This morning it was a quick run to Aurora, IL and back to drop off the 340. It was IFR and a little rainy. Dustin flew the 340 over, and I took the Aerostar and Steve C to pick him up. I got to shoot the RNAV 33 into Aurora, and I hand flew that to keep up on the practice. On the way home, it was IFR the whole way, and I shot the RNAV 5 into Kokomo, down to about 500' and 1.5 miles vis, letting the autopilot do that one so I could remember how to hit the buttons, too. It was good practice. I offered to let Steve fly on the way over (he said no), but I didn't offer to let Dustin fly home. He flies left seat in the best (worst) weather all the time while I just monitor from the right seat. Today I wanted to do the flying and he could monitor. ;)
We made it to lunch just 10 minutes late, and then I went to the store to pick up a few things for Ann, and the BMV to transfer the Buick into our names and get new plates for it. Our plates expired today. I go in there and they didn't like all my paperwork, so sent me home. I made it home, got the new thing filled out and signed, and got back to them before they closed at 5 pm, so I would have legal official plates again before tomorrow. Whew.
Kaylee was out late last night. She texted me that she was going to be with friends until pretty late. When 11:30 pm came, I texted her "remember that tomorrow is a school day". She texted back with "Austin gets his leg cut off tomorrow so some of us are hanging out with him at his house tonight for a last night." Austin is the young man with bone cancer. He got his leg below the knee amputated this afternoon. So last night the Encore kids hung out with him, signed his leg, offered support, etc. Kaylee didn't get home until 1 am, but it was a good cause. She was back up at 6:30 this morning to go to school. She's a very tired girl. Austin's surgery went well, and he's recovering now.
Kaylee also talked to the Discipleship Training School folks, and she's very excited about doing it. They answered all her questions to her (and our) satisfaction. She's super pumped about it, and will almost certainly be going to Oregon for 6 months after graduation.
Guess that catches you up on our family life for the day. No pretty pictures from today--it was gloomy gus all day. :)
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Travel Tuesday
Five a.m. is when the alarm went off. I haven't been getting up early, haven't had to, so that was a little bit of a shock. Today we were going to Parkersburg, West Virginia. Funny thing about that. Originally I thought Dustin's email said we we were going to KPKB, which is WV. I was good with that--it's warmer down there, right? Then I looked at the email later, and it said KPKD, which is the northern tip of Minnesota. That's not so good. That's up by Canada, man. Later still I looked one more time at the email, to see that he'd written one PKB in the subject and PKD in the body of the email, so I wasn't the only one confused. I shot him a message and asked him which it was, if I needed Long Johns or not. The answer was not. West Virginia, it was.
The stars were still out bright when we left, and the sun wasn't even up over the horizon yet by the time we landed in WV. That's just wrong. But it was pretty. It was a quiet flight. Warm. It was like a Spring day down there in West Virginia, and it was nice. Coming in to land, there was fog off one end of the runway, and the rest of the area was clear. Fortunately the end we needed to land on was the clear end. ;) I was too busy to take a picture though, unfortunately.
I had lunch at a restaurant right there on the field. They do home grown food, and I had potato soup and grilled cheese. Good stuff.
While I was there, a mom came in wearing a shirt that says "The Best Moms Raise Pilots", and her 16 year old son who is taking flight lessons there. After the boy left with his instructor to go fly, the Mom started talking to me. Asked if I flew, and then was telling me how this was her only son and she usually has to take a "nerve pill" by the time he takes off, and she doesn't want him to fly and she's terrified of him flying, but she's letting him do it anyway, but he and his dad don't tell her the truth on things, like they told her the instructor would be with him on his "First Solo" but just wouldn't touch anything, and she found out that wasn't true, and...so forth. So I spent about an hour trying to answer her questions and hopefully ease some of her fears about her son's flying. Because he told her when he was 8 that he had to be a pilot, and that he wanted to fly for Fed Ex. He learned what plane he'd be doing his lessons in, and memorized most of the stuff about it, before his first lesson. When he was 14. He's known what he wants since he was a young child, and he's going after it. I sort of wish I could follow up with him and them and see how he's doing. I think it's pretty cool.
