Illinois and Toledo

Another early morning, headed to Rochelle, IL. More wind and gusts and grey, but not low IFR at least. I took Andy plus two guys to have a meeting with a developer there. The guy behind the counter irritated me. I had called a couple days earlier to verify their courtesy car was still there and good, and he asked me what time I'd be there, in what airplane, etc. I show up today and tell them we'd like to use the courtesy car, and he seemed surprised. Later he was talking to a buddy, within 10' of me, and said "They came in and said they were looking for the car, good thing I didn't loan it out to anybody else I guess." He had no memory of it, but I'm pretty sure he was the one who answered the phone when I called.  Then still talking to this buddy of his, he said "That lady is the pilot", then "it's really gusty and windy today. Maybe the plane is heavy enough it's not that bad", and then they murmured, and I heard one of them say "Mmmm hmmm" in a really not cool tone of voice.  I'm like...I'm sitting 10' from you. I can HEAR you, dumb-ass. When it came time for me to leave, he came outside and stood by the gate and watched my takeoff.  The stupid thing was, yes, the winds were a 70 degree crosswind gusting to 27 knots or so, and it was windy and gusty and crosswindy. But when hasn't it been, for months? That's not that exciting of a wind, not worth going outside to watch, anyway.  Of course I made sure it was a perfect takeoff, no drift, crabbed over the runway, and climbed out like a homesick angel.  Eat that, ground pounder. ;)

Got back to Frankfort, grabbed a sandwich at Jimmy Johns, and took the Conquest over to Toledo to meet up with the maintenance shop over there, National.  Took their mechanic up on a test flight. Toledo is a Class C with airline service, and busy, so they asked me to keep a tight pattern, and I definitely did.  Made the maintenance guy's eyebrows go up. Had some fun.  ;)  They think they know the issues, and I left the plane there, Ethan came to get me in the 340, and hopefully in a week or so it'll be back WITH the engine oil leak fixed, WITH the smoke issue gone.  Exciting thoughts.

Ethan, Morgan, Nick and another guy were all in Ohio already doing a project Nick was working on. It was a four-minute flight away from where I was. So we asked National if they could keep the plane early here, they said yes, and I left it and went back with everyone else. Fortunately Nick, other guy and Morgan are all tiny, because Ethan and I are not tiny, and that's a lot in a 340.  I had her do the flying from the right seat, because it was hot, fully loaded, gusty, and great practice. And she nailed it. Boom. I was proud, like a parent.  lol

We're sitting at the hold short line and Morgan slaps her arm, says "OH!" and then slaps her seat.  I go "WHAT IS THAT?" She says "Nothing" and I say "IS THAT A SPIDER" and she says "Maybe but it's dead." She said in her mind she was freaked out because it was on her, but she knew if she didn't kill it, *I* would freak out.  I kind of did anyway and I didn't even see it. She said it was pretty big, and white with yellow. We couldn't find its carcass but I'm hoping that's because spiders shrink when they die and it was white. Later I looked up my heart rate. 75 until 3:30 pm at which point it jumped to 109.  ;)

I got home around 6 and have been doing all the things since. The things you do to not get behind.  So far so good.  More to do, but blog is part of the things to do and now it's done, so...

Tomorrow is an IFR flight probably in the rain in the morning with a student, and then a mammogram.  Wheeeeee!

Oh, I was able to do 10 counter push-ups today. The last few hurt but my arm didn't give out.  I'm feeling pretty good about the PT and exercises and getting my mobility back.  My colonoscopy person keeps calling to set the appointment and I keep not doing it. Well, I had it scheduled twice and had to reschedule twice for flights. And that's the problem with trying to schedule stuff.  So now I'm just holding off a bit here.  Not like I want to do that anyway. :p

No Kaylee news. She was working today, she calls or texts a lot if she gets nervous or bored, and she's suddenly finding herself with more time now that she's not having to go to classes and do homework on her time off of work.  Not a bad problem to have.