July 16
When I woke up, Meghan was still on her side with her arm over my back, so I leaned over and gave her a gentle nudge with my head to see if she would roll over and she did. So I put my head on her breast and stretched my wing out over her stomach.
She was kinda awake, and after a couple of minutes she reached up and scratched behind my ear. I started rubbing her belly with my wing and that made her giggle.
Then she reached under me and started to tickle my belly and I flicked my tail at her but she didn't stop, so I started to tickle her with my wing and that turned into a close-range pillow fight.
Pretty soon both of us had staked out one end of the futon and she had taken the blankets to make a little fort for herself while I had a pillow in my mouth in case she got too close but I lost the fight 'cause she could reach farther than I could.
I jumped anyway and I got her once then she dropped her pillow and trapped me in the blankets and tickled my belly and there wasn't anything I could do. She asked if I surrendered and I said that I did, so she let me out.
Since I had fresh waffle-mix, Meghan made waffles and I made scrambled eggs (she mixed them up in the bowl for me, 'cause it's really hard to crack the shells and not get them in the bowl). She said that we ought to have a cooking show together.
I asked her if she knew how to put videos on YouTube, 'cause maybe I could get a camera like the one that Gates had loaned me before and then we could.
Meghan said she wasn't being serious, but I thought it might be a nice idea. Other ponies who didn't know how to cook could watch it, maybe.
When we were done eating, we washed the dishes and put them to dry, then Meghan asked what I wanted to do for the morning.
Well, I really didn't have any good ideas. It was kind of an overcast day, but it would still be nice to walk around, and she said that we could go on the river trail again if we wanted to. Or we could go downtown and do some shopping, or we could get an Uber-car and go to a mall.
I thought going to the mall would be fun, but maybe not today. The river trail sounded nice, even though we'd been there before. So Meghan said that there was another trail near her uncle's house which ran along Portage Creek, and we could go there instead. She said it was really nice, but it was a ways away.
Since it was in the daytime, she said that there was a bus that went close, and we could take that if we wanted. So she got dressed and I filled up my camelback and she put some snacks in its pockets, and we walked to the bus stop.
This bus wasn't as nice as the other one I'd ridden. It was lower, and the aisle was wider, but the seats weren't as comfy and it was a little smellier. But that was okay; we wouldn't be on it for all that long.
We got off at Meijer, and we had to walk back north to Kilgore Road to get to the park. Meghan said that there was a bus, but she didn't think it ran on the weekends.
We crossed over a set of railroad tracks and then when we got to the parking lot, we turned onto the trail. A lot of people must have been enjoying it, 'cause the parking lot was full of cars.
The trail went through the woods, and it was pretty nice. There was wide pavement to walk on and it had marks on it like on a real road so that the bicycles would know where to go. Meghan told me to be alert for them and not step in front of them, 'cause the bikes sort of had the right of way. Then she said she wasn't sure if that was totally true, but they acted like they did.
The creek was between us and the tracks when we started and the trail followed the river but the tracks didn't—they went in a straight line and crossed over it on little bridges whenever the river bent, so for a while it was on the other side of the tracks from us.
The trail crossed over a bridge and then went under a bridge for the 94 Highway, and then we went away from the railroad so that we could follow the river. There was a big field off to our right that Meghan said used to grow celery, and she said that the whole area used to be known for its celery and Kalamazoo used to be nicknamed Celery City.
She said that Kalamazoo was kind of strange because some cities had lots of suburbs around them but in Kalamazoo a lot of places you'd just cross a road and then be in farmland. I'd noticed that, too, but I thought that was normal. What I'd seen of Lansing was kind of like that as well. Michigan State just ended in fields and pastures, mostly.
The trail kept zig-zagging to stay on firm ground—a lot of the lowlands by the creek were pretty swampy. Then we came out of the trees and there was a people-bridge over the road.
We went through a parking lot and Meghan pointed to the buildings that were to the west of us—she said that they were historical, and one of them was a grain elevator and another one was an old school. She said that you could rent them and one of her cousins had been married there.
The trail went back along the tracks again (I guess people like building trails next to railroad tracks). We had to get out of the way of people on bikes a couple of times. Meghan said that there were two different kinds of bikers, the ones who were really serious about it and the ones who were just having fun, and she said that they were easy to tell apart. She said that the serious ones had lightweight bikes and would be wearing skintight clothes, and the people who were having fun had heavier bikes and wore normal clothes.