Kaylee was accepted into Indiana University Kokomo. She joked that she's been accepted into 100% of the colleges she's applied to. She is still looking to start in Oregon at the Discipleship Training School for six months, then on to college. For now. We have a lot of stuff to do and plan before she graduates.
Soon we hit "Turn the clocks back an hour" time. It will then be dark around 5 pm. I feel such awful desperation when this time of year comes around. Like I have to strap in and hang on for a few months here. *sigh*
Photos:
The stars were still out bright when we left, and the sun wasn't even up over the horizon yet by the time we landed in WV. That's just wrong. But it was pretty. It was a quiet flight. Warm. It was like a Spring day down there in West Virginia, and it was nice. Coming in to land, there was fog off one end of the runway, and the rest of the area was clear. Fortunately the end we needed to land on was the clear end. ;) I was too busy to take a picture though, unfortunately.
I had lunch at a restaurant right there on the field. They do home grown food, and I had potato soup and grilled cheese. Good stuff.
While I was there, a mom came in wearing a shirt that says "The Best Moms Raise Pilots", and her 16 year old son who is taking flight lessons there. After the boy left with his instructor to go fly, the Mom started talking to me. Asked if I flew, and then was telling me how this was her only son and she usually has to take a "nerve pill" by the time he takes off, and she doesn't want him to fly and she's terrified of him flying, but she's letting him do it anyway, but he and his dad don't tell her the truth on things, like they told her the instructor would be with him on his "First Solo" but just wouldn't touch anything, and she found out that wasn't true, and...so forth. So I spent about an hour trying to answer her questions and hopefully ease some of her fears about her son's flying. Because he told her when he was 8 that he had to be a pilot, and that he wanted to fly for Fed Ex. He learned what plane he'd be doing his lessons in, and memorized most of the stuff about it, before his first lesson. When he was 14. He's known what he wants since he was a young child, and he's going after it. I sort of wish I could follow up with him and them and see how he's doing. I think it's pretty cool.
Kaylee was accepted into Indiana University Kokomo. She joked that she's been accepted into 100% of the colleges she's applied to. She is still looking to start in Oregon at the Discipleship Training School for six months, then on to college. For now. We have a lot of stuff to do and plan before she graduates.
Soon we hit "Turn the clocks back an hour" time. It will then be dark around 5 pm. I feel such awful desperation when this time of year comes around. Like I have to strap in and hang on for a few months here. *sigh*
Photos:
The crack of dawn
The next two are a little bit of fog near the airport
I couldn't decide if I liked horizontal or vertical better.
We are at the airport, on the ground, before the sun was even up. Wrong.
There's the sun, finally, in Parkersburg, WV
A few of the airplanes on the ramp today.
The next four are of the 340 on the ramp in Ohio. I didn't edit the photos. They are as is, no filter. Amazing.
Monday, October 29, 2018
Accomplishing Much on Monday
Steve has been working on his CFI renewal. He started last night, and finished up tonight. So he's got his certificate printed off, and has completed that task. He'd given himself a few days to do it, so he's feeling pretty good about having tomorrow of to do other things he needs to catch up on now. He also got the lawn mowed and some other things done, so he's feeling pretty good about the day.
Kaylee had to dress up for Encore tonight, Halloween practice. They all had to come in costume, and dance. Kaylee dressed up as Mary Poppins, and she was adorable. I did not get a good photo of her. There is too much clutter behind her. But she won the costume contest for tonight, and won a ceramic pumpkin, which she promptly dropped and broke. Steve will try to glue it back together sometime. She's currently working on a large paper, and keeps asking me words to use and sentence structure stuff. She's already a good writer. :)
I cleaned up my paperwork pile. Banking done. Post office runs made. Lunch with friends. Paperwork filed for SMA. Emails done. Questions answered. A few things organized. A very good day for me.
