Alas the beloved Toy went down in the river. I am told that if I could find it, it could be rehabilitated, but I don't have a frogman suit and would rather spend the money to buy another than risk my life trying to rescue the toy. But what a run we had. Here's the story.
This morning, my friend Lee texted from Winston-Salem asking if I wanted a visit and I replied enthusiastically. So he was here shortly after noon. I wanted to try inventing pico de gallo lentil pancakes; as he's vegetarian, I correctly guessed that he would be into it, too. They were really good! I'll have to figure out a recipe one day.
We took Toy to the soccer practice field at the university. Some South Asian guys were playing cricket (ok, so it was the cricket field), which isn't an everyday site in this area, the weather was great and I got one last brilliant video. Then we went to Granby Park, but the light wasn't right for what I wanted (train trestle shots) so the flying was good but the filming wasn't. Also, Toy flew out of range and didn't fly back automatically. I did the walk toward it trick, and then it came home. THEN we took it to West Columbia Riverwalk and immediately got in trouble.
I had found yesterday that although I could get very good video and pictures, the works of man are not only tiny from space, they're pretty piddling from 400, 300, or even 60 feet. Gervais Street Bridge is wondrous large compared to a person and very impressive but from just twice its height, it looks pretty unimpressive. So I was trying to get down to bridge height. And I assumed that I knew I was out over the river. I could have used the gimbal to rotate the camera to look straight down to make sure; I had done this yesterday and even today. But I got overconfident. So I flew into a tree and it crashed into the river. As I say, I have been told that I could revive it if I could find it. But that's a cold river, usually shallow and slow but these days deep, fast and powerful. And I'd rather spend hundreds than court hypothermia. Assuming that I could find it and could rehabilitate it, neither exactly a certainty.
On the other hand, yesterday was so phenomenally perfect, I had great doubts that I could ever top it or even match it. This is not to say that I didn't want to fly Toy anymore, nor that I don't regret its loss. Let's just say that I celebrate even more how much fun I had with it. And hope that I learned something and will be much more careful next time. Bye Roscoe. You were a good Toy.
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