We also stopped to make friends with a big shaggy dog and the humans who were leading him along. He gave me a big friendly lick on the nose and I nuzzled his head and Meghan thought that was hilarious.
There wasn't a people-bridge to cross Romence Road, so we had to wait for traffic to go by before we could cross. I could see a big building to the west of us through the trees, and Meghan said that was called Sam's Club and it sold lots of things cheaply but you had to have a membership to shop there. Then she laughed and said that you could go in and buy alcohol without a membership, because that was state law.
When we got a little bit further she pointed off to the east and said that's where her uncle's house was and so I flew up and I could see the hot tub behind it and I said since we were here why not use it?
She got a sort of funny look on her face and then got out her portable telephone and made a call and when she hung up she said that they weren't home so why not?
We had to go a bit more down the trail until it crossed over the river, and then we went off the trail and through the woods and we finally got to the backyard. She rinsed my legs off with a hose, 'cause I'd picked up a bunch of mud, and then I got in the tub while she got mostly undressed and then she joined me.
She didn't take her panties off until she was in the water, even though she usually took them off before. Then she set them on the edge of the hot tub.
Meghan was kind of tense at first, but after a little while she relaxed and said that she hoped nobody else was going to come wandering out of the woods like we had.
We spent about an hour in the tub, and then she said that we probably ought to start heading back so that we had time to eat before we went on the balloon ride, and before her uncle and aunt got home. So she got out and hid up against the fence until she was dressed again, and then we went back through the woods and followed the edge of the stream until we found the trail again, and then we sat beside the trail and had a little snack before we went back.
Once we got to Meijer, we had to wait for the bus to come, and then we rode it all the way back to the train station.
Instead of going back to my apartment, we went to hers since it was closer, and she made sandwiches for our late lunch. She had lots of good vegetables, too, but there were some I wasn't allowed to eat 'cause she said she was saving them for a stir-fry. That was too bad, 'cause she had lots of different colors of pepper.
I told her that she ought to try a sandwich with timothy on it, or maybe daisies, and she said she wasn't sure about the timothy but she was willing to try daisies if I made them. Then she told me that when I bought flowers I had to be careful to find out if they'd done anything to them to preserve them or make their color better, because humans didn't eat flowers so a lot of times flowers had stuff on them that wasn't healthy.
She said that the ones at the farmer's market were probably okay, though.
Then I remembered that she'd brought food to my apartment that we were supposed to have had for dinner last night and then lunch today and I reminded her and she said that we'd have it for lunch tomorrow, so we'd ought to plan on that when we came up with our plans for the day. So I said that I would remember.
When we were done eating, we cleaned up and she decided that she'd get her digital camera and take that with her for our balloon ride, and then we walked back to my apartment. One of the ways we could go took us right along the wall beside the cemetery, and I mentioned how I'd gotten chased by a car there once, and she thought that was pretty funny. Then she told me how some people are jerks and do bad things to grave markers like knock them over or paint things on them, and that was why there was a car that went around.
I thought that was pretty disrespectful and she agreed that it was, but said that some people were like that.
We had some time before we had to leave to get our balloon ride, so we sat in the papasan and watched the birds, then Meghan said that she was kind of nervous because she's never been in a balloon before, and I told her that I hadn't either but I'd seen them flying around and they looked nice and big and stable.
Then she said that she was kind of afraid of heights, too, which turned out to be mostly afraid of falling. Well, I knew about that—Gusty had been afraid when she was in tall buildings, too—and so I promised her that no matter what, I promised that I could keep her from falling.
She said that was nice of me to say, but what could I do? And I told her that if she fell, I'd catch her and glide her down to the ground. Well, she didn't seem convinced, so I said that we ought to go out to the balcony, and I'd hold on to her and she could jump off and I'd show her.
Meghan looked me right in the eye and asked if I was sure, and I was . . . mostly. I'd never tried carrying anything as heavy as she was, but I was fairly sure I could. I wouldn't be doing any flying, but I could glide down gently.
I said if I didn't think I could, I wouldn't have suggested jumping off the balcony, and she said that was good enough for her and we didn't have to try it.
Then I talked about how things looked from the sky, and how different it was to see it from up above instead of down below, and how you could see stuff in lakes and rivers that you'd never see from the ground. It was kind of weird for me to talk about, though, 'cause I wasn't used to thinking from such a limited, ground-bound perspective. Although I'd started to see some stuff that way since coming to Earth, since I didn't get to fly as much as I was used to.
