Meridian

I'm wiped. Woke up at 3 am after passing out around almost midnight. Never got back to sleep. Got up at 6, got out to Marion by 8, it was raining and high winds. We flew. Cameron flew, Morgan flew, it was 30 some knot winds, rain, and I am glad I was there, because I had to fight for Mark to not just take them hard IFR before they'd even flown the thing before. It was a long, tiring day, especially on 3-4 hours of sleep. He was canceling IFR when we were still going in and out of clouds for 10 minutes, wanted to climb up into the clouds before getting a clearance, doing right traffic at an airport, insists on doing the radios but isn't good at them. He's 70 and an experienced pilot, but he doesn't stop talking and he lectures on little things like insisting you follow an ILS glideslope all the way down to the runway or saying we shouldn't use checklists but instead do flows even before what you know what you're supposed to be doing yet, while doing other totally illegal stuff. He is boisterous, doesn't know the Meridian very well, didn't do great ground, but once he and I finally got the plane generally figured out, he got more in the groove on instructing in it.  The other two will be doing more flying with me soon. I'm going to do my own flying in it soon as well.

Tomorrow I'm up at 5:45 am, drive to Frankfort, fly to Gunnison, CO, fly to Grand Junction, CO, get on an airliner and get back into Indy International at midnight, back to Frankfort around 1, back home around 2 am.  I'm already tired.

The shiny panel on the Meridian

Cameron and Morgan on Be Real, "Frick and Frack"

Be Real

Clouds in the Meridian

Short and Boring

Kaylee says 'hi' to us by flipping our lights off remotely with her app now that she's next door and set up. So that's a fun little way to say hi in the evenings. ;)

I was up at 6:30 this morning, out to the airport by 7:45 am, did a Conquest check flight, did some ground. Did a Cheyenne check flight, did some ground. Did a lot of ground. Took the Aerostar and three folks over to Marion, did a Meridian checkout. Took the Aerostar back to Kokomo, put everything away, went to dinner with Steve, Morgan and Cameron at Half Moon. Our instructor, Mark, was too tired to go to dinner with us. I wore his butt out. But I was doing all the work, so I wore my own butt out too.

The Meridian was a stretch for both of us. Had trouble starting it, and ended up with a fireball out the right exhaust stack. Morgan and Cameron in the back were like :O  Also the throttle is super, super sensitive, you barely move it and get a big reaction. I've never seen anything like it. A small movement back and you basically pull all power out. Small movement forward and you over-torque it. It's really tricky, I've never had such a hard time managing power properly on an airplane. But otherwise it seems easy enough.

Tomorrow up early to go out while he starts working with Cameron, and Morgan and I ride in the back.

Morgan took these first several from the back of the Meridian

I took the rest. Kokomo at sunrise. When I got there. Early

Ethan and Mark in the Conquest

Mark flying the Aerostar

Gumby taxiing in

Back to FL

Steve waited until the last possible moment to do his CFI renewal. He does that every time, until he's at the edge of being able to get it accomplished before it expires and he's hosed and has to do a full checkride with the FAA FSDO guys to get it back. I texted him yesterdCray and asked if it was done and he said no. He had 2 days to do it, and they suggest giving them 5 days to process and make sure you don't expire. So he sat up on the couch all night long and did it. He worked on it from afternoon through to 10:30 this morning, without sleeping until little dozes after I left this morning.  He got it submitted, and then worried that it wouldn't be done in time. By the end of today, he had gotten an email back that it was done and he was good to go. Talk about taking it to the wire, man.  I want it out of the way asap, so that's something I do 2-3 months early just so it's done. Him waiting until the last possible moment gives ME anxiety and it's not my certificate. ;)

Steve, Kaylee and I went to Greentown today and voted. We like to go there because there are rarely big lines and they're just quiet people minding their own business, just like me.

I got to bed around midnight, woke up at 3 am, and had to get up at 5 am. But I can't complain to Steve about being tired because he was up all night, literally. ;) I said I had to head to Florida before the buttcrack of Dawn. So below are the photos of what Dawn's buttcrack actually looked like today. ;)

I just ran down to FL, picked up the family there, and ran right back home. Took about 7 hours door to door. Winds have kicked up and it's really breezy, about 30 knots.  Crosswind of course. I'd not like to have the T-6 up today, that's for sure.

Indy down there

We voted

Good Day

Today is a good day.

We got the prop back for our C-45 and it will be able to go to its event in Arkansas this weekend.  We had advertised, had hotel room, had everything set up to go, and no guarantee we'd have an airplane. The prop shop wasn't responding to us, and we had a few days to get the prop back, get it on, get it tested, and head to Arkansas. Well, it arrived today. Unless something bad comes up on the install, we're gonna make it!

