This morning Nathan and I had a nice flight over to Ohio and back. Quiet, VFR, easy. I like easy. We made it back just in time to eat, after which I went out to Glenndale with the intent to pick up the last few time sheets. While I was out there, and the sky was blue, and the grass was green, and the temps were in the 80s, and the winds were calm, and little dandelions poked their heads at me, well, the Citabria needed gas from Kokomo, and I needed to go to Sheridan anyway, so...
And while I'm at it, and we don't have to worry about picking Kaylee up from school, why not throw Steve in there and let him get tailwheel current, right?
Open windows + long hair = Cousin It.
Not that I'm complaining...
From Glenndale we went out to Kokomo. Steve had a lesson with a guy, and I was going to run up the Mustang. Unfortunately, for the next couple of hours, nothing went right. The 340 tug broke earlier that day, and the guys got it fixed, but just about every time I start that, it kicks back, hard, once. Sometimes I get lucky and it just rips out of my hand, but other times a part of the handle slams into my hand. Which hurts. Today it got the bone on my middle finger down by the knuckle, and it's bruised again. I try to find a different way to hold the handle so when it kicks it won't get me, but when I do that, I can't hang on to it strongly enough to pull it hard enough to start it in the first place. If I don't get it started within the first few pulls, it kicks me. Doggone thing. Anyway, so Steve gets the 340 pulled out, and goes to move the Cheyenne before his lesson, and now THAT tug is broken. Right when we're deciding what to do, if anything, his guy calls over and has a big problem--fuel is pouring out of his sump, and he can't stop it. We run over with a fuel can, bucket, another bucket and the tubing to syphon out the remaining fuel from the tank before it all ends up all over the ramp, and spent the next bit of time running around working on that. The guy's car has 100LL in it now, as does our tug, and a can, and wherever else we could put the fuel from his tank. I ended up having to hose down and squeegee out part of one of the hangars, too, for something else. It was all just a mess. Then the flight was canceled (obviously), so they were going to move the plane to a hangar because of the storms coming through tonight. Now the battery was dead. The golf cart wasn't a good option to try to jump start it. The Jeep didn't quite cut it. So we all gave up, he just hooked up a charger, and Steve and I decided to forget it, put everything back away, and go out to eat. When something pushes that hard, it's time to give it up and go do something else. ;) So we enjoyed Red Lobster and made it home almost 12 hours after we left the house this morning.
Kaylee called for the first time tonight-said her phone had died and isn't charging properly. She was telling stories about boogie boards and sand bars and diving into waves, how she may get to go parasailing and how her turtle won't eat but he's adorable and cuddles with her, she burnt the tops of her hands and the backs of her legs but is doing okay otherwise keeping up on sunscreen. She's swimming a bunch, eating a lot, looking for shells and starfish and turtles, digging in the sand, getting pranked by one of the older boy jumping out of the shower with a scary mask when she walked into the bathroom, and generally having herself a ball. And she still has three more days to go. :)
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