Two Pilots & an LSW: Dallas

Yesterday (today) was kind of a weird one. I didn't have anything on the schedule, per usual. Steve and Kaylee were set to go hiking on what they thought was a 10 mile hike. I'm invited but it was 25 degrees, and I don't think I could do a 10 mile hike at the pace that she is doing to try to prep for her Grand Teton Adventure. Pretty sure I don't want to, even if I could, and not sure that I could right now. So they went off and did that, while I left the house, ran a couple of errands, and stopped at Missy's for brunch by myself, reading a book, eating at the counter.

Some people are horrified by that. In fact, I saw a morning show guy say one of the worst things you can do is eat alone. He equated it with drinking alcohol alone. Says if you're in a restaurant alone, you should strike up a conversation with someone, anyone, for human contact and stimulation. Says the extrovert, obviously. ;) I don't WANT human "contact and stimulation" from strangers, thankyouverymuch. I want to enjoy good food, without being disturbed, and people watch while I read and eat. He (and Steve and Kaylee) can chat up strangers, and I'll find my peace elsewhere, eh? ;)

The other day Kaylee sent us a text and asked if we left bread in her bird feeder. I said no, Steve said no, and she said "WHAT??" because there was a huge chunk, like a half loaf of bread stuck in a little plastic feeder thing by her deck door. Steve says it was a squirrel, that the cameras didn't show any humans. So yesterday I left the house at 11:16, and took a photo of Molly on the deck staring at me to send to Kaylee. The hunk of bread was there. I got home at 1:55 pm, and was walking to my house when I saw the bread was gone. Shot a photo and sent it to Kaylee and said "Your bread is gone". Steve thinks it was a squirrel but man it was a big hunk of bread. It had to be something that could climb like that...big fat squirrel?!

Molly staring at me, bread over her head slightly to the right

Bread be gone

When Kaylee and Steve got back, they'd had a good hike, stayed warm, did it to be an 'aerobic' exercise, because Kaylee's training program had her doing 2 hours of aerobics, but she didn't want to do it indoors, so she wanted to do it on a speedy walk. By the way, neither Steve nor I can say "aerobic" without starting out at "aerobatic" and trying to figure out what the correct word actually is. Steve is glad Kaylee is wanting to do this, because he otherwise doesn't want to hike 10 miles on a Saturday, but he says it's good for him, and they do some good bonding too.

So there I am, sitting on the couch, and I get a text from Dustin who asks if I'm up for an adventure, and would I be willing to go to Puerto Rico to pick up his best friend and family who are stranded there because the airline flight was canceled...because all airline flights were canceled because of the Venezuela situation, and military activity. I told him I was always up for an adventure, but nobody was getting in there right now, because it's not just airlines shut down. lol I also don't have an airplane I can use right now for that, because his 340 sure won't make it. ;) But that was an interesting rabbit hole, looking up the airspace and the activity going on and reading about all the folks trying to get in or out of there. The airspace opened back up at 5 am this morning, and planes hopping in and out of there, so hopefully everyone is getting sorted quickly.

Now it's late afternoon, and I'm just sitting there on the couch still, and I get another text, this time from Ethan asking if I can do a quick run to Chicago to pick up his son Tell and his girlfriend, Abby. I hadn't been drinking or anything, so I said sure, I could. Come to find out Tell and Abby were in Dallas, and their airline flight into Chicago had been delayed 3 times already, and now wasn't going to get into Chicago O'Hare until midnight. Whoa. They were going to have to land at O'Hare, and get an Uber over to Palwaukee or Midway, and then we'd have to fly home, and then drive from there, and we were talking like 3 am before it was said and done. I didn't have anything on Sunday either, so I could, but... so the next thought was, they're sitting there in Dallas. I could fly to Dallas and get back to Frankfort about the same time as they'd be landing in Chicago, IF their plane wasn't delayed again or canceled. Ethan floated that past Tell, and they took it.

I got dressed and ready, flight planned, filed, called to get a quick turn down there for fuel, texted Morgan, because she's stir crazy right now too and I haven't even seen her for almost two weeks, and we headed for Frankfort.

