Florida

Thursday was supposed to be a full day. I took Ethan, his wife, daughter and son on down to Panama City, FL to drop them off for a vacation.  I topped off, filed, did all the due diligence, and went to leave for West Palm Beach, to pick up Andy and his wife and son.  I couldn't get the left engine to start, and white smoke started coming out the back.  I pulled out the POH, and I went through a manual start sequence. Then I went outside and pulled the prop through a bunch, let it cool down, then went in and tried it again, then tried an air start procedure. Nothing.  It would spin and spin but not fire at all. Couldn't hear the ignitors. I was out of ideas. I called Nathan and asked if I forgot anything stupid, and he said no. So I let Ethan, whom I'd just dropped off for vacation, what was up. I called the National guys in Ohio, and they suggested I find a mechanic on field, pull the cowling, remove the ignitors and dry them out, because they were probably fuel soaked after non-effective firing.  So thus started my next round of maintenance problems and trouble-shooting. I had to contact Andy and tell them I wasn't sure when I'd be able to get them.  I found a mechanic on field and he came over within half an hour, so I grabbed a courtesy car and drove 20 minutes away to the nearest restaurant and had brunch while he looked everything over.

He calls me with bad news. The ignitors are fine, it's the "exciter box". It's dead. No spark, no firing, no left engine, I am dead in the water.  So now the fun continues. I call Andy and let him know that he needs to find an alternative way home. I contact the mechanic again and get him on the hunt for the appropriate part, to order it and get it here asap. I'll be here overnight at least, I assume, so I get a rental car for $43 (they said) and a hotel room for $150.  Then I talk to Ethan, and he says I should airline home, because Kaylee's graduation stuff is Friday evening and I don't know if I'll be home in time, and graduation is Saturday.  I look, and Southwest where I can get free tickets only has one flight a day, it's already left out of there for the day, and Friday's flight wouldn't get in until after 7 pm, which is too late.  I find a United flight for $143 that leaves in 2-3 hours.  I come back down out of the hotel room and beg my case, and the lady knocks off 50% of the bill.  I drive the car to the Hertz return, and it drove for 5 miles total, but they didn't give me any breaks on that.  I didn't spend any extra of his money to get a special seat, so when I loaded on the first United seat I was on the aisle in the back next to a woman with her shade pulled.  Then the flight attendant said that there were open seats farther up and if any of us wanted to move, we could. I asked if there were any window seats and she said yes, so I hopped up and went forward, and nobody had wanted to pay for an exit row seat, so they were all open. I took the right side exit row window, nobody sat next to me, and I had a window, exit row leg room, and nobody next to me. It was delightful.  :)

It was cold in there, and I realized I was wearing my t-shirt from Florida. I decided when I landed in Houston, my layover, I'd get dinner and a sweatshirt.  Well, we land in Houston, and my phone app says my gate in a different concourse and it'll take me 25 minutes to get there.  My flight was supposed to start boarding in 23 minutes.  I didn't have time to eat. I booked it through that airport, had to take a train to the other concourse, practically ran through, and finally got my gate in sight in 17 minutes. Thank you. So I stopped at a store there to grab a sweatshirt that says "TEXAS" on it to wear back in Indiana where it's cold at midnight.  Second flight wasn't so great. I ended up at a window, but two older folks who couldn't get up were already parked in the aisle and center seats, and when I said I was at the window, she asked me to crawl over the top of them because he was wheelchair bound and couldn't move. Whose dumb idea was it to seat people who couldn't move? There is NOT room on those seats to do that, so I ended up with a super awkward and icky slide over to my seat all over that poor man. Good thing I didn't need to get up, because he couldn't.

I had pre-ordered an Uber to pick me up at Indy and take me to Frankfort, where my car was. After we landed, they said I'd have to crawl over him again or be the last one off the plane when they could get a wheelchair in there. *sigh* So I did.  

Uber was there within 3 minutes. They have a cool thing where they track your flight and know if you're early, late, on time, etc., and then show up after you've had a few minutes to deplane, grab a bag and get there.  The guy took me to Frankfort, and didn't talk at all, which was great, so I gave him 5 stars, and he didn't try to kidnap me or anything. ;)

Plane landed at 11, I got to Frankfort after midnight, got home around 1:30 am.  I got up at 5:45 am and got back home at 1:30 am.  That's a long day, man.  But I was home.

I'll get to the rest of the weekend....tomorrow.  I hope.  For now, good night!