Gallipolis

Welcome to the place in Ohio I can’t pronounce! Gal-i-polis. Something like that. Last time I was here I was with Morgan. It’s a trailer only, no building, with one corporate conference table filling the middle of it, no other rooms but a dirty construction bathroom with one roll of giant John Wayne TP on the floor because it’s too big to put on a holder. With nowhere to go, the seats were all filled with construction crew and hanger-outers, so you had to sit at a table in a room in a trailer with a bunch of people talking, forced to make conversation which is not my favorite as we know.  But they had two courtesy cars, so Nick would take one to go get his job done, and I’d take the other for an hour to get some food and wander around and enjoy the sights. Last time they had a whole Christmas thing in a park by the river that was really cool.

Except this time their good courtesy car had been crushed in from the back and was undrivable, so Nick took the other, and I’m just here. Less than ideal. But I ordered Door Dash food, Bob Evans breakfast to be delivered to me. I ordered a large iced tea but it came in a pouch, hot. I asked the airport manager here if they had a bottle of water, a glass, ice, anything like that, and the answer was no. No microwave, no fridge, no water bottles or snacks, just the conference table and a toilet. But then he went outside to the crashed car, wrestled open the crunched up trunk, and found a water bottle lying in the back of the trunk floor there, and brought it in to me and handed it to me like a cat dropping a dead mouse at your feet and looking for praise. It was dusty, crumpled, and very cold at the moment from the outside air temp, and I took it, and said thank you. I was eating eggs and a biscuit and needed water, so I inspected the lid and it was apparently still sealed, so I drank the trunk water, yes I did. HAhahaha.

I probably don’t want to think about how many microplastics I ingested from drinking out of a water bottle rolling around in a trunk for who knows how long getting hot and cold and hot and cold. But hey. Once I drank that I poured my warm iced tea into the bottle where I could at least drink it even if it’s warm.

I went for a walk around the premises, because it’s a really pretty day here, and it was nice. There are big hills right next to the runway, which is right on the river, so it’s scenic. The airport is small and trying to get bigger. He asked me to buy fuel, which I didn’t need, but we do use his car, so I said sure. No truck, so I had to fire the Conquest up and taxi it over to the self serve pump. He can’t see the pump numbers while he’s fueling so I stayed out there and helped him fuel it. Their fuel is almost $1/gallon more expensive than ours, but…trade off. Like I said, we’ve used their cars a couple times and they say the fuel sales help them, so I bought a decent amount.  Fired up and taxied back over to my parking spot again.

Mostly there’s just one guy here this time, the manager, and he’s mostly leaving me alone, so it’s a little more pleasant than last time. I can exist in a trailer without a lot of amenities just fine as long as I can get food delivered, have internet and a bathroom, and can have some peace and quiet. All these things are true, so I am good. ;)

Well, before I left, three folks sat at the table with me and made my last hour awkward, but…it’s a beautiful day, so when my guys got there, we launched for home, made it back by 3:30, and I was home in time to do laundry and get stuff ready for tomorrow. All good.

The trailer FBO and crunched in courtesy car

The lovely bathroom and the massive roll of John Wayne TP

5" wide paper and this way was about the size of my stretched-out hand

If you can read my iPad, this made me snicker.

Annnd, home. Where it's wet and dreary

The Unfortunate Day

Honesty it wasn't that bad, but it was full of things I don't like.

I wake up dehydrated every morning; maybe the air blowing on me, maybe the lack of humidity in the room, I don't know, but every morning I drink a bottle of water to start the day, basically. I couldn't this morning because I couldn't eat or drink anything after midnight last night. So that was tough, I couldn't even take a couple Tylenol with water. A bit of a bummer, but I survived. We got there at 8:40 or so, I got checked in. The lady came back to do my IV, and when she came over, she said to my existing nurse, "Can I do yours and you do mine? I have tried twice on mine and I can't find the vein. I tried once in the hand and once in the forearm and I used the light to find the spot and I never found one and I went through the other and" and I'm sitting there like...I don't WANT you to switch and do me while the 'good' nurse does yours! This is not confidence inspiring! But they did switch, I didn't argue, I can deal, right? She did all right, first try. You're welcome, mom. ;)

They also left me two warm blankets to put on. I unfolded one and it was stuck together with something brown. I left it at the foot of the bed, opened the other one, it seemed clean, so I just used that one. When the nurse came back in and I saw her looking at that blanket twice, I said "I didn't do that, it came to me that way" and she said "Well that's kind of gross" and I said "Well, I thought so. lol" Another lady said that they think it's a sticker that gets 'melted' onto them, glue, and she sees that now and then. 