So she was actually pretty excited when the Uber-car arrived to take us to the hot air balloon.
When we got there, we checked in and I gave him my plastic-money to pay for the trip, and he went over some rules. He said he was Captain Green and he said that we had to listen to him and do what he told us when we were flying. And I asked if I could fly out of the balloon and he said that he'd make his final decision when we were at the balloon and he could get a better judge of things. He said that flying out of the balloon wasn't a problem; he'd taken skydivers up before, but he was less sure about getting back in the balloon without damaging anything, including myself.
We also had to sign a paper saying that we knew that ballooning could be dangerous, and that we accepted the risks, and Meghan got a little nervous and he said that he wouldn't be flying it if he wasn't confident, and I reminded her that I could catch her, so then she signed the paper.
Then he told us that we had to drive out to the launch field: since the balloon got blown along by the wind, he couldn't take off from the same place every time. And he said that we'd probably go over the north side of Kalamazoo, but he couldn't guarantee it because of the winds, and he wanted to stay out of the airport's control zone because they got mad when balloons came through.
I told him that if he brought an extra rope, I could probably tow the balloon along.
He said that he hoped it wouldn't come to that.
So we got into an old van called Voyager, and took it out to the launch field which was northwest of town 'cause of the wind direction. When we got there, there were a couple more people who had come in another van and they had already gotten out the balloon and set it out and were filling it with hot air. It was mostly stretched out on the ground still, and when Meghan saw it she reached out and squeezed my foreleg and told me it looked really insubstantial.
We stayed in Voyager until it was mostly full and the envelope was off the ground, and then he brought us over and explained the things which we needed to know, which was mostly follow his instructions and don't touch anything.
When the basket started to want to lift, he had us get into it and then he took over the burners. He liked short bursts of flame, which he said gave him more control.
I tested out the space between the ropes that held the basket, and said that I could get in and out of them without breaking anything, and said I could demonstrate, so he paused on the burners long enough for me to try. With it on the ground, it was actually harder for me to take off, 'cause I couldn't jump and pick up airspeed that way, and the basket wasn't big enough for a good stationary liftoff.
Landing was pretty easy, though. I just had to come in slow and be careful of the ropes. The space was bigger than Aric's bedroom window, though.
So he said that I could fly if I wanted to but that he'd still rather have me stay in the basket.
I thought that Meghan would probably want the support, so I decided I'd stay inside.
We gained altitude pretty quickly at first, which he said was important to make sure that we got above trees and power lines. Then the wind started to grab us and we began moving towards Kalamazoo as we climbed.
Meghan kept to the front of the basket at first, watching what was in front of us and I think she was kind of in his way, so I told her that she could see from all around and besides we were already too high to run into anything.
That wasn't true; I'd seen antennas that were a lot taller but we weren't near any of them.
So she came over to the side and I started pointing out stuff I'd seen from the air. We were a little bit northwest of where I'd flown, but I could see some things off in the distance that I knew, and as we got closer and closer to Kalamazoo, there was a lot more that looked familiar.
We did pass north of town, but it was close enough that she could see the Stetson bell tower rising up above the trees and how it was a good landmark, and I also pointed to the dirt mines, which were pretty visible, and then we decided that the lake with an island that we saw near the Kalamazoo River was the park we'd been to when we were on the river trail. And I showed her where the nature center was, too, and she thought it was pretty amazing to see Kalamazoo like I did whenever I flew.
Well, by then she was pretty comfortable in the balloon, and Captain Green had been curious about seeing me fly, so we all decided that I'd fly the last little bit on my own. He pointed to a field just past Morrow Lake where he intended to land, and then admitted it wasn't his favorite landing spot 'cause there were power lines right next to the lake, but he'd done this a bunch of times and he wasn't too worried. And then he pointed to a coil of rope right by his feet and said that he'd call me if he needed a tow.
So I put my hooves up on the edge of the basket and then boosted myself off, and I heard him dumping a little bit of air to make up for losing my weight, and once I got air under my wings I circled the balloon and then came back up and flew alongside and Meghan took a picture of me, and I flew next to the balloon until it landed in an open pasture safe and sound, just like he'd promised.
