistics support role. 

I understand it’s bad form to quote yourself, but I’m going to do it anyway. In response to this question, I replied, “It’s a helluva lot easier than walking. I like the A/C and the cold drinks. I like the food, and if I don’t like the food I can drive until I find something I do like. My feet don’t hurt, and covering twenty miles in the truck doesn’t tire me out nearly as much as covering the same distance with bipedal locomotion.”

Still, I think I understand what the person was asking. I do miss being on the road moving slowly, but over the last couple of days it’s given me the opportunity to reflect on a few of the lessons that I’ve learned over the last several months.

When you’re walking, you really can get immersed in the environment in a way that driving just doesn’t replicate. The sounds, smells, and feel of what’s going on around you come alive in ways that I miss when I’m safely encased in my climate controlled metal bubble. On the other hand, the long distance walking has made me much more aware of many things I would have missed in the past while driving. The internal combustion engine has also given me mobility to explore that just wasn’t possible on foot.

Today, I’d parked the truck in our next designated logistics support point. Dad was still about forty minutes away, so I turned off the ignition, rolled down the windows and just sat in the relative silence for a few moments. I say relative silence because it didn’t take too long for me to notice that an airplane was buzzing overhead somewhere in the immediate area. 

The sound wasn’t the standard steady thrum of a single engine propeller driven aircraft passing overhead on a cross country flight. It was more like the sound you’d hear at an airshow where the grizzled old pilot in a biplane is pushing the aircraft into loops and rolls and low passes. As I glanced to the north and the south, I was pretty sure I was hearing the work of an Air Tractor. Yep. That’s a real thing. Air Tractor is actually the brand name of the series of the most popular “crop dusting” aircraft in service. They really do look just like the protagonis of the animated film “Planes.”

The airplane would buzz low and steady for a brief run of time, and then I could hear the engine RPMs ramp up and a doppler shift would tell me the craft was pulling some non-trivial Gs in its turn back toward the field it was working. Still, I couldn’t catch a glimpse of the plane in action.

Dad showed up, and I served up the drinks and offered some food. He dropped his pack and sat on the back of the tailgate for a while before striking off again on his walk to the west. He looked pretty sweaty and hot. We’d agreed to meet about two hours up the road, and I knew what I had to do.

Though I’d ambled past more Air Tractors on the ground than I’d care to count, I’d still not seen one in action. I was going to go find it, and the mobility of the water wagon was going to be my enabler.

I located the plane’s approximate location acoustically, and I headed a little to the west and a little to the north. The sounds grew louder as the plane continued to work the fields, and then all of a sudden it broke out low over the corn field to my left. Her wheels seemed to brush the tops of the corn tassels with the lightest of touch as she screamed down the length of the field. 

Air Tractor at Work - Rollo, IL

Guided by a steady hand and a spirit not born of fear, the pilot skirted just above the tops of the corn stalks delivering death from above to the aphids below. It was an incredible display of aviation.

I miss the long plod along the shoulder, but driving the water wagon has its own set of advantages.