I stopped at McDonald's on the way out, and this sign was hanging in the window. Being curious, I read it even though it wasn't for me. It says:

NO SPEAKERS
NO HEADPHONE
NO EARBUDS
IF A MANAGER SEE YOU
WITH ANY OF THESE
ITEMS YOU WILL BE
WROTE UP AND
TERMINATED!

The Grammar. Oh, it hurts. It hurts so bad. I need a red pen, STAT!! ;)

There was ice on the ground in front of the hangar, and I couldn't get the plane out by myself. She pushed on the wing and with that extra oomph we were able to get it out (and back in) but it wasn't easy, it was cold and dark and icy, but at least it wasn't windy. :p

The flight itself was easy, fortunately. Morgan flew the first leg and I did the radios, and I flew us home and she did the radios. The moon was super full and bright, skies were clear, and it was pretty out. It made for a nice first 'real' trip of the year. When we landed there, they had the fuel truck pulled up, and we had time to go to the bathroom and pay the bill and we were back outside, in the air in like 20 minutes flat, which is impressive. The only weird thing was the display on my side. The main G600, which displays all the information I need to fly the plane, suddenly went full on bright even at night awhile ago, if you recall. Ethan put a tinting film over the top of it, which makes it manageable even if still a little bright, even though I also manually took the backlight down as far as it would let me. Well, I pull up to the runway to take off in Dallas, and my screen goes completely black. I can't take off like that. What happened is the thing started working. I could shine a light on it and make it come up for a second, but I couldn't keep a light on it and fly easily. So I ripped the film off of it and brightened the screen back up manually. Take off, get halfway home, and Bam, it suddenly goes full bright again, blasting the ole retinas. I had saved the tint film, fortunately, so I slapped it back on there and we made it the rest of the way home. Dumb thing.

Meanwhile, Ethan was in Naples, FL waiting to get home in his brother's jet. They were supposed to leave at 2 pm, and they were stuck on the ground until 7 pm. They had to get in line around 4:30 pm, in the airplane, on a taxiway, in line, and sat on the ground at least 2 hours. Tower controlled field. Thing is, Marco (uncontrolled) wasn't showing delays, and the floor of the EDCTs was at 18,000' like normal, so I think I could have gotten them out of Marco in the Conquest, but I can't say that out loud...and don't know it for sure. But I think so, because I have been able to so far.

The ground traffic at Naples, with Ethan's brother's plane in red, sitting for 2+ hours

I got home around 1:15 am, which is a lot better than it could have been. The only down side is that I had a stuffed up head and low grade headache even when I went to bed. I think maybe flying along at 30,000' in a not-great pressurized airplane, almost 6 hours, couldn't really drink much, I think those high altitude long range flights are hard on me these days. Anyway, my head never unstuffed, and I ended up with the first headache of the year this morning, and the UV light couldn't save me from whatever that was as far as head stuffiness. I didn't feel great most of the day, but I walked a mile on the treadmill anyway just to try to get some motion in.

I got a bit of a surprise this evening. Morgan had asked me last night about Shaun (my first fiancé), and I said I didn't know where he ended up, so I figured I'd look him up on the FAA database and see if I could figure out stuff. He had his A&P, a Flight Engineer certificate, his ATP and several type ratings on small stuff that looked like regional airline pilot, but then I noticed his medical expired in 2021 and was never renewed. That made me curious, so I put him into Google with his birthday, and the first thing I found was...his obituary. Bro died March 20th, 2024 "peacefully at home" at age 54. Of WHAT, I have no idea, nothing said. I probably shouldn't contact his parents, his wife of 22 years, 3 daughters, or 2 grandkids and ask them. ;) But it's wild to me that he died at home at 54. Cancer maybe? That's what got Bob J at age 53 who also died 'peacefully at home'. It's just weird when people your own age die. Everyone older than me is laughing at me right now. But it IS weird. He looks like him, just older.

Tomorrow I have the young lady (NB) coming to Kokomo to job shadow me for 3 days, as we do...nothing. No trips, no students, no warbirds, I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with her past Monday afternoon. Maybe I'll fly her to some random place and sit her in the pilot's lounge and tell her that we're gonna wait here for 8 hours and then fly home. ;)

Airborne photos from last night's trip to Dallas.