And then while his crew was helping to put away the balloon, Meghan said how much fun the flight had been and I thanked him for being such a good pilot and he said how neat it had been to see me fly, and we talked for a little bit about flying and feeling the air and knowing what it was going to do.
Once his crew had started packing the balloon away, we got back in Voyager, and he said that since he was taking us back through town he might as well drop us off at my apartment and save on taxi fare, which was really nice of him. And he also said that if we wanted to go flying with him again he'd give us ten percent off.
When we were back in my apartment, Meghan admitted that the flight had been kind of stressful but she was glad that I'd been there with her for most of it, and she got a beer and sat in the papasan and so I got one too and sat on her lap.
We watched the last of the late birds get their food and she said it was weird how different it looked from the air, and that the city looked a little bit smaller when you were looking at it from above. When we'd driven the Go-Karts, it had felt like it was a really long ways out to the airport, and yet even though we'd been north of town, she'd been able to see the airport off in the distance and it didn't look too far.
And she said it was also strange to see how many trees there were, even in places that she thought were pretty urban.
Plus, she'd seen for herself how water towers stuck up over everything else and were a really easy way to navigate from one spot to another.
When her first beer was empty I went to the electric icebox and got us two more and when I came back I saw that she'd taken off her shirt and bra 'cause she said it was kind of hot with me sitting on her lap.
It was dark out by the time we'd finished those beers and we moved to the futon and she turned on the kitchen light so we'd be able to see each other. And I sat down next to her and then after one more beer I was stretched out on my belly and she was preening my wing for me.
When she finished with that wing, I got up and got us a couple more beers to end the night (any more than that and I thought that both of us wouldn't want to get up in the morning) and she did my other wing, and I was feeling super-relaxed.
She had to get up to use the bathroom and when she came back she'd taken off the rest of her clothes, which meant she was probably ready for bed, so I folded down the futon and she helped to make it and then she went and had a glass of water and laid down in bed.
I thanked her for preening my wings and asked if there was anything I could do for her. She said not unless I knew how to give a back massage.
Well, I'd never done that before but that was no reason not to try. I'd gotten a couple when my back was really sore from flights, so I knew what it ought to feel like. So I had her lie down on her stomach and began to gently knead her back with my hooves and at first she kind of tensed up but then it started working and she started to relax.
She had a lot of tenseness in her shoulders, and then when I got down her back I figured from all the walking we'd done today her rump was probably a little bit sore, too, and she twitched a little bit when I first put my hooves on it but then she let me work the tension out.
When I was done she rolled over and said that she'd never expected that hooves on flesh could feel so good, so I was pretty proud of myself. And then I turned around and went all the way to the foot of the futon to get the covers, 'cause she'd kicked them down so that I could massage her and she said that she liked looking at my butt.
I told her she was being silly, and tugged the covers up and then curled up on her chest and she put her arms around me and said that wasn't silly at all, I had a nice butt.
I hit her with my tail, but I was really kind of flattered that she'd said so. And I thought about turning back around so she could look at it some more, but I'd just gotten comfortable and that seemed like it too much effort.
Of course Silver Glow has a nice butt.
Too mad Meghan keeps being too much of a coward to do anything with it.
The cooking show might actually work. There's already The Iron Chef, she could be The Silver Chef. How many Equestrian recipes does she know? Lots of people would probably click on for the sheer novelty. + If they answer questions on air, it could be big.
7572089 Even see a sign that reads This is my ool, notice there is no p in it. Please keep it that way. Then you'll understand my reluctance.
Great chapter. No snu snu for Meghan. Not even implied.
7571938
I doubt she has enough hours logged. And while it would certainly produce many headaches, it wouldn't actually cause any problems (other than a media circus). She wouldn't have any privileges other than "pegasus" (or "ornithopter", if they actually decided to file pegasi under that class), meaning that she wouldn't be authorized to operate any aircraft other than herself (or ornithopters if pegasi are indeed classed as ornithopters). So even a full ATP certificate would only allow her to offer ponyback rides for pay. An ATP-r, on the other hoof, doesn't even allow that--it only allows serving as a copilot, so she'd need to find someone with a full ATP (and certified for pegasus/ornithopter) to be the pilot. So when it comes to transporting passengers...what's the MTOW on a Silver Glow again?
I'm kind of confused with Silver: I think she knows that Megan is a lesbian, but she doesn't appear to have any interest in returning the affections, which makes me thinks she's probably not bisexual.