The nurse said I was very healthy, looking at my records and such, which was lovely. I wasn't supposed to have on any jewelry, so I took it all off at home except for the hoop I have in the cartilage in my upper right ear piercing. I was going to hide it but they asked and I can't lie for shit, so I told them I couldn't get that out (true) and they said it wasn't a big deal. Good enough.

They said I might go in early because the person ahead of me "wasn't cleaned out". Hadn't finished with prep until 6 that morning and was "still pooping brown". Yikes, I would not have dared to show up like that.  I DID go in early, so Steve who had gone home to do some work ended up having to come back early. 

I was okay until they wheeled me back to the cold room filled with people in full face masks and they lower everything and I'm getting anxious. I heard my pulse going up. They hit me with the Propofol, and I watched them staring at me waiting. It was a few beats, and then I saw a monitor get blurry, and the next thing I know I was being woken up by the nurse in the recovery room and it was over.

Honestly, all in all, the whole experience wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be. The prep wasn't that bad, and the procedure was fast with no lingering problems afterwards. She gave me a Diet Coke when I first woke up, and after that I felt pretty well woke up and normal.

Steve took me home and fixed me scrambled eggs to start with, as they suggested not eating anything super heavy or greasy, and I rested up until 1:45, when it was time to be driven to the dentist's office. They did x-rays (which I hate) and a cleaning (which I hate) and looked at the tooth I broke a chunk off in the back (which I hate) and I had to make two more appointments for that. *sigh* So basically, the whole day so far was full of crappy things. ;)

Afterwards Steve took me to Grindestones and I had chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes and broccoli. Only ate about 1/2 of it at most, but it hit the spot. I was feeling pretty good, actually. Not fuzzy or thick or slow or sore or tired or anything. Steve told me later tonight that "You must be feeling back to normal, you're not talking nearly as much". Apparently I was a regular chatty cathy for awhile there and he thought it was funny. Not bad, just funny.

I felt good enough that the Conquest was done and needed picked up if possible. So Steve arranged Brennan to get the RG ready, and I texted Morgan to come with me after she landed in the 340 with Dustin/MBros, and it was arranged. I rode in the back of the RG while Brennan and Morgan flew me to Toledo. Then I flew from Toledo to halfway home, and let Morgan fly the last half of it. I did some formation on the RG with prior permission. Meanwhile, Morgan says "I think you're still on drugs". I asked why, because the flying was going fine. She said yes, but you have stumbled on almost every radio call. One is one thing, or two, but you've stuttered or stumbled or paused on like 5 of them, and that's not like you." I had a mental defense for the calls. Each of them a different reason I stumbled. Like...when contacting departure, I was just VFR and hadn't been asked for or given an altitude, so when I called up I was like "Departure, Conquest 295CE 1,200 climbing..." then I stopped because usually you say what you're climbing TO but I wasn't climbing to anything in particular. lol I knew she was staring at me waiting to see if I had a problem, so I wondered a little, but also, that's why I had her along, and I trust her opinion, and if she thinks I'm still off my game a little, I was likely still off my game a little. But like I said, that's one of the reasons to have someone else along today. I'd had anesthesia that morning, and the paperwork said "Don't operate heavy machinery for 24 hours". It also said not to be left alone with/responsible for small children which made me laugh. But it wouldn't have been wise or responsible to fly alone, even if I DID feel fine, which I did. So Morgan, who can fly and land that plane just fine too, came along and made fun of my radio calls. ;)

Home in time to eat some leftover chicken from a couple days ago, and get ready for tomorrow's flight to Galliopolis, Ohio. Send out billing, yadda yadda. 

