Two Pilots & an LSW: Oh Ohio

I'm writing this in the middle of Wednesday, but I don't think anything of note is going to happen today. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking...well here it is, I am sick. I felt hot, my head hurt, congestion, stomach bothered me. I slept in until 9 am, and when I got up I still felt warm and had a low grade headache. I took some Tylenol, drank a bottle of water, drank a black coffee, relaxed. My temp was 98.9, and the headache stuck around until about 1 pm, mostly. Right now I feel a little congested, a tiny headache, a little warmer than normal, but I think I'm all right. Ordered in a little Chinese and a Chai Latte delivered for lunch, and resting.

Kaylee is back at work still. She wears out early and is tired by halfway through the day, which is to be expected when one is still recovering from Covid.

Yesterday was my long one. I needed to wake up at 5:30 am to check the weather. So of course I woke up at 3:30 am and couldn't get back to sleep. At 5 am I started staring at the weather, and it wasn't good. We were going into Lakefront up by Cleveland, on frigid Lake Erie, and like normal, the icing up on the lake front areas is bad, and it was calling for SLD which is Supercooled Large Drops, or...sleet. So, that's bad for me no matter what airplane you're in, even for airliners. And it was right at approach altitude, and it was IFR so I was going to have to shoot approaches. I stared at that for a long time, and finally had to text them and tell them that it doesn't look like we can safely get in there. That meant a 10 hour round trip drive for the two of them. About 10 minutes later I'm looking again, and it's changed. It now looks doable. I wait and look and look and finally I text them and say "Guys, I know this isn't confidence inspiring, but the forecast has changed and I believe we can get in there okay now". They were so excited. lol But that was just the start of my day.

I was also arranging with Morgan and Steve Fortner to drop her off at William's County and have her fly the Cherokee Six back to Delphi, so I had to factor all that in and plan it. I get everything planned and ready to go, and Ethan texts that the Cherokee's owners don't want to fly it in rain because of the paint. So, had to reverse all that and replan it for that not happening. Morgan decided to go along with me anyway, because she has nothing going on but the occasional instructional flight now that the Meridian has been down for its annual.

I had already been up since 3:30, basically, so I was plenty tired to start with, but it was a busy day anyway. I met Morgan at Frankfort, and it was IFR, so I took off out of Frankfort to go to Delphi, 5 minutes away. I had the autopilot on and had it shooting an approach for RNAV 36 where I'd have to circle to land on 18, and the clouds were at minimums for the circling approach. The autopilot dives down on the glideslope and I get going so fast I have to retract the flaps again, even with the power as far back as I could get it without pulling it too far. We got way too low on the glideslope, so I disconnected the autopilot and hand flew it, not that well as I was behind and fast, broke out, had to stay close to the runway because of the visibility and clouds, had to overshoot down final and let it overshoot because I was slow enough I couldn't crank over, and it was a little bit of a three-stooges approach both IFR and visually. Morgan was laughing and said she was super glad she hadn't missed that. :p

I picked up two guys there, and we took back off IFR for Lakefront, OH. The weather was rainy and cold, but the icing was under control fortunately. Landed at Lakefront, Morgan and I took a crew car over to a place called the Lakeside Diner. It was a beachy vibe place with a deck with outdoor seating on the water by the bridge, but it was cold and rainy so we ate indoors by the window and watched boats go by, and a whole swarm of birds following the huge boats chumming up the water and providing food for them. Morgan detests birds, like how I feel about spiders almost, so she was horrified. It was good food, good ambiance, and a nice part of the day.

Back to the airport, they weren't much longer, and we headed back out. Going into Delphi to drop off the guys, it was now just about 100' above minimums; dropped them, took off and went right to the Initial fix for the Frankfort RNAV approach to home. It was higher ceilings there even though they were only 5 minutes apart. Still had to shoot the approach, but it certainly wasn't minimums. Landed, had Derek put the plane away, and Morgan and I separately drove to Sheridan for the CAF meeting.

I wasn't sure I was up for a group meeting; I was already tired. But I made it, got home around 8:30 pm, and I was home and watching NCIS before Steve had even left from socializing down there. This is how we stay happily married--we go separately so I can leave when it's over and he can stay down there and chit chat with everyone for over an hour and be the last man standing. :)

I wanted to go to bed early, but couldn't quite make it, so it was good I was able to sleep in until after 9 am today. I still feel like I'm recuperating here today.

My new phone has an annoying habit of being unable to focus past the closest item no matter how I tap the screen or tell it to focus. You can see that on just about every photo here on the runway with condensation on the window.