Oh my.
"Oh wow," says Brownie Bun, "this mare is even worse at cooking than me."
Awwwwwwwww.
That's the most romantic thing a pegasus can say.
I feel bad for kind of wishing they got that romantic moment, because if anything actually happened it'd be really dangerous and also what about the other people in the balloon?
Behold the SG, master of not getting a hint.
Wonderful chapter, the description of the balloon ride was great! I half expected her to put on a bit of aerial acrobatics, but of course the image of the SG circling a hot air balloon is cute (nothing new there...) If Meghan wants to put something on Youtube, that would be something. Pegasus perspective on a pegasus.
7572398 Oh crusading filly!
On edit: if Equestrian does sound somewhat like Dutch as proposed further down, the phrase makes for a much better swear phonetically: Kruistocht merrieveulen!
Silver
Take a hint
She wants you
She wants your plot
This is funny to me because the only time I ever hear anything about a hot air balloon is because something went horribly horribly wrong and it either burst into flames or someone died (or both). They 'look' stable but things can go to hell in a hand-basket (pun intended) pretty darn quickly.
I Believe in Meghan. (Trademark)
Maybe she just needs a rainbow bridge and Tirek to fight to ride the pony. I do kind of have Meghan from Gen 1 stuck in my head as what she looks like
Hot air balloons. An oversized tent with a bunker melting flamethrower aimed at it, with no directional controls or landing mechanism.
If the only clear spot to land for the next 50 miles is 20 foot to the side. Well, Good luck landing in the dark.
Did I meantion the heavy propane gas tanks with finite capacity?
Give me Team Rocket anyday. At least that ting only goes up when Pikachu uses its Psychotic OP Thunderbolt on it.
Thats an intresting idea, how popular would Hot Air Balloon become with nice compact stable cold fusion power plants? Driving electric termal ducted jets?
I was in a Hot Air Balloon once and to tell the truth I hated it just way to slow.
Costco > Sam's Club x1,000,000
As a consequence of following this story, in part, via Google maps satellite view, I've been surprised at how green Kalamazoo really is. Here in the UK we have a surfeit of greenspace but Hollywood and US TV had convinced me that American cities were almost entirely concrete and glass.
To any americans that might read this, your media lies about you to the world, you know? Not just about this. For decades now my impression of the US, for good or ill, has been shaped by (American) media, but in the last few years I have met and spoken with americans online and had my views of the real US turned upside down. It seems strange to me that your own media should paint such a bleak picture of you.
There is a view, common within the US and without, that the stereotypical caricature of America (as perceived by the rest of the world) is shaped in large part by US foreign policy, there is doubtless much truth in this. However I've come to believe that the world's view of your country is shaped largely by your media industry, which is a shame, as the shallow fiction they sell to us is massively unrepresentative.
But within the shouty landscape of the internet, I get to speak with schoolteachers from Houston, tattooists from Detroit, firemen from Washington and even auto engineers of indeterminate location. All of whom have collectively torn apart my image of the US and reassembled it in new and interesting ways.
Back in the '90s I belonged to the school of thought (common in Europe) that spelled America with a K (often with doodled swastikas), this is no longer the case. The credit for this lies not with politicians or corporate 'influencers' but with, well...people, just ordinary american people that I might talk to on some forum somewhere.
Turns out all those documentaries and magazine articles were correct, the internet really is changing the world.
So, Biscuits, you have given me an appreciation of poetry and contributed to my having a far more favourable view of your country than I had ten years ago. These are no small matters.
I seem to have delivered a poorly tempered rant, I will do better next time. If anyone takes exception to anything I've said here, I apologise, It's said from a good place.
It's funny, the places ponies can take you to.
While we're here...
I'm pretty sure the exact same scene happened a few chapters ago.
Depend if it is a bicycle trail or a "multifonctional" (or whatever they call those nowaday) one. In the first case, bikes are the only one allowed on the trail, in some legislation, roller blades, skates, sometimes electric wheelchair and such are included too. In the second case, it would be like on the road, the slower vehicules have priority. The walker would be it in this case.
Although caution and politness work both way and is the key to avoid accident.
So, you mean to say I'm not having fun on my bike?
7572051
I looked it up on some tornado related FAQ forums. One forum said this...
I think if Silver were ever to fly near a tornado she wouldn't encounter anything smacking her if she were at a thousand feet. Things getting thrown up high is very rare.