Morgan's first trip with Dustin was today, because of my procedure. He texted me later that he thoroughly enjoyed flying with her, and that she reminded him a lot of me. They talked about me a lot on the flight, because I'm what they have in common. They shared stories of Laura. Could be dangerous. lol But that was good to do, to get her set up as a back up pilot for them, too.

I'm about to need to go to bed so I can get up early again so I can head to Ohio so I can get back and get ready for Thursday to Ankeny, Iowa, and when I get back I need to work on getting to Colorado to pick up Ethan on Friday and I may also need to pick up a MBros guy on Friday so that will require some effort.

See the gross brown stuff on the blanket to the right of my feet? Mmm hmm. This was me prior to being taken back

Brennan landing at Toledo

Sunset in the RG

Brennan and Morgan

Here We Go

Sunday was a long day. I was up relatively early, and Morgan and I took the Conquest down to Marco. I had her fly left seat and do everything on the way down, and she didn’t have a bit of trouble. Not with the radios, not with Florida, not with the arrival they gave her, not when they changed the arrival. She had it handled like a pro. Made me smile like a pleased parent.

Getting INTO Marco was a little problematic, but that was just because they were so stinking busy. We had to go-around on final because of all the traffic and try it again. Anyway, we finally got down, and we took a car to our usual Island Gypsy place, but they had an hour and 15 minute wait, and I only had an hour to eat. So we got back in the car, with the windows down in the Florida warm and sun, and drove to another place called Dolphin Fin, and had some good food there under some shelter by some bay water. Just enjoyed the sun and the heat and soaked it up a little, you know?

Got back to the FBO, paid the bill, set up a reservation for spending the night there next month (they require that from Nov-Apr if you’re going to take up ramp space overnight because they’re so busy), and we were ready to go when Andy and Sharla arrived.

I took the leg back from Florida with the pax on board. It took about 3.7 hours, so it was a long headwindy flight home. We dropped Andy and Sharla off, topped off the Conquest, then Morgan and I took it over to Toledo, to drop it off for a couple days of maintenance. Ethan picked us up there, took us back to Frankfort in the 340, and I drove home from there, arriving around 10:40 pm. Problem was, after midnight I couldn’t eat anything else, and I hadn’t been able to eat much because we were in the airplane over 8 hours. I hit a drive-through and got a cheeseburger and was slightly sad that would be my “last meal”. ;)

When I got home, Steve had started watching a Nicholas Cage movie, so I watched it with him assuming it would be over at midnight. Instead it was over at 1 am. I had to be up at 6:30 am for work today, so that was a little rough when the alarm went off. lol

It was pretty weather this morning, so I took Nick and Logan and ran down to Harrisburg, IN. I walk in, and the guy there says “It’s been awhile since you were here! You have a Purdue tie, right?” I hadn’t even been sure I’d been there before until I walked inside and recognized the inside. I had taken Coach Painter there, and he remembered that and me. I know I’ve said that a lot of times before, but it amazes me every single time that some line guy or desk agent would remember me from one flight a year ago. Amazing.

I wasn’t there long. We loaded up and landed back to Frankfort, arriving by noon. I had a little extra time, so I went through the car wash, which did a crappy job on my car. Went and topped off my car with gas, and then went to the hair dresser who gave me a trim, highlights and an eyebrow wax. From there I stopped at Kroger’s to pick up popsicles, white grape cranberry juice, chicken broth and jello.  You know, things I can actually “eat” today. 

Got home, and it was time to pop my pills, wait a couple hours, then dump my Miralax into a couple of bottles of Gatorade, and start chugging. And so it begins. I’ll be honest, though, I’ve had worse nights than this so far. In fact, for my TMI note of the day, there is apparently a genetic component of having issues with constipation, and I’ve had worst times trying to deal with that than this. I was expecting something more like food poisoning without the vomiting, but this isn’t that, either, fortunately. The hardest part was just drinking all of that stuff in a short period of time. And not eating all day. I like eating. And no, foods without chunks or chewing don’t count. ;) 

So…I’m alive so far.

