Today’s eye candy: A corn maze seen halfway between Greeley and Gilcrest along Highway 85. For a better view as well as visiting information, check out the official website.

As some of y’all already know, I’m a pilot. After a couple years out of practice, I just recently got re-endorsed, and now the plan is to go up once every two weeks just to keep the rust from accumulating on ye old license. And I thought, maybe if I get y’all expecting regular aerial photography over here, that’ll be extra incentive not to miss a practice session. So, eye candy.

Today’s flight was between the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (formerly the Jefferson County Airport, or “Jeffco”) and the Greeley-Weld County Airport. There is an excellent diner at Greeley-Weld called The Barnstormer and you should order a short stack of their pancakes right now. The sausage patties are also amazing, all juicy and textured. (Yes, I know what that texture is. Give me a break. It’s sausage. If you can’t stand unidentified pig parts, don’t order it.) I’m told the hamburgers shouldn’t be missed, and as soon as I get there for lunch rather than breakfast I will make sure not to miss them.

The airport staff are exceedingly hospitable, too, coming out to help you tie down and chock the wheels before you’ve quite finished dragging your ass out the cockpit. And they’re ready to call you a taxi (“OK, you’re a taxi”), find you a hotel, contact a car rental, whistle up the fuel truck, or just point you to the restroom at a moment’s notice. Basic taking-care-of-guests stuff, sure, but it felt almost VIP-ish. Maybe things are more brusque when the airport’s busier, I dunno.

They get extra points for not opening with a conversational gambit along the lines of “Did you fly all the way here yourself, little girl?” Believe me, there are still places where airport staff will worriedly ask whether you dropped your Y chromosome on the way over, because you can’t actually be female and flying a plane. How could they call you an “airman” with a straight face? How could they sell you a “10 reasons airplanes are better than women” T-shirt? …I’m happy to say that such attitude appears mostly absent in the Denver area and along the Front Range. (And at least the staff at Rock Springs, Wyoming a couple years back got their vocal incredulity over with before I actually came into earshot. I heard it about it later from my godmother. “When you radioed in, they were all like, ‘Oh my God, that’s a GIRL up there!’ I told them, ‘That’s MY girl!'” Hee.)

Feminist axe to grind? Well, maybe. Sometimes. How could you tell? (Support your local 99s chapter! Women in aviation rawk!)

Anyway. Next eye candy should arrive around August 25 or so, weather permitting.