Finally

It was foggy most of the day. We were unable to leave until almost 1 pm, and even then it was IFR, which was great practice for Morgan in the RG. We flew to Aurora, and I picked up the Aerostar. Climbing out, hand flying in IFR, my seat broke loose and I slid backwards. I stopped the slide by grabbing the dash, but I had to hang onto the dash with one hand and fly with the other so I didn't go way to the back.  Finally I got it trimmed out pretty well, let go of the airplane and used my other hand to get the seat re-latched again.  Recovered from my starting to be unusual attitude, and carried on.  ;)  Always an adventure.

Landed at Kokomo, but Defiance, Ohio was still 400' overcast when we left. Finally it lifted enough, and me and Morgan took off with Greg O in our back seat, going around cells, mostly in IFR, and I took the opportunity to teach them about weather enroute, what you saw on ADS-B weather vs out the window, why we were flying through something "red" on screen but not dangerous by looking out the window, etc.

Got to Defiance, and picked up the 340. Paid the bills, and flew with Greg back to Kokomo.  He did the flying and the radios.  At the end of the day, the RG flew for 5.1 hours, and I flew 4 legs in three different airplanes, and finally all our birds are home again.  

Morgan had a class that she skipped out on to do all that flying, but we both decided that she'd learn a lot more from 5 hours of actual IFR flying than she would in an aviation management class sitting at a desk.  We were right.  ;)

View on top at 7000'

Reflection of me as I'm passing Morgan's 'ship' on screen.

The Halfway Day

More chaos from today. A boss went along, who doesn't like flying much, and the weather was a little rainy.  So we went to Ohio and they did their thing. The airport was unattended, but they had everything you need. I self-serve fueled up the plane, then moved it away from the pumps just in case someone else showed up (nobody did).  Took their courtesy van with the keys sitting on the counter into town and had a coffee and cinnamon roll that were quite good.  Came back and got a bottle of water with the basket to donate money for it in the fridge with the water.  It had wifi and lights and a code to get in the door and the gate. It was a nice little stop.  The name is "Circleville" which makes me laugh, and the airport is "Pickaway County" which also makes me laugh. This city has a RAX. I didn't know any still existed!!  And a Captain D's.  Time passed this place by.  When I got back to Frankfort, I had to self-serve fuel the plane up again, because they don't have a truck and their line guys didn't show up until after I'd gotten the job done, conveniently.  :p  Oh well, not like I don't know how...

Because the boss went along, that threw our plans to go get the 340 from Defiance, Ohio, out the window. That threw tomorrow into disarray. Tomorrow was supposed to be their 340 to Georgia.  So now instead of all the plans for today and tomorrow, they once again last minute got swapped around, and I didn't do half of what I was supposed to, and tomorrow's full day of work is not going to be.  I need a ride to IL and OH both to pick up two airplanes. Tomorrow is supposed to be IFR in the morning, and my chase pilot isn't comfortable with much of that.  So I don't know what exactly I'm going to end up getting done tomorrow, but if it works, it'll be IN to IL to pick up the Aerostar, bring it back, then IN to OH to pick up the 340, and bring it back. It'll take a good 4.5-5 hours of flight time plus all the time on the ground.  It'll be a full day, just not a well paid one. If I get to go at all, for part of it, or all of it or any of it, none of which I know right now!

I did get a call from A about flying a full day on Monday, four or five legs, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Kentucky, and Indiana, in the Conquest. That'll be just fine.  Those are easy. Organized, consistent, simple...

The Day That Didn't

I was able to sleep in this morning, and boy that felt good. It's a pain when you're in the middle of a good sleep and it's your bladder that makes you get up. :p  

I was supposed to run up the C-45 and do a leak check, then go to Illinois and pick up the Aerostar. I went back and forth with D who wanted me to do a flight on Wednesday and Thursday, then changed around the times and places, then wanted to leave at 6:30 am, I was arranging things to go pick up the other 340 from Frankfort and bring it to Kokomo, then he was going to leave at 8 out of Frankfort, I mean, we changed plans Multiple times.  And that's when it hit me.  Life has been a lot busier since I started flying full time for Ethan and Andy, but it's been organized and easily planned.  Dustin and M are the main company that cause me chaos, last-minute changes, last-minute flights, change-arounds, difficult scenarios, difficult everything.  It has been so nice lately, even though I've been so busy, because I knew exactly what I was doing and when.  Now I have two flights for M, and it's been last minute and chaos and switching around from the get go.  I didn't miss that!

