Loo-zee-anna

(As they say it).

I took a Tylenol PM last night so I had a chance of falling asleep early, and I did manage to be in bed by 9:15 pm, and out not too late after that. Next thing I knew, I was hearing music from quite far away, and it was 3:30 a.m. and time to rise and shine. Funny thing about me-I complain a lot the very few times something this early comes along, but I almost never have a problem actually getting up and doing it. Now if I had to do that every morning, there's No Way. But for the rare occurrence, I wake up and because it's not just for the fun of it but for a trip I have to take, with a lot of responsibility, my mind gets going and I really actually do wake up. Which is good, naturally. ;)

When I walked outside to my car, I stepped off my deck and the first thing I saw was the Little Dipper...something a person usually sees before they go to bed at night, not when they head to their job in the morning. ;) It was a really damp, humid morning, windows kept fogging over in my car. I actually got to the airport at 4:40 a.m., trying to give myself twenty minutes to get the plane ready and pulled out of the hangar, the headsets hooked up, the maps in place, yadda yadda, but my guys showed up right after I got there, so I had to hurry and get things ready while they sat in the plane and waited. We got the plane started, flipped on all the lights, and...no landing/taxi light. In other words, it was pitch black outside, the windows of the plane were fogged over so we couldn't see well, there are no taxiway lights back by the hangars, and now we had no landing light. I couldn't see the concrete in front of me, let alone where to taxi. I grabbed two flashlights and put them together and opened my door and shined the lights onto the ground in front of me, and still couldn't see anything. The gentleman doing the flying taxied the plane for a few minutes, but when we ended up in the grass off to the side, he gave it to me. I get us back on track and taxi by watching my left wing against the side of a row of hangars until I could get out to the ramp, where there are actually lights. That was fun, and a nice way to start the flight with two new customers. *sigh* Next I tried to pick up our clearance, but nobody was listening to me. I waited several minutes, no response. So we did a very dark takeoff, and I called them in the air, where finally somebody heard me after my third call. Perhaps at 5 a.m. the rules change; I wouldn't usually know. ;) THEN the flight went fine. It was about four hours down to Louisiana. There was a little bit of IFR/clouds, but in general the ride was smooth, and everyone had a good time. We had to shoot an approach into the field, but only because the visibilities were low, everything else was fine.

We landed at the airport, which was a pretty busy place-they have airline service there-and the two guys with me headed out to do their thing, while I stayed behind. I decided that it was breakfast time, and I knew there was a restaurant at the terminal, so I walked out to my plane, grabbed my purse, and then walked down the ramp to go about 5 buildings down to the terminal to eat. In my early morning not used to airline service airport brain fart, I kind of forgot you can't do that at airports like that. Our security at the airline airports isn't all that shabby, really. A nice young man on the other side of the fence called for two security guards who flanked me and asked me how I got on that side of the fence and what I was doing. I smiled sweetly and said I just flew in and was walking from my plane to breakfast at the terminal. They so politely escorted me inside and took me to the police/security office inside the terminal, where the amused officer questioned me for about 45 seconds before checking out my ID, and informing me that you couldn't be on the ramp without an escort or a security badge. As I was leaving, I said "Well, I was looking for the restaurant, and here I got an armed escort right to it." He was actually amused, so this is good. The restaurant was next door to the security office, so I stopped in and had eggs, bacon and toast and read a book. The food tasted exactly like something my grandma made, and I swear it was cooked on an iron skillet. With real fat. It was good.

I walked back to my FBO the proper way on the proper side of the fence, and spent the next few hours on the ground finishing up a book. The weather started heading a little downhill for a portion of the flight home, so I watched it, and decided that around noon I wanted to get out of there before the thunderstorms and the "tornado watch" got too serious. We flew home on the edge of the weather, but it wasn't bad at all-I could have headed east where it was clear any time if I'd needed to. It was a little bumpy this time, and we were in the clouds for awhile, but all in all it was uneventful, which is good. The total flight time in the airplane today was 8.4 hours. I should be a lot more sleepy than I am at this moment, but for some reason I seem to be rather awake. Residual wired awake I guess.

Well, the part of Loozeeanna I saw was a very nice state. Laid-back, quiet, good food, nice people...no matter what side of the fence you are on. ;)