Dark to Dark with Spots of Sun

Last night we learned that a trip to Florida was on the agenda for today, so I got the house ready for its cleaning, Kaylee's stuff ready for school, mail ready to go out, and some flight planning stuff for today, and went to bed a little earlier than normal. I have GOT to reset my inner alarm clock though! I used to be able to wake myself up within about 2-5 minutes of my alarm going off, but these days I wake up off and on most of the night until it's time to get up, or like last night, I'll wake up an hour early. So my brain engaged at 4:30 a.m. and said "You're going to have to get uuuup sooooon." :P (Chuck thinks I must have forgotten to reset it for DST.) When I left the house at 6 a.m., I looked up and saw tons of stars out, and it was a balmy 10 degrees. It was very pretty, but there's just something that feels wrong about heading out to start the day while looking at the stars. I got to the airport first, so I got the Baron out and called in for fuel, and shortly after Nathan and Chuck arrived, we got in and got out of there.

I flew the first leg, and we watched the sun rise on a cold but beautiful day. The heater in the Baron works quite well, thankfully, so we just relaxed and enjoyed the view. A light cloud deck moved in under us, and with the sunrise it made for a beautiful view. The mountains were next, poking up through the clouds like islands. I landed in Athens, Georgia where we got snacks, drinks and fuel, and prepared for the next leg of the trip, and they had an airplane hanging from the ceiling with Santa Claus and his bag of goodies piloting it. I kind of got a kick out of that. :)

Nathan took the next leg, into Kissimmee. Florida is always kind of a hoot to fly into and out of. They're quite busy, of course, but they also do things their own way. They don't follow the east and west rules of altitudes. Instead, they run their altitudes north and south, which are opposite of what you "should" be flying at for any given altitude. They also have just a couple of corridors for all that traffic to go through while avoiding a bunch of airspace they don't want you to go through, so there is always a ton of reroutes and changes to your path... Today I was a little surprised because they flew us right over the top of Disney World. There's a TFR there (Temporary (yeah right) Flight Restriction) meaning you aren't allowed to fly over Disney below 3000' any more. With Air Traffic Control permission or guidance or whatever, you can though, and they sent us right over the top of it at 2500', which was low enough for me to spot many Disney "features".

It was beautiful down in Florida, of course. I stepped out of the plane and could smell warm plants and summer again. I'd left Kokomo when it was ten degrees. It was something like 55-60 degrees warmer than that in Kissimmee and ooooh, it felt good. I'll bet nobody in Kokomo could say they stepped outside and almost broke a sweat today. ;) We had lunch, I watched a T-6 flying around out of there (they have a warbird center there) then we divided and conquered. Nathan and Kevin took the Cheyenne home and Chuck and I took the Baron. We left at the same time, and I heard them on two frequencies before they blasted us out of the water. :) Of course the Cheyenne could go non-stop and arrived in less than 3 hours, and we stopped in Athens again to refuel. As we were getting ready to leave Athens, we looked up the Cheyenne on FlightAware and found they had something like 16 minutes to go before they landed at Kokomo. So we ended up about two and a half hours behind them...

We got to watch the sun go down on this leg. We landed back at Kokomo in official darkness and extra oober coldness, put everything away, cleaned up the plane's insides, and boogied on out of there to go home. I arrived at the airport in the dark at 6:30 a.m. and got back in my car to come home in the dark at 7:00 p.m. :) We had some great scenery for the day though, and the air was still and smooth. It was a nice trip.

When I left Kokomo, I was wearing a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and a thick jacket. When we landed in Georgia, I took off the thick jacket. When we landed in Florida I took off the sweatshirt and walked around in a t-shirt and enjoyed myself a great deal. We were in the air on the way home when somewhere over Kentucky I reached back and put back on my sweatshirt, and upon landing at Kokomo I was back to full bundled mode. Alas, but at least for awhile I got to enjoy a little warmth, sunshine, good company and an office with a great view. :)

Oh, I took pictures today. They're just in-air shots of the sunrise, clouds, mountains, and sunset, nothing that interesting probably, but I'm putting them up anyway...