My heart may belong to Lyra, but for the purposes of this story, Silver butt is best butt. (Though Cayenne butt would be a close second. )
7573411
About one Meghan.
7574115
Believe me, Americans are well aware of stereotypes and how much of the rest of the world sees us.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Eagleland
Over the last couple days, there's been violent attacks in Philidelphia, New Jersey, New York and now Saint Cloud, Minnesota, an hour away from me. From the news stories (and online comments) it's easy to think we're all irrational, ignorant, racist, violence-obsessed hillbillies, ready to invade and/or nuke every country that looks at us wrong.
http://satwcomic.com/the-world/america
JUST BUCK ALREADY!
7574382
Thanks to many travel acquaintances (and not least, ponies) I know you aren't all like that. But your government's foreign policy makes it really hard for people without that knowledge to form any other opinion. It doesn't help that there hasn't been much perceivable difference between red or blue over the more recent past, at least not for the casual observer.
7574182
And what's the air-speed of a Meghan-laden pegasus?
7574778
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nd34V6vvLA&t=17m56s
Ain't that the truth. They are incredibly strict about that rule to the point of absurdity. I once ran in to get something to help my sister, who was having a seizure. Even in the face of a serious medical emergency, they still flat-out refused to help. They did point me to the cafe, where a membership wasn't needed... but it had several dozen people waiting in line and it would've taken hours to get service. If I had a gash on my arm, would they refuse to give me gauze? If someone had a heart attack, would they refuse to give them aspirin, just because they don't have a piece of plastic?
Between that and an incident at the local Wal-Mart, I'm starting to see why so many people hate that company.
Man now I want to ride a hot air balloon. Perhaps some day...
Oh yeah can't not include this song for this chapter due to the subject matter!
7574103
This is something akin to declaring that cow fertilizer is superior to pig fertilizer because it's less offensive. In the end they both stink.
When the balloon lifted off, I kept expecting Silver to start singing "I can show you the wooooorld..."
"No Meghan, thats not for human entertainment! i want other ponys to learn how to cook too! its fun and tastes better than cold food, like grass."
god damn Silver...
prep for the next few generations of ponys in the exchange is watching some of silvers videos hehe
thats when you get your aviators out Silver !
how dense are you silver ?! she wouldn't just look ! i thought someone told you what 69 means !!
Swiggity swooty, Meghan's coming for...
You know.
7574115
Now I'm very curious to hear what your initial media-based impression of us here in the U.S. was.
7573282
Ponybutt is best butt.
7573303
Silver? Basically, none. Putting cold vegetables together to make a salad, and that's about it. I suppose she could describe a dish and Meghan could try to replicate it, but Silver herself doesn't know squat about cooking.
Especially if Meghan keeps up her habit of cooking breakfast nude.
Such a show would probably be more educational with any other pony besides Silver cooking. Although it might be more entertaining with Silver Glow as the chef.
7573356
I just don't worry about it. There's loads of chlorine in there already, and besides all the water in the pool was probably dinosaur pee once.
7573411
Yeah, she wouldn't have an official logbook of her flight hours (although even an extremely conservative estimate of two hours/day would give her a whole crapton of hours by now). I wonder if her diary could count in lieu of a logbook?
And she could also presumably 'operate' other pegasi who happened to be on Earth, right? Not sure how that would work, though.
img06.deviantart.net/ce95/i/2013/311/1/9/ponies_riding_ponies_vector_by_tiredbrony-d6tc19e.png
Something like this, probably.
7573541
While admittedly this reply is coming rather late, you're not entirely on the mark, but not that far off.
7573650
In general, pegasi are the worst cooks. Remember that: it could save your life.
Well, it would suck to be the other people in the balloon, that's for sure. Silver Glow has a airborne rescue capacity of one, maybe two if they're small children.
7573671
Behold the SG, master of not getting a hint.
If you hit her with a 2x4 enough times, eventually she'll get it.
The reason why she didn't was because she knew Meghan was nervous in the balloon, and she didn't want to get too far away from her.
Filming a pegasus from a hot-air balloon would be awesome footage. Probably the safest way to do it, too, because if Silver Glow accidentally crashes into the balloon, nothing bad will happen. If it were a helicopter shooting the footage, on the other hand. . . .
I like that. It sounds like a strange but friendly greeting.