I only took one flight. I was pacing around the living room, and Steve asked if I was twitchy. Kind of, yes. So I asked Siri what time the sun set. A couple hours later, when I told Steve I was going out to fly the Cub, Steve said he was "shocked". ;) The sky was blue, the winds were light, and it's the only day within about a week that will likely be good enough for that. It was chilly, and the trees haven't fully started changing yet. They've just begun. So it wasn't ideal, and if I'm lucky I'll get to go back up one more time on a sunny day before all the leaves have turned brown and fallen or been blown off. I still enjoyed the flight. When I landed, the sun was down, the runway lights were up, and it was a pretty evening. Cold with the door open, but pretty.
Now I have to try to get to sleep so that I can be up by 5 am. :o
Kaylee had to dress up for Encore tonight, Halloween practice. They all had to come in costume, and dance. Kaylee dressed up as Mary Poppins, and she was adorable. I did not get a good photo of her. There is too much clutter behind her. But she won the costume contest for tonight, and won a ceramic pumpkin, which she promptly dropped and broke. Steve will try to glue it back together sometime. She's currently working on a large paper, and keeps asking me words to use and sentence structure stuff. She's already a good writer. :)
I cleaned up my paperwork pile. Banking done. Post office runs made. Lunch with friends. Paperwork filed for SMA. Emails done. Questions answered. A few things organized. A very good day for me.
I only took one flight. I was pacing around the living room, and Steve asked if I was twitchy. Kind of, yes. So I asked Siri what time the sun set. A couple hours later, when I told Steve I was going out to fly the Cub, Steve said he was "shocked". ;) The sky was blue, the winds were light, and it's the only day within about a week that will likely be good enough for that. It was chilly, and the trees haven't fully started changing yet. They've just begun. So it wasn't ideal, and if I'm lucky I'll get to go back up one more time on a sunny day before all the leaves have turned brown and fallen or been blown off. I still enjoyed the flight. When I landed, the sun was down, the runway lights were up, and it was a pretty evening. Cold with the door open, but pretty.
Now I have to try to get to sleep so that I can be up by 5 am. :o
A blurry shot of Glenndale
Chuck & Judy's house
Glenndale
The City of Kokomo
Kokomo Resevoir
Morning Star Church from the air.
Sunset in the Cub
Kokomo Runway
Runway 23
The Cub with a new set of removable chocks. So lightweight and easy to use!
Kaylee as Mary Poppins. She also had a red umbrella and flowers on her hat.
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Chicago Area II
Today wasn't a very nice weather day, but it was at least good enough. Nathan and I took off in Gumby, and it was IFR most of the way up to Waukegan. Did the ILS 23 into there, and it was windy. Picked up Tre, got gas, and it was IFR all the way home. Nothing to look at but rain and white out the windows. :) Broke out before we got to Kokomo but did the ILS 23 there anyway, and had winds gusting to 35 knots, at a 60 degree crosswind, which made for a 30 knot crosswind component landing. We were laughing coming down final because something is wrong with us, but it was entertaining. Nathan made a nice landing out of it. ;)
Kaylee is working on a paper about organ donation, Steve is doing things around the house, I am trying not to take a nap and mess up my sleep schedule any more.
Kaylee is working on a paper about organ donation, Steve is doing things around the house, I am trying not to take a nap and mess up my sleep schedule any more.
Nathan's Aerostar Umbrella standing in front of the Aerostar
I couldn't decide how I liked it better, this or the next one. We were about to poof into that smooth looking cloud deck.
And the clouds were crawling up the windshield
The last view outside we had, briefly, the lake shore.
Kokomo's windsock.
