Freaky Friday

I spent the morning getting the house ready to be cleaned, then went out to Glenndale to do a Discovery Flight with someone new. I had my fun for the day when the older gentleman who used to fly and was accompanying the gentleman my age who was going for one of his first rides looked around while we were all standing out by the plane and said "So who is flying with XX?" I said "That would be me." He stumbled and stuttered for a second, ended with "You?" I smiled and said "Yes, I'm the instructor who will be going with him today." He got out an "Oh, oh, okay". The funny thing was, I'd already introduced myself by name, as the instructor, and been chatting with these guys for over five minutes about flying. It obviously threw him for a loop that I was the pilot. Later I got the "How long have you been doing this?" question too, but hey, that's a fair question that I'll bet most pilots get asked. I'll bet most of them don't get a look of shock and occasional dismay at telling someone they are going to be their pilot, but a girl has to get her amusement somewhere. ;)

I landed the plane from that discovery flight right at lunch time, and we all had burgers and hot dogs and tons of desserts. Excellent timing...

Steve ran home after lunch and packed a bag and headed to Kentucky for a couple of days. It was an unexpected little trip that he will hopefully (surely) enjoy involving a lot of BBQ. :)

I went and picked up Kaylee and took her to a doctor appointment; a check-up that went just fine, of course. She's healthy as a horse. She was only a little nervous about the whole thing, and mostly just wanted to make sure I would be in there with her, which of course I was.

She went to stay with Grandma & Grandpa for awhile while I went and did an evening flight. The wind was up fairly good for what we were trying to do, but we got it done, and when we finished the sun was setting and the winds were calming and it was a beautiful evening. I was driving home with the orange and the peach colors off to my west, relaxing to music, when suddenly I saw a flash of movement off to my right. I looked over in time to see two deer running right in front of my car, which was moving at a decent clip on the back roads. I stood on my brakes, which probably need checked now, along with my tires and my shorts, and one deer made it to the other lane and paused, but the other froze in my path. It was one of those time-slows-down things. I thought about my uncle in a hospital for months after hitting a deer, and I moved my arm away from the center of my wheel so that if the airbag went off I wouldn't break my face with my own arm/hand, and I yelled a wordless "Aaaaa!" as I just stood on my brakes. I couldn't swerve because I was 1) too fast and 2) didn't have a safe place to swerve to. The deer finally bolted the rest of the way across as I slid past where they'd been. I just sat there for a second before continuing my drive home. My heart rate finally settled down after about five minutes, but I spent a good portion of my drive home scanning the side of the road like a crazy twitchy person waiting for the boogie man to jump out at them again. Talk about a mood buster!

Tomorrow will be another busy one. I've got a Girl Scout troop to give rides to all morning, and then a flight in the afternoon as well that will last several hours. Busy Saturday coming...