The original plan for the day was that I drop Kaylee off at school, go out to Kokomo, and fly a gentleman back to Indianapolis International Airport so he could catch an airline flight home. That IS what happened, it just happened by dark instead of by lunch, is all. :) I brought Subway sandwiches out to the hangar for everyone (shoot, I left my leftovers out there!) for lunch, and the guys tore apart an airplane while Steve worked on setting up a printer and working the phone with several computer problems he ran into today.
Many thanks to Jon, Chuck and Steve C. for moving around all the airplanes in the big hangar so that when Steve C. and I got back tonight we didn't have to move around all that by ourselves, in the dark and cold and wind! I moved both Corvettes out of the big hangar and over to the maintenance hangar and managed not to hit anything, which was a bonus. ;)
Finally around 4:30 p.m. it was time to load up and head to Indy. Our visitor, an ATP and regional airline pilot, was my right-seater for the trip, and Steve C. hopped in the back just for the fun of taking a little plane into and out of Indy. The only item of interest for the flight was that Indy seemed to have trouble knowing I was out there. It took me four radio calls to Approach for them to acknowledge me, and then once they lined me up on the ILS for 23R, they forgot about me. Finally on a 3-mile final I asked approach if they'd like me to contact tower (being cleared to land would be nice before I actually touch down). They came back fast with a "go to tower, thank you", basically acknowledging their error. I went to tower who cleared me to land post haste, while I'm on short final. We had to stop and get gas or pay the landing fee, and by the time Steve C. and I left there, the sun had gone down, it was just dusk, and the lights were all up all over the airport and the city. It was quite pretty. I'd have taken some photos but I didn't have my camera up there, and I thought of my cell phone while I was on takeoff roll, and it was a little busy for awhile there for that...
When you land at Indy, you have to pay a "Ramp Fee" just for showing up. Their ramp fee there is $70, or you have to buy 30 gallons of gas. Their fuel was $2 more/gallon than ours at Kokomo. So I (well, Nathan) spent $180 on gas, which cost us $60 more than it would at our home drone, in order to avoid the $70 ramp fee for which you'd get no gas and no perceivable benefit at all. I saved a whopping $10 by spending $180...but at least I got gas out of it. And a cookie. I ate a $60 Otis Spunkmeyer chocolate chip cookie that I wasn't even hungry for, and Steve C. got a cup of coffee, so I guess that made my cookie $30 and his coffee $30 each. Ah, the value. ;)
I had promised Kaylee that I'd take her to see "Tangled" at the theater tonight if I made it back in time. The movie started at 7 p.m., and I was tearing my way home at 6:15 p.m. I roll in the door, and the lights are off in the house. :O Kaylee and Steve were out working on a computer job, but they made it home just in time for Kaylee to change her shirt and run out the door with me. I got my dinner (popcorn), and we sat and enjoyed the movie. We had a great time, really enjoyed the movie, and it was a fun mom/daughter outing. As we left the theater, it had started raining, and as we were running as fast as we could to the car, rain pouring down on us, she was laughing so hard I was afraid she was going to fall and hurt herself. I love her laugh. :)
Of course we got home after 9 p.m. and still had math homework to do, and that wasn't nearly as warm and fuzzy...
Tomorrow is supposed to be icky weather and a busy day anyway. I'll probably have to do a cross-country tomorrow IFR, which right now does not sound nearly as appealing as it should, but maybe after a good night's sleep it'll sound better. Guess I'd better hurry up and get in bed if I plan on getting more than 6 hours of sleep here. *sigh*
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