Two Pilots & an LSW: Acceleration

Things are moving along!

Cathy and Ann are working on Kaylee's boards. I have more photos to print out but I'm done for today, I'm pooped. I didn't sleep well for no good reason last night, and had to get up at 6 am to go to Maryland, the Washington DC area. There was some weather out there, and in the Aerostar you can't get above it, so I spent some time dodging build-ups, but it wasn't bad. The timing worked out perfectly, so one big wad rolled through and then we landed, while another big wad was off in the distance. When I got on the ground there, I had to top off the plane. It's self-serve only, and the pump is on a very small ramp. I pulled up as close as I could, and went to fill up, but the hose would only reach one side. So I filled up the center tank and one side, and then had to start up and taxi all around and come back in and face it the other way to get the other wing. Then I had to start up and taxi around and try to get out of the way on the small ramp so other planes could fuel up if needed. It's hot and muggy over there, so I'm sweating pretty well. I go inside to pay for the fuel, and am informed that there's a $100 landing fee. I'm like....WHAT!? I said "For a piston twin??" She said "Yes, anything over 4000 lbs." I said "Well, it is over 4000 lbs. But the 76 gallons of fuel I bought doesn't waive the fee?" She said "No, you have to buy 100 gallons of Jet A." Now I'm speechless. 1) That is outrageous. Even Huge Class B airports don't require 100 gallons of fuel from piston twins. and 2) That is outrageous. I can't even BUY Jet A. I burn 100LL. 3) That is outrageous. Nobody else, anywhere else that I have flown into has that kind of landing fee for piston twins other than like Chicago, and even they waive the fee with like 30 gallons of fuel. I've never, ever seen such a huge fee out of some nowhere airport with a short runway at an uncontrolled field with no courtesy car, no fuel truck, and no good reason to charge me $100. Well, not me. MBros. They seemed to take it in stride. I'm not. I think that's nuts. I said I wanted to speak to somebody about it, but nobody else was around but the line girl who has nothing to do with the rules. I still think I'm going to talk to somebody. That's just wrong.

Anyway. While I was there, I pulled out my laptop, got into their wifi, and systematically worked on pictures. I found all the travel ones, from Florida, Puerto Rico, New York, and her two overseas trips, chose the ones I thought she'd like, and I sent them all to Walgreens to be printed up in three separate batches so I could keep them straight. It took the whole time I was on the ground, to do. I sent the last batch off to Walgreens while the guys waited a minute for me. When I got back, I picked them up, Kaylee went through them and chose the ones she wanted on her boards, and took them next door for the next level of management to take over. We are SO grateful for the help, too. I still have her music pictures to go through and collect and print. I'll try to do that tomorrow too.

The trip home was more interesting. We were IFR for a lot of it, and there were a lot of buildups happening. It was rough, bumpy, and hot. Fortunately nobody threw up. There was a big ole cell right over Kokomo, with a lot more big uglies building all around. There was a hole right in the path to Kokomo, but that hole was in between a whole line of storms. So I went the long way, all the way around the cell to the south, rather than try to hit the hole. Some days you can safely do holes, other days you look up at what's around the hole and you think....nah. This was a "nah" hole. lol

When I landed, I made the run to Walgreens, stopped at Five Guys for the only real food I'd had today other than a muffin at the airport out there, came home, and kept plowing out stuff. I did three loads of laundry, two loads of dishes, fed the cats, asked Kaylee what picture she wanted to use for some stuff and then sent those off to Walgreens to be printed and sent it off to another printer for her thank you cards. I reviewed, signed and submitted my student's application for his checkride tomorrow for Private Pilot. I set up an "Event" on Facebook for Kaylee's open house. I downloaded an app I may need to be able to get ADS-B weather on my iPad in the Aerostar. (An app that requires a username and password from something or other). That doesn't seem right, another app, you should just be able to get it on ForeFlight and I don't get why it's connecting fine but not weather and traffic, just flight plans. Frustrating--I've never been able to get good weather in that airplane, and on longer range trips you need it on more than the little avidyne screen that you can't see when it's zoomed 200 miles away. Now I finally have ForeFlight, and it's still not working in there. Grump. I'm sure it's my own user error, but still, they're apparently making it a little extra complicated or something. It just pops up automatically in the Cheyenne and the 340--with Garmin products. :p

What else did I do today. I got a new case for my iPhone, broke my sunglasses and bought new ones, I talked to the people delivering the adult sized tricycles for the Spring Fling and have that almost completely set up, plus I got 1 out of the 2 cake places totally ready. She said she couldn't wait until I saw the finished product. Now I have to figure out the sheet cake, and then I'll be done with that. I've talked to students, helped the guy with the checkride straighten out his logbook and his form, and I'm losing track of what else. In other words, I was a very busy girl today.

It rained like crazy today. Cell after cell rolled through. Our yard flooded, which it doesn't do much. I'm glad we got home from our trip when we did.

Anyway, I'm fading, so here are some recent photos.