The run-up on BOB went fine, no complaints. It sounded good but I couldn't fly it because the cowlings aren't on.  They did that on purpose. :p

Next I was supposed to go to Illinois for the Aerostar, but the weather moved in.  Lines of storms, pop ups and unstable air and a mess. I could GET there in the RG, but I wasn't confident about the RG getting back home safely with a green pilot and bad weather.  So I canceled that one. Today I flew nothing. Tomorrow is Ohio, and probably some more bad weather. We shall see...

Steve met with a social worker for Ann, and has met with a head nurse and a caregiver, and things are falling into place for her hospice care.  They keep calling the wrong number and they keep messing a few things up, but hopefully it all comes together and helps get the job done for her.

Colorado

Nothing much to say today.  I went to Colorado and back, took me 7.2 hours flight time, plus some ground time.  I went into town and got a BLT for lunch in Gunnison, which was nice.  Read a book on the way home, and finished it, too.  Listened to some music.  Flew down at 30,000' and flew home at 33,000'.  The pressurization in the airplane isn't as good, so I was pressurized at 10,000' cabin altitude all the way home, which is pretty high.  I can feel it after 7 hours in the air.  Bleh.

We ran across a refuelling mission today

The valley where Pitkin and the house is

Gunnison Airport

Sunset at Frankfort by the Conquest

Night Scapes

It was really nice to sleep in this morning, and I did, too.  The hospice people came back over today, the head 'nurse' this time, to do a secondary evaluation.  Ann was cheerful, communicative, ate her breakfast, took her meds, joked with the lady, did all the things she hasn't been doing for awhile now. It was nice that she was with it and there, but Steve was like...she isn't like this in the afternoons and sometimes not even in the mornings any more.  (Point in favor, tonight she refused to get in her bed, and he had to leave her where she was). The lady seemed to believe us though.  They will provide meds if she needs them, supplies, will come in three times a week to help clean her up, will send a nurse once a week to do a check up on her.  I think it's going to be the right steps for us and her.

After she left, Steve and I met up with Kaylee in Wabash and took her to eat at "The Fried Egg" up there. I had banana nut french toast and cripsy bacon, and it was quite good.  It was good to see Kaylee; she missed us and we missed her. 

I dropped Steve off at the airport, and then I went right to Frankfort, where I took the Conquest down to Tennessee to pick up Andy plus the six guys he took with him for the weekend at the lake there. I was a little early, which worked out great. They came early too, and that got me to my next stop in a timely manner.  I flew the group of guys to Lafayette and dropped them off there, where their cars all were, and I got some gas for the plane. Ran into a kid who I think was a flying squirrel. I wish when people would say "Hey Laura, what are you doing here?" they would then point at themselves and say "Brian" or whatever their name is. I hate running into people who know me and I don't know their names, and it happens a lot.  Like today. *sigh*

From Lafayette I went over to Delphi, which is a whole 12 miles away, landed, and picked up Ethan and a family of 6.  It was a "Discovery Flight" Ethan wanted to do with this family, all at once, take them up by Chicago to see the skyline at sunset.  So we did that.  Great sunset, smooth evening, perfect flight for it.  They had a daughter who was originally going to go too, but she decided to stay behind, apparently to be the sole survivor, as she hugged each of them before they left just in case we crashed and they didn't come home.  I thought it was lovely they felt the need to tell me that.  Like I tell anyone else who is nervous...I have a family I want to come home to as well, and I do my best to make sure that happens.  So far so good.  But in spite of that little dark cloud of negativity, it was a good flight and everyone enjoyed it.  lol

On the way to the airport this morning, there was an accident, and I had to take the back roads. One was a gravel road, and my car was Covered in dust. I had just washed it and now it looked like it lived in a dirt pit.  So tonight on my way home, I stopped at a nearby car wash and took the dust off it again. There are still bugs on there, because it's the season where the bugs are bad, and thick, and sticky.  Two car washes in a row hasn't gotten off all these bugs with cement in their blood.  The airplanes look terrible too, covered in bugs, and you can't keep them clean if they fly at all.  Every year in September, it's a thing around here.  The wind is coming next.  Gusty, nasty, windy, cloudy days.  This last month has been beautiful so I know it's coming next...

Tomorrow is Colorado.  So for tonight, here are some photos of the Chicago skyline at sunset.

Airliners lined up back there going into O'Hare or Midway

Skyline and airliners

Mountain Mama

Not really but the song is stuck in my head and I didn't like the mountains in the dark last night, so there ya go.

