Steve and I flew down to Tennessee on New Year's Eve. This time he had arranged for a rental car from Enterprise to be there for us, so Lon or Cathy wouldn't have to make yet another 2 hour round trip drive to come get us, and take us back...what would have been the third and fourth such trips for them. Steve arranged a hangar for the Aerostar, and a rental car, and a top off, and somebody to be there to put it away on NY Eve and someone to pull it out for us on New Year's Day. All good. We land in TN after dark, and guess what's not there? A rental car. Guess who is now closed? Enterprise. They goofed. He tried Uber, and at first it said okay, then when the credit card transaction went through, it came back and canceled and said there were no cars in the area. There's a Lyft around there. They also had no cars available. It's New Year's Eve, by the way. Not cool. The airport manager half-heartedly said we could take his car, but that wouldn't work so well overnight. Finally he thought of a guy in a van, called him up, and the guy agreed to do it. He shows up, shaved head, covered in tattoos, my favorite the flaming skull, in a sketchy van that smelled like stale cigarettes and looked kept together with bailing wire and duct tape, and I've rarely been quite so happy to see someone. ;) We were just grateful for the ride, and he was very helpful and friendly. Crisis averted, and we made it to the Cherry house, finally, much later than anticipated, but finally.
We stayed up to bring in the new year. It was good to see everyone we got to visit with this Christmas/New Year. Kaylee had a good time with her cousins, we ate too well as always, and it was a nice way to ring out the old and ring in the new.
I played with my new camera and some settings, taking the same photo with my cellphone and my Nikon. I still need to figure a few things out on it, but I love the quality.
On the ground in Tennessee, the heater failed. It was 20 degrees down there, which is bad enough, but at sub freezing temps at altitude and at home, not having a heater was a real issue. Thankfully after letting it sit and letting the plane warm up some more, the next time I kicked on the heater it stayed lit. I was grateful, because it's a combustion heater. If it kicked off and lit up a warning light again, I wasn't going to be able to risk lighting it again. So we can thank the heavens it fired up and ran properly that second time. That would have been a long, frosty 2 hours home. We had two blankets in the plane with us, but it wouldn't have been enough at those temps.
All else was uneventful. Steve and I had a plan. When we landed at Kokomo, I'd leave it running with the heat on until everyone got their coats on and stuff gathered. Shut down the heater and let it run on the fan for a couple minutes, and then hop out, run Kaylee and Ann to the smaller heated hangar, while we remote started the Explorer and I hopped in the 340 to get the remote for the big hangar door, and let it up. I tugged the plane in while Steve loaded bags, and then we all huddled in the maint hangar to let the car warm up a little more. Minimal exposure to the cold, but hours later my hands still ache. Those temps are just brutal.
I took quite a few photos, like 80, many airplane/testing of my camera photos, but here are a few, anyway. They are out of order because some are from my cellphone, some from my camera, and a couple from Cathy's camera, so they didn't load in order. Enjoy anyway. ;)
The girls working on a Nancy Drew mystery on the computer. I didn't intend for the photo to be black and white, but I kind of like it that way anyway.
One of Cathy's trees in the house.
The main tree
Tree and fireplace
Family
Ann opening a gift.
Kaylee trying to hide.
Look at Alonna back there. Lol
Happy girls.
This was Kaylee's gift to Rania, for college.
Kaylee and Grandma
Aunt Cathy and Uncle Lon
Grandma and most of the grandkids. :)
Sunset on the way home tonight.
These two are taken with my Nikon
On the way down to TN the first time.
Cold and Brrr.
Kaylee with Patches
Kaylee and Rania eating "Dragon Cereal". Fruit flash frozen with chemicals that probably aren't great for you. Rania looks concerned. ;)
The three out and about
Steve with Patches. Patches is sort of unfriendly, so it's amusing she was on people.
My pretty new Nikon. :)
Kay and Patches again.
Balmy 20 degrees on the ramp in TN
I took this with my cellphone. If you blow up this one vs the one with the Nikon, you can definitely tell the difference. At least the non-blogger version of them. The clarity difference is amazing...
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