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