Look at this creepy dude. I mean…dude…

Florida contrail over water

A series of photos of Morgan landing while I took photos

And here I put the phone down and made sure the rest went well too. ;)

This was my car AFTER I went through the car wash.

I don’t even know what that is, but it was on my car after I went through and not before

This was not a good way to start this kind of evening. ;)

Spinning Out

I just did household stuff yesterday for the most part. Got some supplies for my upcoming colonoscopy. The directions said get 2 32 oz bottles, but Meijer only has 28 oz bottles, so that made me do math. ;) It also surprises me (not really) how much of what I actually like is red. Red popsicles, red jello, red juices. I don't like yellow and green and orange ones. Nope, just the dark ones. *sigh*  So I got white and light blue and light pink gatorade. It's not red, it doesn't count... And you know what? In 2025 you would think there would be a better way to do this than this. Absolutely freaking NUKING your entire system, knocking you unconscious, and then shoving a camera up your butt. Seriously, there actually are better ways. Why am I doing this again? If they don't see anything interesting, this may be my only one. Or maybe one more when I'm 65 or something, maybe.

I got an email today that my passport info was received, payment accepted, and would be processed and back to me within 4-6 weeks. They said my current passport was now invalid. It's still in my hands and still looks good though, so hey. I just hope nobody says "Hey, we need to go to Cancun next week" now. That's why I waited until after Puerto Rico and took it with me, even though you don't need one for PR, we were hoping to go over to St. Barth's, which is French run. But as far as I know, nothing else should come around for awhile.

This afternoon I flew with Morgan in the yellow Citabria in order to do spins with her, so she can do spin training with someone else. We've done a lot of spins over the last few years, but this time she'll be in charge with someone who doesn't know what they're doing, so we went over a fair amount of information. Did stalls, entries, spins to the left and right, slipping and skidding turns and which one goes into a spin and which doesn't. We ended up doing like 6 or 7 spins in total, and it was fun. It's always fun when it's high enough and on purpose. ;)

The hardest part of that was getting the plane in and out of the hangar. A good two feet in front of it was a sheet of ice, and I almost wiped out three times just trying to get in the hangar, knowing the ice was there and being as careful as I could. It is not good out there. The sun doesn't reach that part of the hangar 'driveway' so it won't melt off until the temps are well above freezing for awhile. Which hasn't been for awhile, but I think is coming later this coming week.

Steve, Chuck, Cameron, Morgan, Kaylee and I went to Pastarrific for dinner and to hang out for a bit. All in all, a nice afternoon/evening.

I read this the other day: 

Psychiatrist Thomas Szasz on what is required to learn: 

"Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all." Well, that's true. I used to have trouble with learning because I didn't want to do something not perfectly, or do something badly, and prove the people who told me I wasn't good enough or smart enough or just...enough...right. Or prove the voice in my head saying the same thing, right. Now days I feel like I'm experienced enough that it also makes it harder to be vulnerable on not knowing or being good at something, because now people expect more out of me and I expect more out of me too. But you don't get good, or stay good, or get better at Anything without making mistakes and failing once in awhile. I just hate that part. So I always have to remember that and overcome my initial desire to avoid it. ;)

Tomorrow Morgan and I go to Marco, FL to pick up Andy and Sharla. We don't have to leave super early, so that's nice. When I get back, Ethan and I are taking the Conquest over to drop off in Ohio for a few days for maintenance, and then first thing Monday morning I'm flying Nick in the 340 to southern Indiana. Monday afternoon I get back in time to get my hair cut, and then at 5 pm I'm supposed to start colonoscopy prep. Tuesday morning at 8:45 am it's showtime at the hospital, procedure at 10:45 they say, and then I have a dental appointment at 1:30 which Steve will have to do with me. What a week...

