Flawrida

We only ran 30 minutes late this morning, which really isn't bad considering 1) we were all up past 1 a.m., and 2) we had to get back up at 7 a.m. and weren't really ready to go by the time we went to bed.  But we were in the air by 9:30, and the plan had been 9, so...not bad.

Nathan had worked really hard to get the Aerostar ready to go by last night, which was really kind of him, and we had a nest back there for Kaylee.  The middle seats were out, so we laid a sleeping bag and several pillows back there.  She was buckled in for takeoff and landing per the regs, and then the rest of the flight laid back there in her nest and played games and music and even napped for awhile.  It was cute, and not a tough way to get to Florida by any stretch of the imagination.  In fact, we were 4 hours from start up to shut down.  You couldn't even drive to Indy Airport, arrive two hours early, park, go through security, get on a flight and get to Florida within 4 hours, particularly since most flights have stopovers now.   Not only that, but had we taken the 340, we would have only been a bit faster if we went way up high, we'd have burned 10 GPH more to do it, and we likely would have had to stop for fuel.  It would have been too close for my comfort on fuel unless we had a lot better tailwind than I saw.  As it was, in the Aerostar we were getting groundspeeds of 203-208 most of the way and had an hour and a half worth of fuel left over.  Nice, man.

Nathan had mounted the mini iPad on the yoke of the Aerostar, and it also has the Aero 560, the Garmin 530W and the Garmin 430. I had my iPad with me, and Steve had his Google Nexus too.  So we set them all up in the cockpit for awhile there.  We just weren't sure which way to go, so we kept breaking out the next device in order to be the tie-breaker.  I got a picture of that...

One thing was a little different about today.  We all felt the altitude.  I picked 9,000' even though 11,000' would have been better for winds because of, well, a few reasons, and it was good, because like I said, by the end of the flight we all felt the altitude.  I felt...dull.  Had a low grade headache, stumbled on a couple of radio calls.  Steve had the low grade headache too, and Kaylee was drowsy and slept even though she never sleeps in an airplane.  Part of it was also dehydration, I'm sure.  We were on a four hour non-stop flight, so we didn't drink more than a few mouthfulls of water before we left.  I brought water with me, and just take a swallow a couple times during the flight.  Nobody had a restroom emergency, though.  ;) It wasn't as bad as it sounds, just a low grade dull headache, just...noticeable enough that we commented on it.  But when we landed, had lunch, had a bunch of tea to rehydrate, and came back and rested for a bit, we finally bounced back.

Kaylee had a problem with her ears on descent though, and that wasn't good.  We were coming down at a normal descent rate, and suddenly she started crying and holding her head, she couldn't clear her ears, and it got so bad, her face twisted up in pain and almost screaming, that Steve leveled off right when I got on the radio and told center that we needed to stop our descent and go back up about 500' for an ear clearing problem.  They didn't blink about it, which was nice, just told me to do what I needed to do and to let them know when I could go back down to 3000'.  We got up the 500', and Kaylee's ears were manageable again.  I told them I'd come down but only at about 200 fpm if that was okay with them.  They said no problem, we came down extra slow, her ears finally popped, and she was able to get down okay.  Poor kid, she got her dad's ears.

It was a busy last five minutes.  I was talking to tower, and we had a bit of a crosswind and I was talking to Steve about the landing, and glancing over my shoulder monitoring Kaylee on her ears, and I about forgot to get the magic words ("Cleared to Land").  We pull up to the FBO, and the guy gives us this difficult park job, which would be tricky even if you had nosewheel steering.  Neither Steve nor I are smooth operators on the ground on that airplane yet, although I gotta say, I've got him beat and haven't been jerked around that much in an airplane on the ground in my life. It was awesome.  :D  But it was really ironic that the line guy expected these turns right and left and swing around and...yeah, right.  lol  He mostly got it done though by the end there, and Richard and Ann were waiting for us, and we had Arrived in Florida.  Where it's warm, and sunny.  Ahhhhh

We ate at a seafood place called Charlie's, which was great, and I sent pictures of our food to Ty so he could pass it on to his significant other so that she'd get jealous and "make" him go back down to Florida and let them get some good food too.  He's got a plan-he just needs it to be her idea.  See how that works??  ;)

Richard & Ann's trailer looks wonderful-they've been remodeling it and working on it a lot.  It has a lovely sunroom, you can sit out and look at the woods with the air conditioning on and just relax, surrounded by windows.  I told her I could stay out there, read a book, sip an iced tea, listen to some music, and feel like I was enjoying nature in all its finest.

We are staying in a lovely apartment on the grounds of the retirement community. Everyone took such care to make sure it was clean and comfortable and ready, and it's a great place to be able to stay for a few days. There was a handwritten note on our door that said "Welcome to the neighborhood!"

I had an SMA Support purchase that somebody told me they needed done asap--on Good Friday afternoon right when I'm going to be gone for the next week. I was gone all day anyway, it was too late then, so I told them I'd call in the credit card the next day. So I call it in today when I get a chance--and it's not working. It won't go through. I don't know why, the account is just fine, they got all the numbers right. So now I get to wait until Monday and then call my bank and hopefully figure out what the deal is and then call the guy back and make the purchase. Urgh. That's embarrassing, along with not being very relaxing on vacation. The bank has done something to another one of my accounts too. I'm not very happy with them at the moment.

It's only 11 pm, but it feels to me more like 1 a.m. I wasn't feeling well at all for a little while there this evening, but if I can keep Kaylee's sniffling from keeping me up all night, we'll all get some sleep and be good to go tomorrow. It's good to be here. :)