I wasn't able to sleep in as much as I wanted, so I started the day off a little tired, but I rested most of the day until it was time for my 3 pm flight out at Kokomo. We went up, she's working on consistent landings in the 172RG so I can sign her off for the complex endorsement and to solo the RG.  She's mostly working on her instrument rating but is having trouble with landing the RG.  She gets in her own head, tries to fix one thing and then focuses on it and everything else goes to pot.  Like she started landing flat so I reminded her about that and then the next one she balloons way up high because she's by golly not gonna land flat, but doesn't see or fix the balloon either.  Etc.  One of these times she'll get out of her own head and get it down.  :)

Then came the night flight.  I had to fly over to Purdue, during one of their basketball games. Andy texted "the game is terrible, when can you get here", early, so I went over as early as I could get there, and sat in the airplane so the FBO would close at 10 and not charge us a $150 landing fee. But then Andy and crew ended up stuck in traffic, and we didn't get out of there until almost 11 pm anyway, which was later than our original departure time was supposed to be.  Oh well.  I sat in the back of the plane with my feet up and was fine.

When they arrived, most of them had been drinking, and they were six, loud, boisterous cement workers having a good time.  I got all their stuff loaded up in the nose, got them loaded into the plane, made them all find and wear their seatbelts, and then we headed to TN.  I had my headset on "Pilot isolate" so I could hear ATC over them, but they were having fun.  Every once in awhile one of them would yell "Where are we now??" and I'd answer them. They were amazed that we could see Cincinnati and Louisville at the same time, so I told them we were almost 5 miles up in the air, so we could see pretty far.  They loved that. Coming in to land, one guy said "Is THAT the runway?? That looks SHORT! and Skinny!"  I said "It is."  They got quiet then, and after I rolled out and off the runway, the one stuck his fist up into the cockpit to get a fist bump for a 'good job'.  lol  Thanks.  ;)

Coming in over the mountains though, it was super dark, the moon wasn't out to help, and the beacon was out at the airport. So I had to cross the mountains, which I couldn't see, and then find the airport, which I did, but I needed to do the pattern, and the mountains are right on downwind, and it was so dark I could not see them, it was just a black hole over there.  Creeped me out, so I hugged the runway pretty tightly, almost on top of it where I could see everything, which meant I had to crank around a little bit to land. But I'd rather do that than wander any closer to the black area where I know things are taller than I am. Somewhere over there.

The trip home I was by myself, so I listened to music and read a book for an hour. Landed at Frankfort around 1:30.  Got home around 2:30.  Got to bed around 3 am.  Slept in this morning until 10:30 am after a brief wake-up time around 6 am which did not make me happy.  The 10:30 am thing did feel good. I needed that one. 

Now Steve is off having lunch with our friends while I sit here on the couch in Yoga pants and relax. I canceled my two afternoon flights and said I am taking the day.  Tomorrow I go back to pick them up, and I do an evening flight too with Ethan, but for today...I do whatever I want. At home, probably.  These are just some night scenes.

You can see the stars and the ground lights both. 

Louisville, KY off the wing

Indianapolis off the nose

Traveling Fool

I got so behind and busy I didn't have any time to just sit down and catch up, until this morning. I scheduled this morning off to "recuperate" as I put it on the schedule, and I needed it!

Steve has called into the doctor's office to ask about Hospice services for Ann.  They are supposed to send someone out today to assess her. They wanted us to bring her in, but she can't walk from her chair to her kitchen table (a very short distance) without gasping for breath and having trouble with her breathing and heart. Getting her out to a car, and in and out of a doctor's office would be a feat.  They wanted us to take her to the ER to be evaluated, and Steve said no, if she goes in to the ER she won't come out. They said "If you bring her here we will probably send her to the ER", and he asked about services that would come to us.  We're not trying to extend her life, we're just trying to not have her die in a hospital room scared and alone. He had to bring up hospice several times and finally they agreed to do that.  So sometime today they're supposed to be coming by to assess and discuss what they can do for her.  Maybe a bed (right now she just sleeps in her chair and she's having trouble getting in and out of it. She won't sleep in her own old bedroom but she may in the hospital bed that sits up.  We shall see.  I don't know if she just has some other infection going on that is making everything else worse, or if this is "it", but it's time.  She sleeps most of the day, she isn't eating hardly anything, we can't get her meds in her properly, she's not communicative at all, she is incontinent now, her breathing doesn't sound great...we'll see what they say.

I haven't heard much from Kaylee, as we're both really busy. I've been gone for weeks straight, basically, and she is working and doing school at the same time, so she's been busy too.  We shoot off a quickie "Love you!" now and then randomly, so last I heard she was doing all right.