Frozen tundra

With the panel in the pic you can see the spin

Good One

Productive day! First, I renewed my driver's license online. It expires in March. You can do it every other time online, so I was able to do it for the first time today. It was pretty easy, and should be coming in the mail soon. While I'm at it, I also renewed my passport online. It's a new program. The only hard part for me was getting a photo. You have to use a recent photo with a white background and very specific parameters, like no selfies, certain distance away, no shadows, no backgrounds, no photoshop edits of the background to take it out, etc. I didn't have one, so I tried to take one. Long story short, it did not work at all. So I went to Walgreens for them to take one, and they charged me $24 and it was a terrible job. Bad quality, they photoshopped out something anyway, had pixels showing, and the lighting was really bad too, and it was just ugly. So when I got home I had Steve take one, and THAT worked. Still not a great photo, but that's more because of how I look than because of his photo taking 'skills'.  But I by George got it done and submitted and signed up for text alerts. My new passport should be arriving 4-6 weeks, they say. I don't need it for anything that I know of coming up, but it expires in November and I'm not going to let it expire, because I never know when one of the clients are going to want to go somewhere interesting where I might need the passport. 

This morning I met up with Morgan and Isabel for coffee at Panera. We just met up and hung out for an hour and a half or so. Isabel used to work for us, left to go be a wife and mom. Brought her 3 month old son along, a tiny little dude, pretty laid-back. We hadn't seen her in person in over a year, so it was good to reconnect a bit. She seems to be doing well, and happy.

We didn't eat, though, so next up was lunch with me, Nathan, Morgan, Steve, AE, Ty and Chuck. I have more to talk about with the old pilots than I do Isabel, so that was a little more relaxing and normal, but it was good to do both. :)

Came home and did three loads of laundry to catch up from our trip and such, downloaded all my photos, sent off receipts and billing, updated logbook and plane logbook, did all the things.

Finished in time to go out to the airport at 6 pm for the EAA meeting, with about 30 folks there. VFR and IFR "Clubs", dinner (chili), a quick EAA meeting, and then a talk from Dave J. about fractional pilot (FlexJets) jobs, how it works, the pros and cons. It was an interesting talk and evening. I didn't get home until after 10 pm. So it was a full day, actually, got a lot done, felt pretty good about getting my official documentation caught up the most...it's also the year for my CFI renewal, but I can't get it done this early, will have to wait for April...

Did forget to get my Gatoraide while I was at Walgreens though. I guess I'll have to hit it or a CVS in the next couple of days. ;) 

Home Again

Made it!

We were awake at 5 am, got everything ready. I wanted to be at the airport shortly after 7 am, and we were supposed to leave at 8. None of that worked out properly.  We went downstairs at 6:45 am and I went to get a coffee and the line was out the door. The free lobby coffee wasn't out yet. So, no coffee for me. Fine. It took them awhile to get our car out of the garage. I took it to top it off as a rental, took a wrong turn and ended up taking twice as long to get there. Gas stations are "pay ahead of time only" things, and it's all in Liters, and I have NO IDEA how much the car will take to be a top off. But we get that done, get to the airport, and they haven't even fueled the Conquest yet even though they agreed to have it out and topped so we could be ready to go by 8. They start fueling it, and then I find out that the US Dept of Agriculture does indeed have to inspect every plane leaving. And because of traffic they were running behind. First she said 8:15, then she said 8:30. Meanwhile I have a flight plan and an attempt to get out of Puerto Rico and into Florida on time so I was feeling a little stressed. The Ag guy finally shows up, and doesn't end up inspecting anything for real. He asked us if we had any food, plants, etc., and we said no, and offered to open bags and such but he just signed off on us and away we went. 

Getting home wasn't a problem after that. It was really a pretty cool flight home. We flew over the whole island of Puerto Rico long-wise. Next up we flew over the Dominican Republic and I could see Haiti right there on the other side of the mountain.  Saw Cuba over there. Flew past Turks and Caicos. A whole bunch of other small islands you've probably never heard of. Flew over the top of the Bahamas. All these island holiday vacation spots I've never been to, it's neat seeing them from above. I didn't get great photos of most of them because of scattered clouds, but I saw 'em and I thought it was a neat perspective and opportunity.

