Florida Part II

I needed to head back down to Florida today to pick up the family who I dropped off in Atlanta on the way down there because of the hurricane. It took them 3 hours to get settled in a car, and they arrived at their hotel room after a 9.5 hour drive at 4:30 in the morning.  I do not/did not/do not feel good about that, but there is nothing I can do to fix it now, I didn't cause it, it wasn't my fault, but I do wish things would have allowed me to get them there better.

Anyway, I wanted to be early and set up and good to go for picking them up.  So I told the FBO I wanted the plane out for a wheels up at 8:45 am.  I get there at 8:35 am and the plane is tucked in the back corner of the hangar. He starts pulling it out at 8:40, but one plane is in the way so he pulls it out, moves a second one, starts to pull out mine, the wing won't clear, he fires up another tug and moves another plane out of the way, it's not enough, has to pull the other plane completely out, etc.  I didn't get off the ground until 9 am.  Then Florida does Florida and I end up getting routed around an extra long time at Ft. Lauderdale.  I had told them I'd be ready to go at 1 pm and I didn't get landed and taxied in until 12:30 pm.  Thirty minutes is generally too short to do a fuel order and pay.  The family was already there waiting.  Gah.  So I went to the front desk and basically said "I need your help. I need topped off, and out of here as fast as possible". She said she had my back, and she took my info, and they filled us up asap, and we were able to leave so she could bill it out later.  We were wheels up at 1 pm, exactly when I said I would be ready.  Whew.  The one thing I didn't want to do is now be late on the family I left to a 9.5 hour drive the last time I met them.  SO uncool.  

The flight itself was uneventful, the weather was fine, thankfully.  The VFR Bo pilot sat up front with me again, and he is a chatty fellow. He wanted to talk the entire time I'm hand flying and talking to Florida ATC getting out of Ft. Lauderdale, which is very busy.  He couldn't seem to stand the idea of silence.  So that was three hours of my life where I had to answer questions, chat, answer more questions, deal with his input on flying, and chat some more.  That was way more tiring than just the flying. I told the rest of them after I dropped him off in Music City, TN that I wasn't sure I'd know how to do it by myself now.  lol

Got home in time to start a bunch of paperwork from today and for tomorrow.  Logbook, airplane log, billing, schedule, receipts. Flight planning, weather, NOTAMs, route.  Blog.  All the emails and texts I got during the 7.5 hours I was up flying today.  Etc.  Now it's 9:45 pm, I'm almost caught up, and I think Steve and I are going to watch a movie before bed. "Mob Land" with John Travolta.  Then tomorrow I head back to Gunnison, CO to pick up Ethan and family. 

A couple other pictures from Marion yesterday, and the only picture I took in Florida today.

An overview of about half of the airport, parking, airplanes, etc. I'm next to the taxiway by the big square hangar in the grass loading my next rider.

Be Real went off on the way home, so I took this one

Jim Church took this photo of my one pass I made

This is Ft. Lauderdale, International airport ahead. I'm on final for Runway 10R and it's busy so I don't have time to frame the photo very well. You can see the city to the left and the ocean past the airport.