Saturday, October 27, 2018
Weekend Update
Friday Nathan and I flew Tre to the Chicago area to visit her son and grandkids. We picked up some sloppy rain that would have been ice a little higher, had an easy RNAV into the airport there, and were routed all over creation because Grissom's radar is down, so they put us on VORs all the way there, starting with Lafayette which is out of the way. It was a nice flight.
When I got back, I was home for a little while, and then I drove Kaylee over to Greentown, picked up two of her friends, and then drove us down to Noblesville to watch "Mary Poppins". It was opening night, and it was a good production. It was held in a huge church down there, and the seats were pretty full. Mary Poppins was very Julie Andrews-like, in voice, appearance, actions, attitude, singing, and the whole ball of wax. She did great, and they had her fly across the room with her umbrella up and everything, three times. I took photos of her on one of them. Several of their musical pieces were very grand and very well done. Afterwards the girls wanted a photo with Mary Poppins but were too afraid to ask her. So I bullied them into it, and one of the girls thanked me later for pushing them to do it. :) We stopped at a "Freddie's" for a burger and some custard, and then I drove the girls home. Kaylee and I got home after midnight. It was a fun, enjoyable evening, and I'm really glad we were able to do that. I owe Mike M thanks for setting me up with a link for the tickets. :)
Saturday morning I met with a new student, a girl named Hannah, who has her own family C-150 that they're keeping parked on the ramp. It's paint is in super rough shape, it doesn't have a push to talk switch (hand mic) or an intercom system (battery operated intercom hooked up through the cigarette lighter), but it looked physically sound otherwise. I like her, but I can't believe I'm having to instruct in a C-150 again. *sigh*
Had an interaction today that annoyed me. I was in the maintenance hangar with my new female student. A man I didn't know walked in, looked around, hesitated. He said "Are you girls the only ones here?" I said "Yes, at the moment. Can I help you with something?" He said "I'm here to work on an airplane next door." I said "Oh, sure, BOB? I'll grab my keys and open up the hangar next door." He said "Great, thanks." On our way over, I say "I'm Laura Stants." He looked blank, so I said "I'm the IP for the Indiana CAF." (He is a new CAF member there to work on the CAF plane.) He says "OHH, yes." Then he stops, abruptly enough that I almost ran into him, and had his face very close to me, and said pretty aggressively "Are you any good at it??" I blinked a little and he said "Are you any good? Are you a good and safe pilot?" No smiles, no joking or anything. You know, I really wish I could have great comebacks at the time, and not an hour later. I'd like to have said something like "No, I stink" deadpan, or maybe "ME? You're the new guy. Are YOU any good at it?" Would you like to place any bets on whether or not he asked Nathan, or Dennis, or anyone else in the CAF that question when he was introduced to them? (No, of course not.) I joked it off at the time, because I've gotten good at that over the years. He's actually not the first person to ask me that. When it came up and I said I was coming up on 11,000 hours, he muttered "Well, you don't have THAT much more time than I do." In other words, I do have more time than he does. He's going to have to work with me to fly the PT and the Twin Beech. He doesn't have another CFI option to work with. I'll give him another chance to act like a normal person.
Tonight Steve, AE and I went to eat at a restaurant in Michigantown, called "The Angry Donkey". That's the actual name. We parked next to a 1950s Mercedes in spotless condition on one side, and a jacked up pickup truck with a giant American flag on the other side. 'Murica! The restaurant is now owned and being ran by two actual chefs, one of whom ran a restaurant in some major casino for awhile. The food is good, the atmosphere is nice, and it's in the middle of true nowhere. The food is presented like a 5 star restaurant food. Garnish and plate appeal and all. We had a good meal, enjoyed the evening. I brought home some bread pudding for Kaylee, and had some chocolate truffles and berries myself. Hard to beat.