The cat is also just the same. Sleeps a lot, is still eating, without steroids, bony and old and frail but comfortable and sweet.

Steve is swamped with the additional care of his mom, me gone all the time, most of his instructors gone, breaking in two new instructors from Purdue who need help just being basic decent pilots let alone instructors, taking on all the students while all us other instructors are gone, taking on Isabel's stuff while she's gone now that her father-in-law died, and doing the normal stuff he had already been doing.  Billing, accounting, phone calls, maintenance scheduling, etc.  He needs about three of him divided up.  He was doing very well delegating and minimizing his work load, and then life interfered as it does.  He's still from the generation though that he's not complaining, or whining, he's just doing what he has to do, because what else are you going to do, right? He's a good man, he works very hard, and he somehow doesn't usually lose his...peace. 

The rest is me, which is just...flying.  I've flown 114.3 hours in the last 30 days, 46 separate flights, flew 28 out of the last 31 days, to 38 different airports, in 16 different states, in 11 different airplanes.  In 30 days.  That's a lot, in case you're wondering.  ;) Here's a map of the cross countries.  You would have to zoom in on the real map (can't here) to see all the different airports inside the state of Indiana, too.  Kinda wild, huh?

Sept. 20th was the 3 year anniversary of the fatal Glenndale Toga accident.  That morning I had a Conquest trip to Owosso, Michigan with Andy, took him up there, and while I was waiting, they have a tiny little restaurant on field.  I went in there to eat, and there's no space, so all the tables are right up against each other.  It was raining lightly but it was still packed out, and I had a good bacon/toast/eggs breakfast. Two pilots sitting right next to me struck up a conversation, and even though I am not friendly, they made me talk, and it was fine. ;)  Andy got back a little late, so I didn't have time to do what I was originally going to do, so the rest of the plan went like this.

I dropped Andy off at Frankfort and topped off the Conquest.  Flew it to Kokomo, left it on the ramp, got a golf cart ride back to the Cheyenne, where Kevin was waiting, and we flew to Lafayette.  Picked up two Purdue coaches, the women's basketball coach this time.  While I was in the foyer, Cameron W. came up to me. He's a Purdue instructor there now, and his student was canceled because they didn't have an airplane. Kevin offered to let him go along, and he canceled his other evening plans to go ahead and do it. He'd never been to New Hampshire before, and why not go, right?  So Cameron came with us, we flew the Purdue coach to N. Hampshire starting at 3 pm, for them to look at a recruit.  We ate dinner in downtown Manchester at a nice little seafood place, where I had lobster on top of jasmine rice and mahi mahi that was Really good.  We left N. Hampshire around 11 pm.  Like I said, it was the 3rd anniversary of the Glenndale crash, and Cameron was the only survivor of it. So I brought it up on the way home, and we talked about it a little. I know people don't like to talk about bad things that happened to other people that make them uncomfortable to bring it up, but I also know that pretending like it didn't happen isn't very healing for most people either, and making it weird for them is worse than just being up front about it.  So we talked for a few minutes and he said he was glad this opportunity came up, because he likes to fly on the anniversary of that date, just to...just because.  I get it. So instead he was up in the flight levels getting some night, IMC, multi-engine turboprop time while listening to music and eating a giant home made whoopie pie that the Purdue ladies brought back as a thank you dessert for us.  So it was a good evening for him too.

We didn't get back to Lafayette until 1:15 am, dropped everyone off, and Kevin and I got back to Kokomo around 2 am.  Put the plane away, and I got home around 2:30 am, couldn't get to bed and sleep until about 3 am.  I woke up at 5, which annoyed me, and 7, and didn't really get back to solid sleep.  Combine that with lack of hydration, and you can guess what happened.  I had to get up at 9 anyway to go out to Kokomo, get the Conquest, and get it to Frankfort by 11, at which time four of us left to go to Illinois through some weather, rain and clouds.  Picked up another guy there and went on to Davenport, Iowa.  The weather was supposed to be VFR there but it lied. We ended up having to shoot an approach in, and I'm not sure what button E hit incorrectly, but the approach didn't work properly. So he flew while I fixed the buttons and we ended up breaking out not that far from minimums with 24 knot gusting winds. None of that was forecast. That's why he brings me along. :D  We left the guys there to go work on a project, and he and I went into town to eat. My head was killing me by then so I popped a couple pills.  I wanted straight Coke and breakfast, eggs.  They didn't serve breakfast after 12 (I thought they did) and they only had Pepsi.  So I was out of luck on multiple accounts.  When we got done eating, I went to the pilot lounge, put my sunglasses on in the dark room, put my head back, and rested.  I still didn't feel great, still didn't have enough sleep, but at least the meds kicked the headache.  We were supposed to go to Minneapolis, but the lady up there canceled on them. So instead we just went back to IL, dropped off the one guy, then back to Frankfort and dropped off the other two. From there I drove home, and I was glad I didn't end up in MN too.  I was done for the day.