But most importantly, our lawyer called and it's over. We were dismissed from the case, we don't have to pay them Anything, and we just had to pay "our portion" of the expenses from the mediator, which is still a lot. Our lawyer actually fought that, saying we shouldn't share an equal expense with everyone else considering we were sent home halfway through the day and were dismissed from the case altogether, and we could have gotten some of that taken out too, but they'd have had to go back to the others and adjust everything they'd already settled on and done, so Steve just told him we'd pay it just for it to be over with. I like the idea of making them go back to all the others and adjust it out of principle if nothing else, but... So that payment was made today, and we're done, and out, and not bankrupt after all, which was actually a legit concern, and didn't have to give the family themselves a single dime. After 4 years, 1 month and 8 days, it's over. And they can....you can fill in your own blanks. There are multiple choice options that are all correct.

That put me in such a good mood I pulled out the 340, pulled out the Cheyenne, pulled out the T-6, took it up and did some gentleman's aerobatics for about 20 minutes. I didn't have enough gas to go high enough to do vertical stuff so I just did some rolls and some yanking around, came back down and did 2 takeoffs and landings, after which I was down to 10 gallons/side, so I stopped, topped it off, and put everything away, feeling quite satisfied.

Steve, Kaylee, Morgan and I went out to dinner at Red Lobster, had a celebratory drink and meal, and decided that this was a most excellent day.

The post after this one is going to have to come later, it's going to be about our trip down to Panama City yesterday, Steve and I, so that'll require scrolling past this post. :)

Rounding the corner

The fading Autumn colors, with everything else going BROWN.

Panama City

Sunday was an easy-going day. We slept in, went for lunch at Grindstone's, drove on down to Frankfort, and took off in the Conquest for Panama City, FL.  We were still climbing out up to FL310 and Steve was asleep. Before we leveled off. He stayed asleep until 30 min before we landed in FL. The Bum. ;)

We got down to Panama City Beach airport around 3:30 pm, and Ethan came and picked us up and took us back to Alys Beach and their condo there. This place was really cool. It was a community that looked like you were walking through Greece, or Europe, or something. Everything was white and tall and grand and had gas lanterns and architecture and was just really beautiful and old world looking. Steve and I changed clothes, put on sandals, and we all walked to the beach. Had beach chairs, a big beach umbrella, right on the water, on a private beach. The sand was as soft as satin on your feet, just super silky soft and smooth and white sand.  I walked into the water for awhile, just listened to the waves and smelled the water and felt the sun on my face and soaked it up. Then we sat in the chairs and watched the sun go down for a couple of hours. I went back out into the water at sunset and watched the sun go down. Then we all packed up, walked back, changed clothes, and walked to a nearby seafood restaurant. Fresh caught stuff that was *really* good. Ethan bought for all of us.  Then we picked up Clay, the reason we came down there, and I flew us home, leaving at 9 pm. We landed back at Frankfort at 12:15 am, and got home at 1:15 am.

For me the funniest part was that our 23-year-old daughter, who now lives next door to us, was in bed and asleep because she had to get up early for work the next morning, but had turned our deck lights on for us, her parents, who were sneaking in at 1:15 in the morning after spending the day at the beach in Florida. How's that for backwards? ;)

Getting lower...

Isn't that cool?

Almost gone

Me watching the sunset

Gotta have at least one flying photo, right? ;)

Briefly

Kaylee is all moved in next door. She still has her Wabash apartment for a little bit here, but most of her stuff is next door and she's staying there from now on.  We'll get her table and the last of her stuff by the end of the month here.

Steve and I went to Missy's Family Restaurant for brunch--he swears they have the best pork chop he's ever had. I had "carrot cake pancakes" with nuts and cream cheese frosting, and they were quite good too, for the record.

Morgan and I took the red and white Citabria out this afternoon for probably one of the last nice Fall evenings where there is still a lot of color on the trees. On Tuesday we're supposed to get high winds that will blow off most of the rest of it, and then it's going to rain. So now's the time. We messed around at a grass strip, Robison Field, where I'd fly from the back seat and buzz the runway looking at our shadow in the trees and she'd take the photos of our shadow and I'd work to not run into the trees at the end. We did that at Wabash Airport too. She wanted to perfect her landings, said they were bad lately, and wanted me to fix her. As she called it.  She went out and did 7 landings and they were all about perfect. I said she was welcome for me 'fixing' her with my magnificent instruction by osmosis.  Ha. We landed after the sun went down, wiped the plane down of bugs, and called it a day.

I have 60 photos to go through. The shadow ones may need some work, but here are many of the others. It was the "golden hour", that's why the colors are so bright. I didn't oversaturate them, they are like this.

At Wabash Airport

Just a tree by our house that's really pretty

Citabria at Robison Field

Mississinnewa, just didn't know which one I liked better

Me taking a photo of Morgan taking a photo of the sunset

Glenndale with the lights on

The Cub landing after dark. I brightened this one up so you could see it, but you can tell how dark it was by how bright the runway light is. lol 

These were trees in the almost dark at Glenndale. I brightened this one up too, just playing with how bright the colors still were in the dusk