Flying Steam Ship - Lao Lau - a photo on Flickriver

Album: flic.kr/s/aHBqjAfBsM
(Brick Built - Not a digital build)

"Sailing the open skies… we were.
Floating on the trade winds.
High above the clouds.
Above the weather systems.
Lighting always shown from below.
Deep purplish black cumulous cloud landscapes flashing bright, blinding light.

Birds landing on our ship for rest… during their long journeys to the south lands.
We were silent on the winds.
Aloft with our float cells.
No propellers, no engines except for low flying.
Our elevation altered through the use of super-heated air from our steam boiler.

We always had a steady supply of coal to feed Betsy. That’s what we call the steam boiler. She’s a hungry hippo, a dual chamber steam engine that is quiet as could be. Which is why so many flying creatures come to rest on our railing… the perfect place to take a nap and become a meal. Tired birds are easy to snag with a fishing net.

We eat pigeons, albatross, ravens, but Bavarian goose... now they were my favorite, thick and plump from cold weather living. Meat marbled with fat.

My dad would say they all tasted like chicken.
But each had their own flavor.
And countless ways of preparing them.
My favorite was to pressure-steam the meat right above the Lao Lau’s exhaust manifold.
I would hang the meat right over it wrapped in wire and hit the emergency pressure release button.

The steam came flooding out with such heat and pressure it almost blew the instantly- cooked meat right off the bone. That’s why I wrapped it tightly in a hand-made wire cage.

Dad did not like me doing this.
He said Betsey was not an oven… but a high-tech piece of machinery that should not be played with.

Mom would always wink at me when he said this.
She loved the pressure steamed foul just like I did.

Dad preferred stew.
My teenage brother also preferred stew.
It could get cold flying at altitude and he would hold his mug of hot soup to heat his hands and warm his soul he said. Especially when he was on night watch.

I wasn’t old enough to night fly yet, dad said. And mom agreed.
I was still learning how to star navigate.

The stars… the stars are amazing up here.
The milky way is beautiful.
Brilliant pinks and purples.

Most rock dwellers don’t even know what the sky looks like at night.
They see little dots of white and call it the night sky.
They don’t even know the sky has colors.

I was mostly on day duty, when it came to manning or in my case girl-ing the helm. Of course, there really wasn’t much to do. At high altitude the only thing to watch out for was other flying craft. But dad said, someone should always be looking forward. Someone should always be looking around us.

You never know when something or someone can pop up out of a bank of clouds.
He was talking about pirates.
When he was a kid, his parents ship was boarded and stolen by pirates.
There were left floating adrift in a single celled escape balloon.
They floated for days, without food, over the open ocean, until they finally spotted land and luckily and unseasonal wind pulled them right over it.
Their balloon had no baffles and they were forced to poke a hole in the balloon to descend.
It was a harry landing… but they all survived.

Even though pirates were scarce in these parts, dad was always on the lookout for the sky pirates. Mom said dad had something called trauma.
She said it made him feel the past was still in the present sometimes.

I could see it in his hands.
They would start to shake whenever a balloon or other craft would appear in the distance.

His first thought was always pirates.
Mom’s was… someone to trade with!
Mine was… maybe new friends?

It could get lonely for us children traveling the world on a sky ship with their parents.

Maybe one day we will land.
And stay.
And have a house that doesn’t move.
Maybe one day we will land. And stay somewhere for more than a day.
And I could have friends.
Real friends."

@westside_lego_daddy

Taken on: November 16, 2022

Sets appears in: • Airships • FSS Lao Lao

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