I am scheduled off for today (Friday) in the morning for "recuperation", which I obviously needed.  This afternoon I have a flight with a student, and then tonight I am taking 6 people down to Tennessee leaving Lafayette at 10:30 pm.  I'll get down there around midnight, back to Frankfort around 1, back home around 2 at best again.  I should be able to drink more water this time though as it's a shorter set of flights.  Don't need another late night, but I won't have to get up early Saturday at least...

Inside of the tiny restaurant in Owosso

Outside. :)

A photo on the wall up there. So pretty.

My seafood in N. Hampshire. Man that was good.

Outside downtown Manchester

Two huge whoopie pies

Flying home over the state of NY, one of the great lakes

Stormy weather off to the side on our way home from Iowa yesterday.

Twas A Quickie

Ann didn't want to wake up this morning, or really most of today.  She didn't want to eat, either.  She chewed up her morning meds instead of swallowing them.  Unless she swings around a little, that's a definite down-turn. She didn't eat much last night or tonight either.  She is holding her stomach more--maybe constipation, Steve thinks.  We'll try a little Mirilax with her water and see if that helps.  Sure don't want to give her a laxative, anything that will cause cramping or pain, or the runs.  Steve already has to clean her up from wetting through her Depends some mornings. The runs would be no fun at all.

This morning I was watching the T-6 Gold Reno Race with the volume up.  It made me smile anyway, and this was a conversation from two people who have now been married for a lot of years, starting with me.

"I still think that looks like fun."
"I know you do."

"I could do that."
"I know you could."

"I'd actually probably be pretty good at it."
"I know you would."

And we move on to a reality where I'll never have the money to do that and maybe it's for the best so we move on. lol

I had a quick run to Sparta, Kentucky and back today in the Conquest with Ethan.  We ran one guy down there, dropped him off, and picked up another guy and brought him home.  It took me longer to drive to the airport and back than it did to get to Kentucky and back, no lie.

It's a brand new airport.  I mean, BRAND new.  There isn't a single building up yet.  There is a runway, a taxiway and a ramp.  That's it.  There's not even a port-o-potty out there.  It was MBros who sent me to an airport that had nothing on it, but that one was so old it was shut down. This one was so new it wasn't built yet.  No instrument approaches, no lights, no beacon, no fuel, no nothing but a runway.  It was in the GPS database which amazed us, but then coming in to land, the terrain started screaming.  "PULL UP! PULL UP! TERRAIN!  TERRAIN!  PULL UP!!" Over and over and over.  The terrain database doesn't get updated that often, and it thought we were heading for the Kentucky hills down there, didn't know a runway had been built yet, so it was screaming at us.  E found himself pretty distracted by that and hunting for buttons to shut it off, and I was like...hey...you fly the plane. Verify gear down. Speed is a little high.  Focus on the flying thing. We can see the ground, we're not going to run into it, ignore the yelling, and fly the plane.  Finally I found the way to shut that off after we were rolling out.  There's one thing for sure, it's not going to be ignored!

I got almost home (like 40 minutes into the drive) and I looked at my phone and saw a message that I'd left my iPad behind.  I'd left it in the seat of the plane. I was going to be back in the plane first thing tomorrow morning, but I wasn't POSITIVE if I left it in the plane or in the FBO.  So I turned around and headed back. I'd left it in the plane.  *sigh*  But that's what that "Find my iDevice" app is good for on the phone.  Helps me find the important expensive things should I get distracted.  All in all I had an over 3 hour drive for a 1.2 hour total flight time.  lol  Oh well, it was an interesting day.

On the way to the airport this morning I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and it was a house with skeletons climbing up the walls. I thought it was clever, so on the way home I pulled over and got a couple pictures of it.  I wonder if that one standing in the window is facing a bedroom.  Put a little battery light in the skull in the middle of the night and see if that freaks someone out.  :D

The rest of the day I've spent preparing for tomorrow's flights, and doing necessary housework.

