Where she works, even though it's going out of business, did a three day training exercise with a top person in the therapy field, on family therapy. They did role playing, seminars, she's had 3 days straight of 8 hours in a row every day mostly sitting still, studying, listening, etc. She has absolutely LOVED it. She calls every night and talks for two hours about everything she learned, what she did, how she did on it, some stumbles and some gold stars she got for acting as a family therapist to others. She's on cloud 9 with it, wishes she could do this kind of thing every week. Says she'd be an incredible therapist if she could only get this kind of training and practice more often. So that's good, that she's super engaged and loving it, because it gives her motivation on finishing out her Master's to be able to actually do this for a living, too. :)
I had a "simple" trip to Centralia, Illinois today. Except it was anything but simple. Nasty winds, 30+ knot gusting crosswinds, direct crosswind at home. It was supposed to be go there, be there 1.5 hours, come home. Here's how it actually went.
We got there, and their rental car is not there. Nobody can find it, nobody is answering them. The guy behind the desk doesn't know anything about it, is on the phone and is told they "delivered it to the wrong place". There is one airport in this small town, and we're at it, so where did they leave the car, exactly!? No Ubers, no taxi. The guy behind the desk won't let them rent his car for an hour. They are stuck. So I look up the nearby airport next door, and I call, and I have to make arrangements, but I get it worked out. I fly them over to this other airport, and this piece of crap car is ready and waiting for them, and they get the job done. I kinda saved the day there. They are on their way back, and they say they want to go see something in Missouri, too. The airport they tell me about is a military base and doesn't have an FBO or transportation. But I look it up, I make another call, and we are good to go. Last minute, we go to St. Louis Downtown airport, right by the arch. They have a courtesy car waiting there, and they go get the job done. We get home to a 30 knot direct crosswind in the dark, and I put the plane away by myself for the first time with their big airport tug, with sloppy steering. Had Morgan there to help me not run into any other airplanes. Got home around 9:30 pm, and I'm tired, because nothing about this day went the way it was supposed to go, but I kind of rescued the day and got it done, and that made me feel good. My job isn't just to fly them from A to B, but to...pivot...when needed, and help them accomplish their missions. Today was a definite "check" on that.
I get home, and Ethan had said he saw flight plans came through and wondered if it was me or them. I said it was them. I went looking and saw it on Flight Aware, and didn't think much about it. Then I just happened to look again, and I noticed the northbound one from Cayman to FL was a lot shorter than the recommended route the airport and Beck's guy had told me, so I looked at it a little closer. It had the main points leaving Cayman, so I figured maybe that was good enough. Then I saw that it was filed for FL330. Two places told me you have to file for an even altitude leaving Cayman, or Cuba will reject you. I got a chill when I saw that. So we are having this group called Signum do the flight plans and paperwork for us, I told you that, right? They cost a lot of money to do it, and we're doing that because they're supposed to be experts on this and I've never done it and I want to see the paperwork and learn how to do it from them first. Now here they've filed me for an odd altitude out of Cayman, and if I hadn't caught that, I would not have been able to get home without a big problem. I don't know if I would have been unable to leave Cayman at all, or if Cuba would have just denied me and made me turn back around, or how it would have gone, but it's not great. So I sent an email to those guys, and I inform them of the issue, and copy and paste the email from the Cayman FBO that spells out the preferred route and altitudes northbound, and send that to them, along with the note that we're using them because I don't want to get caught on what I don't know, and that I'm hoping they DO know, and that it makes me nervous that they didn't know or catch this, and that the northbound flight plan is going to have to be changed. I cc'd Ethan on it too, so he'd be able to see. He's paying them a lot of money to do this, and they botched up something I would not have botched up, and I don't even know what I'm doing. So our first flight is tomorrow. I leave at 9 am from Frankfort with the family, and we go to Florida. Pick up the raft, get gas, and then get the flight plan and head to Cayman. And I'm nervous as that this isn't going to go smoothly, that we'll get stuck, that I won't get in, or back out, or will get in trouble, goof up. I hate that. I wish I could go with someone who's done it before first, but mostly I just now hope that this Signum place doesn't mess up any of our other permits, filings, payments, time slots, etc. Man...
Sunset at St. Louis Downtown Airport
St. Louis below
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