Florida

Kaylee and Steve hung out all day at home today. It was another pretty, but windy one, and Steve just got a bunch of work done and I don’t know what Kaylee did. Took the day off, mostly, and hung out with family.

I didn’t have a great day. With the storms moving in, the barometric pressure dropped low, and I woke up at 4 am to storms and a headache. I took something, and could never get back to sleep. When I got up at 6:15 am I still had the headache, so I took more something, took my shower and got ready.  I did not feel great. My nose was running, the right side of my head was blocked up, and I was queasy.  In the car on the way to the airport I had to open my car window to have cold air on my face so I wouldn’t throw up.  The weather was crystal clear all the way and my head was all right, but man I was queasy.  I pulled a sick sack out of the back of the plane and thought about making myself sick to get it over with, but didn’t do it. I tried to eat some crackers and had to stop after one.  When I got to Florida, I laid down in the pilot’s lounge with my sunglasses on and closed my eyes, and then 20 minutes later ate the rest of the crackers and some water, and finally the queasy passed. I don’t know why I was so nauseated. But the weather definitely does a number on my sinuses and head sometimes, and it did today. By the time my passengers had arrived, because I’d gotten some food down, the nausea had passed and I felt a lot better.  The flights themselves were uneventful. Clear and easy. I’d have had to cancel if it was a tricky weather day or if my head hadn’t settled down, and a family of 6 including a 7 week old baby would have been stuck down there for awhile longer the day before Easter.  Which would have just had to be, if it had to be, because it’s better to be stuck in Florida for an extra day than end up on the news. But fortunately I was at the inside edge of doable, and it got better before my pax arrived to be taken home.

Florida. Florida during Spring Break. Florida is a terrible state to fly to. The airspace is a disaster. The traffic is a disaster. It took me 25 minutes to get off the ground at Marco. Last week I had a 6 hour delay that I cheated to get around. Flying into Florida is a circus, and all the professional pilot groups are complaining about it and sharing tips and tricks they use to try to get around it. Problem is, ATC knows about it too and they’re violating and yelling at pilots who try to get away with gaming the system. Like I did last week. I hope there aren’t too many more trips down there. I know Kevin and us are going down in June to Orlando. Other than that nothing is on the schedule for Florida…thank heavens.  I’m coming to actively dislike that place.

I enjoyed Purdue winning so handily last night after they started off slow. Tomorrow I’ll watch them against Tennessee and hope they win there, too. I don’t normally care about college basketball, not sure I’ve ever watched before. What can I say—I fly the guy around some and he bought me dinner at Wendy’s and McDonald’s and I’ve attended basketball games with him and Purdue is actually doing well in the tournament (they usually do well during their regular season and tank it in the playoffs), so…I’m wating this time.  It’s kind of fun.

No pics today. Hoping I sleep like a rock and wake up refreshed on Easter Sunday.