When I got back, I was home for a little while, and then I drove Kaylee over to Greentown, picked up two of her friends, and then drove us down to Noblesville to watch "Mary Poppins". It was opening night, and it was a good production. It was held in a huge church down there, and the seats were pretty full. Mary Poppins was very Julie Andrews-like, in voice, appearance, actions, attitude, singing, and the whole ball of wax. She did great, and they had her fly across the room with her umbrella up and everything, three times. I took photos of her on one of them. Several of their musical pieces were very grand and very well done. Afterwards the girls wanted a photo with Mary Poppins but were too afraid to ask her. So I bullied them into it, and one of the girls thanked me later for pushing them to do it. :) We stopped at a "Freddie's" for a burger and some custard, and then I drove the girls home. Kaylee and I got home after midnight. It was a fun, enjoyable evening, and I'm really glad we were able to do that. I owe Mike M thanks for setting me up with a link for the tickets. :)
Saturday morning I met with a new student, a girl named Hannah, who has her own family C-150 that they're keeping parked on the ramp. It's paint is in super rough shape, it doesn't have a push to talk switch (hand mic) or an intercom system (battery operated intercom hooked up through the cigarette lighter), but it looked physically sound otherwise. I like her, but I can't believe I'm having to instruct in a C-150 again. *sigh*
Had an interaction today that annoyed me. I was in the maintenance hangar with my new female student. A man I didn't know walked in, looked around, hesitated. He said "Are you girls the only ones here?" I said "Yes, at the moment. Can I help you with something?" He said "I'm here to work on an airplane next door." I said "Oh, sure, BOB? I'll grab my keys and open up the hangar next door." He said "Great, thanks." On our way over, I say "I'm Laura Stants." He looked blank, so I said "I'm the IP for the Indiana CAF." (He is a new CAF member there to work on the CAF plane.) He says "OHH, yes." Then he stops, abruptly enough that I almost ran into him, and had his face very close to me, and said pretty aggressively "Are you any good at it??" I blinked a little and he said "Are you any good? Are you a good and safe pilot?" No smiles, no joking or anything. You know, I really wish I could have great comebacks at the time, and not an hour later. I'd like to have said something like "No, I stink" deadpan, or maybe "ME? You're the new guy. Are YOU any good at it?" Would you like to place any bets on whether or not he asked Nathan, or Dennis, or anyone else in the CAF that question when he was introduced to them? (No, of course not.) I joked it off at the time, because I've gotten good at that over the years. He's actually not the first person to ask me that. When it came up and I said I was coming up on 11,000 hours, he muttered "Well, you don't have THAT much more time than I do." In other words, I do have more time than he does. He's going to have to work with me to fly the PT and the Twin Beech. He doesn't have another CFI option to work with. I'll give him another chance to act like a normal person.
Tonight Steve, AE and I went to eat at a restaurant in Michigantown, called "The Angry Donkey". That's the actual name. We parked next to a 1950s Mercedes in spotless condition on one side, and a jacked up pickup truck with a giant American flag on the other side. 'Murica! The restaurant is now owned and being ran by two actual chefs, one of whom ran a restaurant in some major casino for awhile. The food is good, the atmosphere is nice, and it's in the middle of true nowhere. The food is presented like a 5 star restaurant food. Garnish and plate appeal and all. We had a good meal, enjoyed the evening. I brought home some bread pudding for Kaylee, and had some chocolate truffles and berries myself. Hard to beat.
Runway 23 visible in the mirror on the 172RG
The Tipton and Greentown singing groups singing together.
Kaylee's in the middle, of course.
These two are of Chicago, from over the lake.
Misty and murky
The screen...
A little of the set and crowd in front of us.
Mary flying back in.
That looks like so much fun. ;)
Kay, Mary, Caitlyn, Meredith. The other two girls hated this photo and said they looked terrible and refused to allow anyone to share it on Facebook. So I'm putting it here where they can't see it anyway. ;)
Our dinner location tonight.
The same three girls dressed up for Halloween. Why does Kaylee look less dorky in my helmet than I do? ;)
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