You’re story brought back memories of my first flight to KIWI.

The night before, I flew from Dallas to Poughkipsee to pick up my brother. The next morning everything looked perfect. So, we fired up my T210 and hummed above the long lines of vacation traffic, which were creeping up the coast.

Then we got to Wiscasset. Or, at least that’s what the Garmin indicated. A change in wind and atmospheric conditions blanketed the area with low clouds and fog. Portland Approach offered what they could – a NDB approach.

I’ll never forget the strange sensation of descending into the brilliant white clouds and then skimming above the rocky shore and deep green water of the Atlantic.

After landing, we were treated to a relaxing hour in a couple of Wicked Good’s Adirondack chairs. Just us, a dog and the sweet smell of the pines.

Priceless.

Philip, I always carry a supply of baggies of various sizes in my flight bag. There are many times I have been caught in the rain or went boating (or seaplane flying up at Twitchel’s in Maine) where I simply bagged the sensitive items. Cheap insurance!

My own typical kit: $700 digital camera, $400 PDA, $100 watch, $200 cellphone. Salt water wouldn’t hurt the watch, but the rest sums to $1300.

$1600-1700 each seems a bit high: I dunno as I’d call that the standard kit of “three AVERAGE Americans”. Typical maybe, but I’m not convinced that that’s the average yet. I think this party might be somewhat to the right of the distribtuion.

Even granted that, yes, most Americans now have a cell-phone and a digital camera, I’d say that typically these are one-and-the-same device. Which they got cheap, as part of a package.

Do “average” people really walk around with more than a hundred-buck phone and a hundred-buck camera? Does an average person wear a watch at all, let alone one that costs over 20 bucks?

Or maybe I’m over-generalizing from my own experience. (I’ve stopped wearing a wristwatch because so many devices keep reasonable time, my in-pocket camera is a $20 (eBay) point’n’shoot, etc.)

On the other hand, it’s probably easier to dry out a wallet today, because today, most of the items in a wallet are plastic and not paper.

Whereas in the 1750ies you’d fall in, catch a cold, and die.