For four years now, since I have been flying the race, I have seen ads for "Holland Farms Bakery" in Oriskany, NY. I have heard about half moons and the world famous jelly buns. In 2008 when I was gettin  ready to do the top 10 drawing, Holland Farms (and ARC) president, Marolyn Wilson, shipping some half moons for the occasion. Boy, were they good. Life was good ... and Team Wild Mama drew number 11.

Fast forward to 2010. Team Wild Mama is still Classic Racer 11; life is once again good but I have been devoid of half moons for, oh, these many years ... and I have never experienced the thrill of a jelly bun. This atrocity must come to an end. It is time for the bun run!

The day started off cool and clear with just a hint of head wind - 25 kts to be exact - but that only meant that I had to roust my sister, Michelle, out the door a bit earlier. We had called Marolyn to meet her in Rome, NY, the closest airport to Holland Farms and the famous jelly buns. We managed wheels up by 0730 - Michelle was even primped and preened. We turned on the XM Satellite rado and settled in for the 2 hour trip to Rome. I had not doe too much flying i this neck of the woods. We had made the trip to Niagara Falls - pure IFR; we made the run from Franklin to Saratoga Springs, MVFR and focused on the race. That was about it. This time is was a stellar VFR day with just a hint of puffy's.

We remained relatively low over the trip. We passed the windmill farm south of Hazelton. We could feel the wind pick up and knew that the farm was properly placed. The clouds grew more numerous but still allowed us to maintain a comfortable margin over the Adirondack foothills. Soon we were approaching Griffiss TSRA and our destination right on schedule. The 125 kt ground speed was a far cry from the 180's that we had been seeing just the week before but life was still good and the jelly buns were nearly upon us. Marolyn met us at the terminal and ushered us around for a personal guided tour of the area. We sawthe old airport where she learned to fly many years ago - the shrine stll remains but the airport is a Walmart distribution center now. We pass by a section of the Erie Canal then on to the bakery.

Marolyn gives us the tour of the bakery from the back rooms on forward. There are massive ovens, mixing equipment and workers up to their elbows in cole slaw! The bakery has a deli and bakery component. We sample the potato salad, cole slaw and macaroni and tuna salad and get 2 pounds of each - we particularly liked the macaroni and tuna salad. We move over to the bakery section and to the coveted jelly buns - large fist sized powdered sugar coated balls of blueberry jelly. OH, YUM!!!! We get a dozen. Then we spy the brownies, half moons of all varieties and carrot cookies; fruit pastries and apple bars. We get some of each. I think that is enough.

We say our good byes to Marolyn and thank her for the bags of goodies that we have to wait to eat - well, we did have enough samples to take care of lunch. We head off to Glen Falls to meet up with Caroline Baldwn and husband Bill for the real lunch and to chat after not having seen each other in nearly a year. Too much fun. Michelle and I then zip off into a nice little tailwind and head back home with our bellies full and bags even fuller. We have lots of family at home to help us eat the goodies.