Family & Flying

I had a trip to Alabama today, with one passenger who rode in the back seat. It was his first time in a small plane. I asked him if he was lightly terrorized yet, and he said he was nervous, but everybody kept telling him it would be great, so he was going to try to just relax and enjoy the flight. He became a convert to the positives of aviation when he landed in Alabama before 10 a.m. and got a full day of work in. :)

The sun was just coming up when I got to the airport, and it was a really pretty morning. When we took off, it was as smooth as glass up there, and we had a nice tailwind, and we got there in a little under 3 hours. Backseaters can't hear the music up front, so I turned on the XM music and had music all the way down, reminding myself not to spontaneously burst into song. ;) On the ground, I grabbed a courtesy car and ran to the Waffle House that was right on the corner of the airport. I walked in the door, and three employees looked up and said "Hi!" in very chipper voices. I sit down, and they had me fed and out the door in like 20 minutes or less, which was also impressive. You could definitely tell you were down south. The menu listed "iced tea". No choices, just tea. I ordered it, and of course it was sweet. You don't even get unsweetened iced tea down yonder! The biscuits were flat and sweet, not our normal ones up here, and they had Jimmy Buffet playing over the speakers very loudly, and several of the employees were singing along to it. Two college girls (still in pajamas by the way) were in there, and they got up and danced in the aisle for awhile. It was a downright friendly place.

I got fueled up and headed home, by myself. This time that wind that was so friendly on the way down was not so friendly on the way home. It was a rather long trip home, but since I was by myself I could stretch my legs out on both sides of the cockpit with only myself to see the un-lady-likeness, and I did. I ended up dehydrated and with a headache that took me several hours to kick, but it was a good flight none-the-less. I put up some photos from this morning...

Meanwhile, Steve took my flight students today for me, and ended up feeling really bad at the end of the night again with a tight throat, headache, etc., like he backslid back into whatever he had last week.

Steve took Kaylee to a couple of local music stores today. She has expressed interest in learning to play the guitar off and on for quite awhile now, so today he took her to the two places to look into lessons. Kaylee called me on the phone on my way home (in the car), and spent 20 minutes telling me all the details about these two places, their differences, their pros and cons. She was wound up! At both stores, the guy talking to Kaylee about guitar lessons handed her a pink guitar. She was not remotely interested in a pink guitar. I wish I could remember how she told me about that, but all I remember is laughing, and then telling her that there are lots of girls who would think a pink guitar was pretty cool. She said "Yeah, well, I'm not one of them." I told her she had to tell her grandparents about that one. Her favorite guitar? "A really nice looking black one. It was classy looking." She wants to do electric guitar, but has learned you're supposed to learn acoustic guitar first. She's ready to start. Her afternoon was topped off by ice cream at the downtown shop, where she announced to the world that she had the best daddy in the world. As Steve said, I'm sure the ice cream had noooothing to do with it. ;)

I got home just a few minutes after they did, and I was kind of beat. Steve left to take that last lesson of the day for me, and Kaylee came and snuggled with me on the couch. She was talking a mile a minute, until Steve called. We talked for quite awhile, and when I looked down, Kaylee was fast asleep on me. I hadn't gotten my Tylenol yet, or a drink, but I couldn't get up and disturb her. I just stayed there and enjoyed the snuggle until I had to wake her up to take her to Awanas.

Picking up Kaylee from Awanas, it's not a good sign when you see your daughter walking towards you with a package of ice held to her head. I didn't think much of it, until she moved the ice and I saw a no-kidding goose egg on her forehead. She and a new boy both dove for a bean bag at the same time, and smacked heads together. You KNOW that hurts. It's actually a pretty good-sized swollen goose-egg, poor kid. She didn't lose consciousness, and when we got home I checked her pupils and all seemed well. She was sleepy, but she was sleepy from the time I woke her up to go in the first place. We're going to wake her up a few times tonight to make sure she's doing okay, and I'm sure she's fine, but it's actually a big enough bonk that we're going to keep an eye on her tonight. She's going to have a doozy of a bruise there.

She tried to get out of school tomorrow because of her bruise. You can't blame a girl for trying. ;)