For the Birds

Kaylee got back around midnight last night, had a great time, was a good kid, and tired.  She needed a little extra snuggling, and ended up falling asleep and staying in bed with me last night, which hasn't happened in ages, and I woke up at some point and decided not to kick her out.  ;)  When we got up this morning, she finished packing for camp, and took such a long hot shower that the rest of us had to wait for our hot water heater to catch back up.  Bugger!

We left the house around 1:30, met up with the Magnificent Miss M, loaded up the girls in the 340, and headed to Ohio to drop them off at camp together.  There was about a 45 minute drive from the airport to the camp, a drive which, for once, we did not get lost on the back roads.  ;)  I checked in the girls, and several of the counselors there recognized and remembered Kaylee.  She was so excited to see some of them, and they all lit up and welcomed her back.  That's a pretty good feeling to a kid, to be remembered by older teens/adults, even though they deal with a lot of kids each year.  She and M got the newly built cabin that still smells of fresh wood, and they picked top bunks next to each other, and settled in.  This is Kaylee's first year in the 7-12th grade camp, so when we first got there, she looked around and leaned in and whispered to me that she was wondering why there were so many old kids and teenagers there, and then it occurred to her that she wasn't in the elementary camp any more.  I'm a little more leery of this age group than I am the 3-6th graders.  These girls range from Kaylee's age to graduating from high school, and right now that's a BIG difference. In maturity, in knowledge, in experience, in everything.  So that's really the only thing that gives me any hesitation about her camp experience this year.  You know sometimes older girls can be less friendly or helpful, particularly when you have cabin contests and such, where the outcome will affect them, if they feel handicapped by younger kids.  But surely all the cabins are divided up well with diverse age groups in each, and the girls have each other, too.  But it's also a good camp with excellent counselors, so I trust they will take good care of the girls.  I took a picture of them next to the bunks, and then Steve and I left them there to their own devices.  Kaylee way over-packed as usual, but that's her, she would rather have way too much than not have anything she just might think about needing.  :) These guys are goofballs...

When Steve and I went to leave, we wanted to get some food.  Our favorite restaurant down there was closed, so I pulled up my phone and asked for nearby restaurants.  We went past about three of them...all closed.  Mansfield stinks on Sundays!  We even went to one where Steve ended up locking the doors as we went cruising by an area that was looking pretty rough with a large group of folks sitting around outside looking pretty rough. We finally gave up on finding an open restaurant other than McDonalds or Wendys.  Seriously.  Even the Subway was closed!!  So once I got back into an area where I could actually get cellular coverage (Did I mention Mansfield kind of stinks?!)  I pulled up the weather for our trip home, and found a SIGMET for thunderstorms and a lot of unpleasant looking things between here and there.  I looped the radar and watched it for a minute and decided we could make it in, if we hurried before the mid area blew up too much worse.  We hopped in the airplane, and started bugging out of there.

Ironically, as I was rolling down the runway in the 340, I lifted the nose to rotate, and a bird flew into my left prop.  He was just a little thing, posed no harm to anything but himself, but he did leave a mess on the airplane.  My windshield has some little splatters, and down the side of the airplane were some bigger messes.  Yuck.  One more bird kill and I'm a Bird Ace.  We almost got another bird on final coming in to Kokomo, but I think we missed that one. I'm starting to think they are aiming at me now.  ;)

The weather for the trip home...we stayed really low.  With all the build ups, we couldn't get above them, and we definitely wanted to be out of the clouds, keep a visual on everything, so we came home at 6000' then descended to 4000' to stay out of it.  We had a clear area to the north to go to if need be, but at one point it actually started closing in to the north of us too before it opened back up. There were a lot of tall buildups that hadn't developed into something that showed up on radar yet, but you still wouldn't want to fly through them.  There was a time in there I was monitoring the north and considering other options, but per the on-board radar, NEXRAD (and eyeballs), I worked around it and came in on the back side of a line.  I'd called it that the line that was at Kokomo when we left Ohio was dissipating fast enough that by the time we got there we should be fine, at the same time that the line in between us was building, so I was glad that Mother Nature cooperated with that one and didn't make us execute Plan C.

When we got back to Kokomo, I wiped off dead bird goo, and it was gross.  Steve and Justin did too.  I have a trip at 7 a.m., and I don't think the boss would like to go out to the airplane and find bird blood and guts all over.  So we took care of that, and then Steve and I went out for that dinner we couldn't find in Ohio, before coming home and getting ready for tomorrow.  Emails, flight plans, looking at the weather, again, planning, making a couple calls, yadda yadda.  Now it's coming up on 11:30 pm and I have to be up at 5 a.m. for a busy day with more thunderstorm dodging possible to likely.  Guess I'd better get some sleep.  Meanwhile, I hope Kaylee's asleep and having a great time.  :)