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