7573760
7573801
Ballooning is pretty safe, overall. Fewer than 40 people have been killed in hot air balloon accidents since 2000, apparently.
Short of accidentally landing on power lines, I think in most cases the balloon would make a unpleasantly fast, but not fatal, descent. (Unless the whole envelope fails catastrophically, which is probably very unlikely.)
It might not be that hard to equip the basket with a ballistic parachute system. I'm not sure that would be a significant safety increase, though (I bet almost all hot air balloon fatalities involve power lines, and a parachute would do nothing to prevent that).
7573953
27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhcoovylAV1qeuz19o1_500.png
You're welcome.
7574059
Exactly! Simple and safe.
That's all well and good until some of the fusion gets out. Then I suppose you have a nice pretty super-nova in the sky. Smaller, of course, but that wouldn't save any of the poor bastards in the balloon.
7574085
You should have waited until a day with 40mph winds. Then it would have been nice and fast.
7574103
Yeah, I agree in princple.
I haven't been to either in a decade or more, so I can't say which has a better selection, but it's my understanding that Costo actually cares about their employees and Sam's Club not so much.
7574115
A lot of it depends on the city. of course, but I can say that most Michigan cities I've lived in have had lots of trees.
Now, if you were to look at Chicago on the map, you'd see a rather different picture.
Our media lies to us about us, as well.
In a large part, I think it's because bad news sells, and nobody wants to hear good news. That may be cynical, but that's the way the media seems to think.
I think that's one of the good things about it, and I hope it outweighs some of the bad things (mostly close-minded people finding similarly close-minded people and reinforcing their own ideas in an internet echo chamber [which, incidentally, is why I make sure to have Facebook friends on both sides of the political spectrum, because I never want to find myself in a position where I'm only talking to 'yes men.'])
Also, technically, I'm not an engineer, but rather just a dumb mechanic.
Ain't that the truth? Some of the paths this story alone has taken me down, I never would have expected.
Corrections made, thank you!
7574121
When your almost-but-not-quite-foreplay is working, why change it up?
The trail they're on is multifunctional, so technically the walkers do have the right of way. However, given how some bicyclists act, you'd think that they had the right of way.
(Out here, there are a lot of assholes on bikes that assume that the rules of the road don't apply to them because they're on a bike.)
Also also, the rail-trail that's runs near my house is truly multifunctional; horses are also allowed.
There's a saying in the Bahamas that the biggest boat has the most right of way. While that's not technically true (in some cases, a 16' sailboat has the right of way over a 1000' freighter) a prudent mariner knows when to yield.
7589383
I feel the same when encountering most motorised vehicule during my rides. I know who would win the sumo match...
Really serious cyclist don't go on trail anyway, you can't go fast enough for a good training.
7574164
I was kind of thinking the same thing. Up high, as long as you didn't get sucked into the vortex, you'd probably be pretty safe.
Heck, I learned in school and Boy Scouts that the way to survive a tornado was to have strong cover, or if you didn't have that, find the lowest spot and lie prone. For pegasi, flying up is probably their best bet.
On a related topic, I watched a TV show where they wanted to see how far a tornado could potentially fling a human. Since they didn't have a tornado handy, they used a jet, and they told the stuntman to hang on as long as he could.
What was particularly telling about the force of the blast was that he was straight-out horizontal, and the anemometer cups blew off their wind gauge right before the poor bastard lost his grip. I really wish I could find that video on YouTube.
7574182
derpicdn.net/img/2015/9/13/978501/large.jpg
(Minor technical quibble: That's actually her max landing weight--she probably couldn't take off carrying Meghan)
7574382
Yeah. . . .
One of our presidential nominees isn't doing much to try and change that image, either.
7574778
7575165 beat me to it.
7574844
What foreign policy? You make it sound like there's a plan.
7574897
Ooh, I know! Max airspeed, on Earth, about 180, if both Meghan and Silver Glow optimize their dive (assuming that they start from under 10,000 feet). If they want to survive the landing, they'll want to slow down a lot before getting to the ground (apparently, 26 mph is about the fastest 'landing' that you have a good chance of surviving, although injuries are likely at that speed).
7575354
Some of that varies from place to place--like, if they did try to assist, and it made things worse, than they could potentially be sued. Michigan, at least, has a 'good Samaritan' law, so that if you try to render aid but aren't good at it/do the wrong thing/whatever, you're not liable.
Or it could be that Sam's Club is just evil.