Tomorrow I go to Owosso, MI with Andy leaving at 8:30 am, which means a 6:30 am wake-up call.  Then I get back around 1-1:30, and either drop Andy off and take the Conquest to Kokomo, or if we get back at 1, I jump out of the Conquest and drive an hour back to Kokomo, where I hop in the Cheyenne with Kevin and go to Lafayette to pick up a couple Purdue people and fly them to New Hampsire at 3 pm.  We don't leave New Hampshire until 11 pm.  I get back to Lafayette around 1:30 am, drop them off, then back at Kokomo around 2 am, then have to put the airplane away and get home, around 3 am most likely.  Then I have to get back up around 9, hopefully I can sleep in that late, and then I have a 9 hour flight day with Ethan in the Conquest on Thursday, with 6 or 7 different stops.  Gonna be a long one.

Nothing at Sparta, Kentucky

It kind of looks like a Halloween House already

And now you can see all the little friends.  ;)

Yikes

Man.  I saw/have a photo of my acquaintance Chris in the T-6 with his tail chopped completely off behind the rear canopy and no left aileron, pointed straight at the ground, with his left arm up bracing against the canopy, and the ground right in front of him.  The last moment of his life and him seeing it coming and nothing he could do about it. That made it hard to go to sleep last night.  Sometimes having a vivid imagination does not work in my favor.

MY day was much more benign. I still had to wake up at 6:30, which I did not want to do. Usually when my alarm goes off it pulls me out of a pretty light sleep, because my internal alarm clock knows it's getting close, and I'm just barely under, lightly dreaming, whatever.  Not this morning. I was sleeping so hard that when my wrist buzzed, I was confused for about three seconds as I swam my way up to consciousness. Then I didn't want to get up.  I was late this morning, which I never am, because I had such a hard time getting going this morning.  Fortunately I wasn't late for anything super important, or I wouldn't have been, but yeah...I was pooped.

I took the Conquest over to Ohio today and went over to the pilot's lounge while Steve F. worked on a squawk list Ethan had for the plane.  After a couple hours, Ethan flew in in his Cherokee Six, and is leaving it there for annual, and then he helped Steve on the squawk list, and they got a ton done.  The two front seat backs fixed, the air conditioning valve fixed, the vent on the floor, the rear seat back of the panel, the torque gauge, the oxygen mask port, all the little squawks that have built up in the last 136 hours that I've flown it since July 7th.  After awhile I took the courtesy car into town and went and got McDonald's (their choice) for lunch, and then hung out at the hangar the rest of the afternoon while they did the maintenance work. I am not a mechanic, not helpful to one, don't even want to be one. So all I did was clean up the oil off the plane and get lunch. And fly it there and home.  I felt reasonably unproductive, but...not sure what I can do there.  It took all day though. Up at 6:30, in the car at 7:30, in Frankfort at 8:30, in Ohio by 9:30, not home until 6:30 p.m.

I ordered a pizza on an app on my phone and had it delivered to the house, and the pizza showed up 5 minutes after I got home. Now that was timing, thankyouverymuch.  ;)  Steve got home around 7, and I even left enough pizza for him.  As soon as I walked out of the garage, I heard a noise I thought was Ann yelling at me.  It wasn't--it was the cat howling at me in a particularly human sounding noise.  I fed her almost an entire can of food, and she was loud and demanding about wanting fed an hour later again. Miss Bony over here is putting it away today.

Tomorrow will be an easy day. I will probably have a trip to Chicago and Tennessee and back to each, swapping two men one from each place to the other.  But those are quick trips and they won't be early. So I can sleep in a little bit and not be rushed tomorrow.  It's Wednesday and Thursday that are going to be ugly. But we'll talk about that later...

Wyoming & Texas

Whew, this one was a long day.  I'm recuperating today. I slept in until Steve accidentally slammed into the closet doors at 9:15 am, then took a big nap in the middle of the afternoon, too.  I needed that.

Before I get started on that, though, there was a mid-air collision at Reno Air Races after the Gold T-6 race. The top two T-6s collided, I think when coming in to land after the race was over. I knew the pilot, Chris R., who is also a Condor pilot, a T-6 group out of California. He had 'friended' me on Facebook and offered to get me into the pits at Reno if I ever made it down there. He seemed like a good dude. My friend Will is also a Condor, and Will has lost several close friends to airplane accidents in just the last couple of years. I haven't talked to him yet out of respect, because I hate it when something happens and everyone and their brother starts calling, texting, messaging, etc.  But I feel a little sick for him and for Chris's family.  I know several of the pilots out there in the T-6 races. One is a young kid that I did his tailwheel endorsement in a Cub not that long ago.  Fortunately he was in a different T-6 race so he wasn't in the air for that one.  *sigh*  These two were top end T-6 pilots with decades of experience, one of whom at least has won the T-6 races at Reno multiple times.   It's disconcerting when highly experienced, capable pilots end up crashing.  Fate is the Hunter, indeed.

