Stuff

As I said on Facebook, this time of year I feel the clock speeding up, ticking louder at me at all the things I want or need to get done in airplanes that won't be getting done over the Winter.  After all, if there's one way to make me want to do something, it's by telling me or me knowing that I can't.  We've probably got less than two months of decent weather left, and miles to go before we put away the fun things.  I feel almost desperate to do things and store it up somehow.

I had felt like taking up the T-6 and doing some aerobatics, but Spencer had parked his truck in front of the hangar door before he left for awhile, so I couldn't get the plane out.  So instead I took up the much less fuel burn option, going over to Glenndale, doing some one, two, and three wheel landings, engine out stuff, slips to landing, just messing around.  Michelle texted me a hello from Glenndale, John R. texted and asked if I was just messing around, Spencer said "Couldn't help yourself, could you", and Dave J posted that he was impressed by my 3 minute patterns.  Haha, usually I'm alone when I go do that, but today I had more of an audience than expected.  That's okay.  When I got back, Steve says "You feel better now?" I said yes, actually.  But it's short term better. I still have a lot I want to do before winter gets here.

I flew the Cherokee 180 into Glenndale today to get painted, and Spencer picked me up in the 172. It was his first time into Glenndale solo in a bigger plane than a Champ.  We had a good crosswind, and he did a great job. He's a very good pilot for as low time as he is. He's better than a lot of people with a lot more time, in fact.

Cherokee 180 Wing patch

The last photo pre-re-painted

Sunset flying in the Champ

Going, going, gone.

Catching Up

I could have filled this week up with scheduling stuff, but I didn't, so it's been pretty quiet.  Today I flew with Spencer in the 172 to get him used to flying in and out of Glenndale over the wires in both directions. We were able to takeoff and land on both 18 and 36, so that was good practice.  Then I had a 6-8 pm flight with Dan, getting back into the 172 after awhile. We went into Sheridan at sunset to get some skinny runway practice in. It was a beautiful evening and I took a bunch of photos of it that I'll share below.

No news on Kaylee or anything. I have a few doctor appointments for Ann coming up.  Nothing exciting going on.

Tuesday I had a flight down to Gulf Shores, Alabama. We didn't have to leave until 9 am, which is a relief. It was about 3.5 hours down there, and it was warm and sunny and windy and beautiful.  I found a seaside restaurant, waited an extra 10 minutes to be able to sit outside by the beach, and ate "Royal Reds", ginormous shrimp that had too many legs still attached, and a grilled grouper sandwich, and fries. It was really good. I walked along the beach for a bit and enjoyed the palm trees. I didn't take my shoes off and go in the water this time, because these jeans are snug around the ankles and wouldn't pull up easily and I'd end up with wet lets and sandy feet.  ;) 

I also had a physical issue. I had really sore calves one day, figured it was from the Vegas exercise. The next day I woke up and my left knee was severely stiff, weak, sore, painful.  Odd.  The next day I woke up and my knee was fine, and my hip hurt really bad. I'm flying along and it occurs to me that what could move up my leg like that?  Maybe a blood clot?  That would be really bad.  But I couldn't think of anything else that would move pain and weakness up from a calf to a knee to a hip. So I called the doctor's office while I was in Alabama, because if that thing was going to keep moving up, the next stop might be a kidney or a heart or a brain, and I didn't want to stroke out or be incapacitated at 20,000' with three people on board.  They told me that blood clots usually come with big time redness and swelling, and I had neither, so they thought maybe it was muscular. Which was good news.  I've got an appointment for Monday, which, if this isn't gone by then, I may keep. It's so painful that I can't lift my left leg up to put on pants, I can't lift the leg at all without using my hands to pull it up.  I can't sit in some positions, and I can't lie on it at all.  So last night I took a Tylenol 3 (with Codeine) to go to sleep. Worked like a charm, so when I woke up at 2:30 am with it hurting and aching again, I took another one.  Back to sleep I went, no pain.  Good stuff, man.  It's a little better today, but not enough.  Whatever triggered that, it hurts. Deep aching burning pain leaving weakness in my leg.  Ugh.

The flight home was long. We had headwinds, and it took us 4 hours, which meant messing with the fuel the whole way, especially since the FBO didn't get the plane all the way full.  We beat Hurricane Ian out of the way, and it was still beautiful when we left.

Little seaside restaurant and palm trees

Sea Bugs

I didn't see the driver to verify

Four people on board, I was the only awake one. ;)

The 172 at Sheridan

Me and Dan

Sunset in the 172

Logansport

We were supposed to be in Logansport at 9 am but we could not get it done. Getting Ann ready, and getting us ready, we didn't get to Logansport until 10:30 am. Hated to be late on them, but that's just how it was for today.  The event was nice, they were giving rides in normal airplanes, and we didn't offer rides in the T-6. We never sell rides at that airport, as in nobody ever buys any.  So we stayed static and I let mostly kids sit up in the airplane all day. We had a nice day, stayed until 4 pm or so. But I didn't sleep the night before so I'm really worn out by tonight. And I didn't take any photos, either, except this one. I've gotten bad at that. 

Reflection in the glass window at Logansport

Jiggidy Jig

We're home. We left Friday morning and went to Dallas to drop John off back at home. Getting out of Vegas was busy, but getting into Dallas was crazy. The controller didn't even take a breath. A Southwest pilot had a stuck mic, right as I was finally getting vectored in to land. It was really tiring getting in there, wore me out!  We dropped John off, grabbed a bite to eat at Popeye's, and then launched for Kokomo.  Landed after dark. We left the hotel at 9 am Vegas time, landed in Kokomo at 8 pm. Losing three hours on the way home didn't help. ;)

The hard part was waking up this morning. I had to set my alarm at 8:30 am so I wouldn't sleep until noon. 8:30 am was 5:30 am Vegas time, and it felt like 5:30 am when my alarm went off.  But I made it through the day okay, it's just morning that's rough. I had a Discovery flight at 3 with a granddaughter of a former student, and then 1.7 with a new student finishing up with us and going to Purdue.

I'm going to be short tonight.  But we're home!

Airport. I want to land here.