We landed in Marco, and Steve and I took a car over to the Island Gypsy. 45 minute wait, and there was weather in northern Florida, but we decided to wait anyway. We got one last meal in the hot sunshine. Blackened Grouper and key lime pie for him, grilled grouper sandwich for me. Delicious, absolutely. Steve kept trying to get me to stay there. Andy had offered that we could stay down there until Sunday. But it was time to get home. I originally had a trip Thursday, but that was canceled today. But still. It was time to go home...and I'm glad to be here.

All in all it was a really good experience, and I'm glad to have had it.

Puerto Rico

Dominican Republic

That is so very Caribbean

Bahamas

And that is so very Indiana

My flight track back home

Puerto Rico Ending

This is as long as I need to be somewhere, but I was actually glad to be here for this long this time because 1) Steve was here too, so I had good company, 2) It is Butt Stupid Cold in Indiana right now and I don’t need to be there, 3) It was long enough that I pretty much got to see all the relevant parts of Puerto Rico. So all in all, that’s a pretty nice paid vacation! :)

This day was “The Rest of Puerto Rico” Day. We took the rental car out and drove into the city to stop at a little Bistro for breakfast. The entire menu was in Puerto-Rican Spanish only. My rudimentary Spanish came in handy enough for me to figure out what I did and did not want, and I finally ended up with some French toast with fruit and a caramel latte that were both REALLY good. Steve had a giant omelet and he loved his too. Everything on the plates was huge, so much food.

From there we drove around to check out the island. We drove along the ocean, drove into the rain forest, drove up some mountains. We went up to check out some waterfalls up there, and climbed up an observation tower. We ended up wandering around through some back roads in town, and some super narrow one-way streets that were super tight and winding up the mountain, found a couple pot holes that were man-eaters, too. It wasn’t easy maneuvering around, but Steve tried to navigate and I tried to drive, and we got the job done. One thing that surprised me was how many people were up on that mountain with us. It was a National Park, and there were cars and people *everywhere*, which made it a little less enjoyable than if you could have the place to yourself, but hey. It was beautiful, but there were very few times and places I could actually pull off to get a photo of it, and I sure couldn’t drive and take the photo at the same time because the roads were too tight. You’re skimming mirrors on traffic coming down the other side, and your right wheel is on the edge of a drop off you’re not going to get out of without help. So…concentrate it was. ;)  It made for a nice day, and rounded off Puerto Rico so that we pretty much saw most of the different parts of it. From rich areas to old downtown cobblestone and shops to mighty forts to rainforest and mountains to hurricane-hit destroyed areas and tiny shacks with bars over the windows and homeless people in sleeping bags and everything in between. It’s its own culture, a beautiful area, all the radio stations are in Spanish only, all the road signs are in Spanish, and the drivers make up their own lanes and rules a lot of the time. The people have been typically blunt but friendly and helpful. The beaches are beautiful and so are the mountains. And since it’s in the 80s, you can’t beat the weather.

All in all, this has been a really nice trip.

Now I just have to make it home. I’ve got my flight plan filed, and I did that 23 hours early to try to avoid a bad EDCT into Florida. The flight plan that they recommend is the only one I can see, really, and it takes me into Dominican Republic airspace before I get to Miami Center, whereas on the way down I was with Miami all the way until I got to San Juan approach, so I’m hoping that’s not too bad. I don’t know what I don’t know about all these little countries and rules and waypoints. I tried Google, but…I think everything’s all right, but if not I’ll find out tomorrow and deal with it.  Google also said I had to have my plane inspected by Dept of Agriculture before I left for the mainland, but Steve thinks it might not mean us. I dunno. We’ll also find THAT out tomorrow I guess. They (Dept of Ag) open at 8 which is when we want to leave, so if it’s required, I guess they’ll be there at least.

Last night here, and we have to wake up at 6 am, which is 5 am Indiana time, so that’ll be plenty early.

Beautiful beaches and sunshine

Waterfalls

Rain forest

Observation tower but it was a 2.5 mile hike up there and not happening

Another small waterfall area

Observation tower I COULD get to

Last day…