So back to me.  Awake at 6 am, out the door by 7 am. I wanted to be off the ground at 8. I get there at 7:45 am and they haven't gotten there yet. I went out and preflighted the plane in the hangar. Still nobody there by 8. I opened the hangar door.  Finally someone shows up at 8:05, and starts the process of pulling me out. I didn't get off the ground until 8:15, by which I was now running late to get to Wyoming and meet these new clients for the first time.  Great.  It was over four hours out there, a nice long solo flight.  I flew over the top of some weather, but nothing too interesting. Going into Jackson Hole, WY was beautiful. I tried taking a few photos, but it totally doesn't do it justice, and most of the time I needed to concentrate anyway.  lol But the runway is lined by a big ole line of the Tetons, and it's right at the national park. Super cool. I landed, ordered fuel, and within minutes, my guy and his wife were there, loading up the plane, and ready to go. I told them I'd need gas first, that's why I was there a little early. We were off the ground around 11:15 am, about the 15 minutes past where we were supposed to be in the first place.

Going into Navasota, Texas, there was a line of thunderstorms that was headed right for it.  It was slow moving, and I'd been watching it for hours, and unfortunately it was going to get there right when I did.  So towards the end I powered back and slowed down, to give it time to move through.  My first approach into there it was raining too hard for me to see the runway, so I asked for an approach, and came back around for another loop, and came on in, found it and landed in the rain.  No storm, just rain at that point.  I asked the fellow in the back where I should park, and he wasn't sure, said his hangar was "up there". He had a ton of stuff, and a truck in his hangar, so I taxied up there, and he pointed out which hangar was his.  Only problem was, there was no way back out of that hangar row, which I didn't know and he apparently didn't either.  Once I got turned down it, I was hosed.  So I went to the end to try to maneuver around tightly in the wider space at the end. No luck. This airplane doesn't do reverse like the Cheyenne does, so I couldn't even do that. I had to shut down, sideways in between two hangar rows.  Fortunately there was a tug in this guy's hangar.  The key to his hangar was on top of the door frame and none of us could reach it.  Finally we took a trash can from the airplane and stood on it and found the key that way.  It's raining still, by the way.  We open the door, take out all his stuff from the airplane, and then I ask him if he knows how to use this tug thing.  No he does not.  Nothing on it is labeled.  It has a big metal tow bar which fortunately fits the Conquest wheel too.  I hook it up, and then I spend the next hour, in the rain, trying to maneuver this 50' wide wingspan crooked airplane in between two hangar rows. It was not pretty. The steering was sloppy and backwards, pushing the plane backwards off of a forward facing tug with a big bar in between. So you had to steer backwards of how you normally would, and it would jackknife on a dime.  I had to take off the tow bar and start over a bunch of times. Finally I got it pushed backwards into his hangar enough that I could pull backwards myself and pull the plane behind me, which was easier.  It took over an hour to get out of there, and get pulled up to the fuel pumps, in the rain, and then the sun, and I was sweating like a faucet because it was steamy hot down there once the rain stopped.   It was tiring and frustrating and a little embarrassing and pretty annoying considering he directed me down to there.  Didn't know any better, either of us.  I'm lucky there was a tow bar/vehicle in the hangar there or we'd have been fully hosed.  I'D have been fully hosed. 

I then had to self-serve fuel up the airplane, and their Jet A nozzle leaked, which I found out when I had Jet A all over my pant leg and hands.  So I went home smelling like sweaty jet fuel.  I can still smell it on my left hand even though I've washed my hands a lot since then.  

Fuel was $10/gallon in Jackson Hole, so I only took on what I needed to get to TX, which was 150 gallons more than what I already had.  So in Texas, I filled up all the way, and it took 380 gallons, and their fuel was only $4.99/gallon. I try to save people money wherever I can.  Then back home in Indiana, it took 170 gallons to finish off this trip.  That's a lot of gas, man, but it was 11.2 hours of flight time in a twin turboprop, and covered the ground from Indiana to Wyoming to Texas and back.  Not bad for a day's work.  The trip home I had a 102 knot tailwind for awhile, there were storms off to the north of me that sparked up the sky for the last couple hours, but it was fast and peaceful by myself, and I read a book and listened to music and wish I'd brought more food along.  I ate nothing but a candy bar and some cashews all day, things I brought with me from the gas station this morning, with no time or way to get anything else. 

