Arctic One

Last night after I posted, Steve went next door to help close up and such, and on his way back home, he wiped out on the ice in the driveway and went down hard.  He landed on his back, his head slammed down on the ice/gravel, and he hurt his head in two places, his leg, his arm and his hand.  When he came in, he was pretty bloody.  He almost passed out but managed not to, which is good, because it was super cold out there and I would have assumed he was inside next door for quite awhile.  He seems to be okay today, just sore.  I was worried about his head, because you could see it was a really hard hit back there.  He said he was concerned when it first happened, because the whole world was blurry.  Then he figured out that his glasses (and hat) had gone flying off his face/head when he hit the ground.  For a second there he was quite concerned though! I'm glad he seems to have gotten away from that wipe-out with nothing but some scrapes, bruises, and soreness. Could have been worse!

Kaylee spent the night in Greentown with a friend, and had a two-hour delay today, so Steve ran her backpack out to her school this morning, and she borrowed her friend's clothes for school today.  She drove home today and did all aright, and we had some good conversations about ice, and nasty winter driving.  Don't turn on your windshield wipers until you're sure they're not frozen to your windshield.  Go top off your car with gas.  Watch the brakes or abrupt steering on ice.  She did great.  She said Mrs. E had already checked in on the girls and asked them how much gas they had, and when Kaylee said "half tank", Mrs. E told her to go top off right now today anyway.  I'd texted her the same thing.  So all us old people were just looking out for the youngsters during this freaky freezing record.  :)

As the temps drop here, the schools already called it an "e-learning day" tomorrow.  No school at school due to the severe temps.  We're looking at -45F windchills, with record low actual temps around -17F.  Homeless people have places to hide out, and I'm honestly bothered by the wild cats out there.  Where can anything living go outside and still survive those temps?  We have angry kitty with the bent ear who always looks mad, and a blind kitty, who is super friendly, who both hang out in this neighborhood.  I haven't seen them in days, and I'm kinda worried about them.

It's literally warmer in Alaska and Antarctica than it is in Indiana.  That's just stupid crazy.  They're telling us not to let the temp drop at night, or it won't be able to get back up.  That in most houses the temps will fall to the mid/low 60s even though the heater is running non-stop, because the systems here aren't designed for sub-zero temps.  To set your heat up higher than normal before the cold kicks in so that when it falls it will stay warmer longer.  Yay.

I have an official "flight bag" for one of the first times.  It has way more pockets and zippers than I need, it's bigger than I need or want, really, and I feel a little bit like either a student pilot overcompensating or an airline pilot wannabe.  But it's a good bag, and if I do it right, I can just throw my wallet in there on trips and leave my purse behind, and just have one bag, plus it has a compartment for an emergency change of clothes and personal supplies.  I keep a "go" bag in the 340,  in case I get stranded somewhere, but now I can get rid of that bag and just carry this flight bag in whatever plane I'm in.  I always liked my smaller warbird bag better, but everything was just thrown into the bottom of it, basically. This has more compartments so I have it organized a little better, at least once I remember which of the 72 zippers has what behind it...