(Personally, I don't like the way that they treat their workers, and thus choose to shop elsewhere, like at Meijer.)
7576034
Me, too. Sort of. I'm not really a fan of heights, which could be an issue.
7576251
I respectfully disagree with your comparison. Cow shit smells a lot nicer than pig shit. I honestly wouldn't mind living next to a dairy farm.
7576484
I wonder if ponies have flying carpets? Maybe only in Saddle Arabia.
pre09.deviantart.net/b2aa/th/pre/i/2013/186/9/d/__saddle_arabia___by_trefleix-d6c49i2.png
7577702
When Silver Glow goes back to Equestria, she's going to be the only pegasus with a waffle-maker and an electric kettle in her cloud.
That was what Meghan was hoping for. . . .
7582965
Agouti?
(made you Google)
7589406
Ain't that the truth.
I'm not a serious cyclist, and I don't trust people with cars, so I stick to trails where cars aren't allowed.
7589414
I can't see the image, Biscuit. When I tried opening it in a separate window, I got a 403 Forbidden error.
Is my browser censoring Cayenne butt?
7589500 Ditto here, the link seems broken.
7589500 7589569
Weird. It worked for me.
Well, it was a crop of this image:
derpicdn.net/img/2015/9/13/978501/large.jpg
7589274
The FAA isn't too keen on estimates, conservative or not. Check out what they want from pilots who lose their logbooks, then imagine asking them to accept "well I've probably averaged about two hours a day, maybe more?".
7589414
Minor technical quibble quibble: the airframe counts. In other words, her maximum landing weight is about one Silver Glow plus one Meghan. Hopefully.
7590028
I can't remember what the particular hours for each class of license were, but if the Equestrian calendar has 365 days and if SG is 20 (to make the math easy), and if she only averaged flying one minute per day (which even the FAA would probably grudgingly admit was likely), she'd still have over 120 hours of flight time.
Also:
I can just see her showing up at the FAA's offices with a stack of her medical records.
What would be even worse is if she has to keep two sets of records--one as a 'pilot' and one as an 'aircraft.'
"Do Taco Bell receipts count as proof of ongoing airframe maintenance?"
Now I'm picturing a lighter-than-air vessel which has a max landing weight of 1 oz.
7590056
If sitting on a cloud counts as air time, then she probably averaged 24h/day until first visits to the ground. If she spent first year of her life in the cloud village, that would be 8760 hours. And in such conditions it would make sense to log ground time, not air time.
8337036
For 'airtime' requirements, I would assume that sitting at home--whether said home is on the ground or not--shouldn't count. Only flight time (which presumably means that her first, tentative flights across her cloudhome should absolutely count towards her total).
Really, though, flight time is a completely silly concept for a pegasus. Even Fluttershy probably has more flight time than most hobby pilots; a pony who lived in a cloudhouse for most of her life and who was on a weather team would have an absurd amount of hours of flight time.
If she spent a third of her life flying, that's 58,000 flight hours by the time she's 20. If she spends the same amount of time that the Amish do walking every day, that's 18,000 flight hours. Putting it another way, a typical full-time job is about 2,000 hours per year; a professional pilot could conceivably hit that number (I'm not sure if they normally do, because I don't know if it counts when you're sitting on the taxiway waiting for clearance, or waiting to load passengers). Either way, assuming on the high end of flight hours for a commercial pilot, she'd be picking up flight hours at half the speed just from her day-to-day life . . . and since she works weather in Equestria, she's almost certainly got more flight time than that--and that's actual flying, not just lounging around on a cloud.
I'd bet that there are probably some proud pegasi who have virtually never felt actual ground under their hooves.
8337105
Like Rainbow Dash, who is pretty consistent with hovering over walking
Come to think of it that's probably why the ceilings in Equestria are so high
9252411
Yeah, exactly. RD’s probably on the higher end of pegasus flight time--I think most pegasi would walk that close to the ground if they could. But I do think that there are some who as a point of pride try to touch the ground as little as possible.
I think that’s one reason, yeah. My own headcanon is that they generally build buildings with high ceilings both so pegasi can fly inside, and in case Princess Celestia comes to visit.
10270721
Correction made; thank you!
And there are at least a couple places in Canterlot built to a scale that would admit a full-grown dragon, just in case. Probably just some areas around the castle, because the only reason that would ever happen would be Celestia having a talk with the current Dragonlord.