I needed a cup of tea for this one.

A cup of warm almond tea with a bit of honey for sweetening and a bit of milk. Ah, much better! Now on to tell the tale of my day. :)

Yesterday evening I had some stomach problems-enough so that I went to bed early in hopes that they'd go away by this morning. They did during the night, but I woke up at 6:30 a.m. (which does not please me) with my stomach having a life of its own. I finally gave up and got up around 7:15 and started preparing for the flight to Pennsylvania. Flight plan-filed. Weather-check. TFRs-check. Routing-check. Shower-check. Flight bag packed-check. (Okay, that's a cheat, I don't really carry a flight bag. But I did take my little Pizza Hut bag where I carried my important things--iPod, reading glasses, new James Patterson novel, purse, and okay, my routing information and airport diagram.) I decided, hey, I'll even leave a little early, get the plane fueled up and ready to go, and I might have to scrape some snow away from the big door, so I'll bring the Jeep that has the shovel in the back. Check.

I got out to the airport, and pulled up, and sure enough, there is snow in front of the doors. Both the door to the Mustang hanger (where the approach plates for the trip are) and to the Baron hanger (where the plane is.) It looks like a fair amount of snow, which is a tad discouraging, but it's not THAT bad, I say to myself at first glance. Ha. I am ahead of schedule, so I whip on my gloves, my hat, my iPod, and my shovel and go to town. (Stomach ache and all.) ;) Twenty minutes later, I had cleared off an 8 foot section...of an 80 foot hangar. I'd also cleared two doorways, as you can see by the photo. Funny, the snow doesn't look as tall in the photo as it did in person. But it WAS fairly close to the height of the doornob on the left side of the door. :) However, after 20 minutes of shoveling, I sat in the Jeep to warm up and reassessed, and the end result didn't look promising for a timely departure. I called Steve, but he didn't pick up (which he is currently thankful for by the way). Then I walked to the other end of the hangar for the first time, where I noticed something very discouraging--when they'd cleared off the ramp, they'd piled the snow off to the side...except they were in front of the door. So there was a pile over six feet high, over two feet wide, and the entire length of the side of the ramp that would have to be moved. Um, I need more than one or two shovels here. So I decided on a Hail Mary and went up to the FBO to see if there was Any way they could provide something to help me get the snow out of the way. And low and behold! They brought a pick-up truck with a snow plow on the front. That worked for the snow in front of the door. But it didn't have a chance on the big pile. So they left. And came back with a giant snowblower, and I watched it eat that huge pile and blow it into a field. I had one problem left--there was a large ice lip in front of the hangar with the approach plates. I chopped at it, scraped at it, and proceeded to break a piece of my shovel on it. Ty came over and he chopped on it for awhile, and got the door open JUST far enough for me to squeeze in and get the plates. One big hangar door open, one little hangar door open, and we are on our way!

We had some awesome winds for the trip over. We were at 9,000' and doing like 228 knots groundspeed. Which is pretty impressive. Got to Erie International without incident (which is good). They claimed the runway was 60% clear of snow and ice with braking action of "fair" (which as you may guess is better than "poor" and worse than "good".) Actually the runway was fine. The ramp to park was pretty sad though. It was nothing but snow and ice. So we taxiied and parked rather...slowly, and I was glad to see the lineman who parked us was ready to dive out of the way should I skid when I went to hit the brakes. Here's the Baron parked out in the cold.

And here's the irony. While it was very cold and snowy in Erie, it was 47 degrees in Kokomo. The sun came out, people were wearing short sleeves, and the rest of the snow pretty much melted completely off the remaining hangar areas. Yeah, :P

In Erie I went to Bob Evans for lunch. I actually broke my own rule--usually when I go somewhere new, I make sure to eat at a place that only exists there. A mom and pop restaurant, something new and different. And there were several there. But I had a craving. And I listen to my cravings. So Bob Evans it was. They have a new artery-clogging feature that has two pancakes, with vanilla cream custard stuff in between them, along with banana slices and chocolate chips and covered in chocolate syrup. I only got about a third of the way through it before I gave up and didn't try to eat any more. I hate wasting money, but I also didn't want to go into a food coma for the trip home.

Of course we all almost went into a coma on the way home anyway. Those winds that helped us so much on the way out? Not so good for the way home. And they'd picked up by quite a bit too. We ran a true airspeed calculation on the way home and it came up with a 66 knot headwind. That's not good. We were at 6,000', doing about 128 knots. So we went down to 4,000' to see if that would help. And I watched our airspeed go down to 113 knots. Geeeeeeesh. So I went back to 6000. It took a loooong time to get home!!

But it was a pretty flight. And my stomach was fine by the time I took off, and stayed that way.

In the meantime, Kaylee got to go to the mall today and get two presents, and she got to go to the office, and out to lunch with Chuck and Steve, and she got to take "daddy" to ballet class, and then met up with me at Applebees for dinner once I got home. Then I needed a cup of tea and to sit and relax for a bit before getting ready for tomorrow. :)

For those who asked, Holly is doing very well! She's out of intensive care and in her own room, and doing very well at this stage! And for those who asked, little Jillian seems to be doing okay too. She's had some chemo, but she's off the vent, she's sitting up and playing in the play room a bit, and she seems to be hanging in there...

Steve is still playing with our new TV and its setup. Remind me to post a pic of Kaylee in front of it tomorrow so you can see. And he had a nice daddy/daughter day, tea set party and ballet and all. :)

Now I'm tired and off to bed!