Steve woke me up at 1:41 a.m. with some kind of weird dream he was having, and then I never got back to sleep again. So...I got a couple hours of sleep last night. I finally just got up at 4 am, took my shower, and slowly got ready. Left the house around 6:15 am while it was still dark, and got the plane out and ready.
Dustin, Ted and I flew to Jacksonville, NC, fairly close to the water. It was 200' overcast all the way down there, at minimums, but rose to 400' when we got there, which was nice of it!
The airport had NOTAM'd out as not having fuel through today, the 14th. When I landed, I asked if that was still the case, and she said yes. And then charged me a $40 landing fee. I said "Is that landing fee waivable with fuel purchase?" She said yes, normally, but I can't get any fuel, but there's a NOTAM so I knew about it ahead of time, so they can still charge me $40. That's a buncha baloney. It was a bigger tower controlled field with airline service. So I took their courtesy car, and went 20 minutes away, and ate a grilled Mahi sandwich close to the water, and drove 20 minutes back, and didn't put fuel in it. Trying to get some of that $40 back. Had a cup of coffee and some mints, and then loaded up the plane and flew it away to an airport 10 minutes away. I was at 1 hour fuel remaining, my own minimums. The new place was a nice little airport, uncontrolled. And their fuel truck was broken down. But at least THEY had a self serve pump, and the guy behind the counter topped it off for me.
I was super tired but hadn't had a chance to try to nap yet. So I went to the pilot's lounge and laid down, and..."beeeep". Every 30 seconds or so, something beeped. I couldn't find it, couldn't stop it, I unplugged everything in there and the sound kept seeming to move. It was weird. So I ended up not sleeping.
I was supposed to fly with Larry in the T-6 when we got back at 6, except they didn't come back until 4:30 pm, which means I'd get back to Kokomo at 7:15 pm, which gave us 45 minutes of daylight. Not enough. So I had to cancel him. That ended up being for the best, because I was really wiped out by the time I got home. It wouldn't have been the best time to hit T-6 flying. I moved the 340 back to the ramp because our hangar is full, got a ride back to the car, came home, ate a bowl of cereal for dinner, and am sitting here on the couch in a daze waiting to get up the energy to go to bed.
At least the flights were easy, uneventful, smooth, and enjoyable. It's good to earn a day's pay, too.
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