I came home wiped out, and didn't finish recovering until this afternoon.  Today is the first time in 3 weeks that I have not flown something.  And 3 weeks ago I just had one day where I hadn't flown.  So I've mostly flown every day for at least a month and a half.  I had an urge to go fly something just to keep the streak alive, but quickly squashed it as nothing sounded better than doing nothing.  I've done things today, but not much, and most of them while sitting on my couch.  ;)

Steve & Iowa

Today is Steve's birthday, and we had our own small version of celebration.  I was gone from early this morning until about 4 pm, he had flights until 6 pm, and then we were both wiped out.  :D  We were going to go to Marble Steakhouse for dinner, but they were closed tonight for a "private engagement". So his next wish was ribs, and Grindstone Charley's has some of the best ribs in town, so we went there.  They were packed out!  You'd think it was Mother's Day or something.  But we enjoyed the food, came home, I took care of his mom for him, did her dishes, refilled her meds, etc., and then did things like starting a load of laundry for tomorrow. I had gotten him a giant piece of carrot cake from Rick's Boneyard to split for dessert, but we're both still too full from dinner.  lol  Maybe tomorrow.

So first thing this morning I was up at 6 am after not getting to sleep until midnight, and after waking up at 3:30 am.  Yuck.  I have been tired all day and was unable to nap.  Anyway, I flew to Davenport, Iowa with Andy.  The lady behind the desk is a young girl who was asking me questions about flying, and couldn't wait to tell me she was working on her instrument rating and that it was inspiring to her to see a woman flying in in a turboprop.  So we chatted for awhile.  It was sweet.  

I went into town and had two choices of places to eat breakfast/brunch.  Cracker Barrel, which I do like, or this place called the "Machine Shed" which says it's a "small town home grown local business", so I went there. It was exactly like Cracker Barrel only not, which was actually a good thing.  I got cinnamon french toast and bacon with a cinnamon roll to go for later, right?  The french toast was HUGE.  Huge.  HUGE.  I could only eat 1/2 of it. The bacon is the way it should be. The last time I went into Cracker Barrel, it was the thin sad bacon. This was huge, thick crispy bacon. I was in love.  She brought out the cinnamon roll for me to take home, and it's like a pan of cinnamon rolls in one big lump. The thing is several inches high and 7 or 8" wide.  I shit you not.  I took that thing home and thought that 4-6 people could eat off of that and have plenty.  It's in my fridge right now, along with a giant piece of carrot cake, waiting for us to be hungry again. Which for me, ain't gonna be tonight.  lol

The Shed had a store of clothing, soaps, jewelry, books, etc., just like Cracker Barrel does, too. They totally mimicked the place, only did it better because they're not a chain.  Ya know?  I was glad I supported them anyway.

I have one pair of jeans that are too tight and have sparkles on the butt which haven't been the style in a long time.  I have another pair of jeans that are too baggy and plain, and make you look like an uncool version of a grandma before your time. So I ordered a pair online that were the size in the middle of those two, and they arrived today, and I THINK they'll actually work.  Jeans shouldn't be so hard but I have a weird shape.  I also got a couple of polo shirts to wear that aren't checkertail t-shirts for some of the trips I'm taking with Andy. Ethan doesn't care, MBros doesn't care, Andy doesn't care most of the time, like when I'm taking his family to vacation in Tennessee. But some of the places we go, it would be good to be dressed a little more professionally. Not a lot mind you, just a little. Comfortably only, naturally. ;)  So I liked a couple of them I got, one is softer than my t-shirts to wear so even a little more comfortable. I need to find a few more of that material.  Steve's going to get some FTC polo type shirts, and Ethan is going to get some "Flying Bee", his company, shirts too.  So my wardrobe will probably go from checkertail only on up to other flying companies too.  ;)

Kaylee texted me "Why do people bother getting a Mustang with a custom license plate if they're not gonna go over 55 mph?  Like...I will pass you in my granny-mobile.  Don't test me."  I laughed.  That's my girl. 

Well, tomorrow is one of the big days. I leave at 8 am for Jackson Hole, WY. So pretty out there. I'm gonna take as many photos as I can get by with while I'm flying down there. Mountains, mountains, mountains.  So purty.  I won't get home until like 9 pm, most likely, if all goes quickly and smoothly.  And we all know the odds of that. Ha.  I hope I get some good sleep tonight.

She's still a cute little bugger