Florida

I decided to go along to Florida, and it was probably a good thing. The weather was fine in Florida for once, but there was a huge line of weather moving through the country, all the way to Texas, and it was aiming for Indiana before we could get back. But you deal with one thing at a time.

We had two young boys on board, Caleb and Laz (Lazarus), ages like 8 and 13. We stopped in Georgia to top off, and we got out of there as quickly as possible. The longer it took us to get down and back, the less likely we'd be able to get home. We made it to Sarasota, dropped off the boys to an uncle, topped off as fast as possible again, filed back to Georgia, and when we had started the engine, Ground cold called us and asked if we were up. We said yes, and they said that the Atlanta area had a 5 hour EDCT and we couldn't go to our first stop. So we filed for another place, up in Tennessee, with the engine running, and it went through, and THAT one ATC let go through. Apparently it's just the Atlanta area that was a problem, thankfully.

We launch, and have no problem getting to "Cleveland Regional Jetport" in Cleveland, Tennessee. A medium-sized uncontrolled airport that had a big flight school, a fancy building, a LifeLine helicopter, etc.  They were supposed to be open until 5 pm. We landed at 4:45 pm, go up to the door, and there are people inside, but the door is locked up. They are inside, looking at us, and don't let us in, not to use the bathroom, or to help with fuel, or nothing. I don't know any airports, let alone small ones, that are that rude. They could have opened the door and said "I'm sorry, we already shut down the fuel truck, but come on in and use the restroom before we leave" or anything. But nope. So we fired the Meridian back up and taxied over to the self-serve pump, which took us a hot minute to figure out how to operate for the jet fuel, and Morgan slowly topped it off while I did something else.

I have been trying to hydrate enough even on these long trips, to protect my kidneys. So I had drank enough to have to go to the bathroom by the time I land at each waypoint. So I had to go. And I couldn't wait until we got all the way back to Indy. So I walked around the back side of a building, and peed back there in the grass. It was ironic because Kaylee and Steve were out hiking and she brought along a little Lady Waz to go outdoors, but she didn't have to pee outdoors, *I* did. Just not right. I'm about to go leave an unpleasant review at that airport's site, too. That was so unnecessary.

And then came the interesting leg. Getting into Marion when the weather was already there. Our plan was to get as far as we could, see what we got, stop where we had to. Maybe even go around it and stop in Ft. Wayne, where it was clear, and get a car and go get some cheese curds, and then get into Marion when we could get into Marion. But as we kept going, it looked like we actually might make it in. It was raining at Marion, but it was mostly VFR, and the storms were all south and west of it. We had 5 seconds of sketchy turbulence going around the last cell, but the rest was just rain for a couple minutes tops, and it was fine. We even did a visual approach into the airport, although the photos won't look like it. We landed in the rain, secured the airplane in the rain, and then the rain quit. If we'd have known that, we'd have sat in the airplane for awhile until it quit raining. lol Oh well. 

We celebrated making it back by going to Culver's and getting those cheese curds. Sat and hung out and ate late dinner and then headed home after 8.4 hours of flight time, 4 stops, and some weather dancing.

Pretty Florida

Not so pretty Indiana

A little wet afterwards...