Two Pilots & an LSW: Getting Around for the Weekend

My cousin Kevin passed away last night, from Covid. He has kids. My poor uncle is trying to deal with the loss of his youngest son while his wife is down the rabbit hole with dementia and doesn't really get what's going on, which is probably a blessing for her, but not for him, having to go through this alone. My Aunt Peggy is currently in the hospital with it, with one lung white with pneumonia. She's a stubborn ole lady, stayed home sick for 11 days without telling anyone before she got so bad she knew she had to call an ambulance to take her in. I was that stubborn when I was about 19-21. In fact I had to be carried into an ER when I was 20 because I refused to go on my own, and when I got too weak to fight him, my friend physically picked me up and took me in his car. I had a raging fever, severe abdominal pain, couldn't move. I ended up dehydrated, with a UTI, a severe kidney infection, in fact the doctor said "Everything that can be infected up there is, young lady! You could have given yourself permanent damage--in fact, you could have died!" Man that was a seriously painful one. Anyway, so yes, I was that stubborn as a young person. I wouldn't be at 49, I promise.

Cathy and Lon were here to visit his mom, also with dementia, in a nursing home. While here, they stayed with Ann, so we had all of Saturday to ourselves. We went over Friday morning and Sunday afternoon and evening, but had Saturday. So what we did Saturday was...my flights canceled, so Steve, me, Nathan, Chuck and AE went to Greencastle, IN in the Aerostar to get lunch at the restaurant on field. It was really good food, a nice 20 minute flight with good company. When we got back, I ran home and read a Stephen King book, before meeting with Nathan, Steve and AE at Marble Steakhouse for a really smooth Malbec, excellent salmon, and creamy crème brulet. Mmmmm

Instead of my day off, I became Plan C on a rescue flight. A pilot named B wanted to fly the RG down to Lonesome Pine, Virginia for a camping weekend with his son. The weather didn't look good enough for his comfort level, so he hired Spencer to go with him, and fly the plane home afterwards. Spencer was supposed to go back and get him today, but the weather didn't look good enough for HIS comfort level today, so I got called in. With four of us plus camping gear, we needed a bigger plane than the RG. The Aerostar has poor on board weather, and I had a *lot* of weather. So I took the 340, which is fully equipped to handle about anything. The trip down, I let Spencer fly it, and we beat the worst of the weather. We left earlier than originally planned, and stayed east of the line, and had a nice, clear shot down. I got gas, and then we took off as quickly as possible to beat the worst of the weather home.

This was a little trickier. The wad had moved in the way. Originally I was going to come in behind it, and shoot a gap back into Kokomo. Just before I left, I took another look, and what was behind was building and becoming heavy and convective, while what was out front was milder. I still had a lot of reds and yellows in the way. So I picked Dayton as a waypoint to get around the worst of it, than came in on top of it to head back towards Kokomo. I picked up ice, I got some turbulence, and some rain, but all in all it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Heading into Kokomo, there was a bunch of red crap off the end of Runway 5 for quite a few miles, and it was aimed for the airport. I left the power in and raced the weather to Kokomo. The winds were down Runway 5, and it was IMC, so I had to shoot an approach, but I didn't HAVE a clear approach for Runway 5, so I took the tailwind and did vectors for the ILS 23. I didn't even want to do the RNAV, because it would take me too far out. So they gave me vectors and I came smoking down the approach until the very end. Slowed down after the Final Approach Fix, broke out, landed with the 9 knot tailwind, and was down and slow in the first half. Gotta like smaller twins on longer runways. :) It was raining pretty good. We pushed the plane in, I let Spencer do it so I didn't get wet. Because that's important to a princess like me. ;) Spencer enjoyed the trip, I think he learned a lot, and it was a good experience.

Kaylee came home tonight for awhile. She hung out, seemed okay, petted the cat, ate a pumpkin roll with us. After she left, about an hour later, she called me saying she wasn't feeling good, and was having trouble. I tried to talk to her for awhile, but when I hung up she wasn't feeling much better. She was supposed to go watch "Hunger Games" with her friends and didn't feel like it, didn't feel like not doing it, didn't feel like coming back home, just doesn't feel good.

I went over to Ann's at 7:15 because it was so dark outside, and she was already in 'bed', which for her is in her lazy boy in her living room. She'd taken out her partial at least, but I don't think she had pajamas on because her shoes were still on. I got her to take her last pill ("I already had that one earlier"), and then just shut the rest of the lights off and let her go to bed early. She'll probably wake up at 7 am after going this early. :)

I felt pretty good about today's successful flight. Other than the ending, it was a good day. So I'm going to go watch a little "Equalizer" and chill for a bit.