It is FREAKING HOT here. I don’t mean hot, I mean it’s 100 degrees with head indexes over 110. It is brutal. And we are outside All. Day. Long. We meet in the hotel lobby at 6:30 am and that is the last time we are indoors until the end of the day. I am standing on the ramp by the plane in the sun, talking to people, with sweat just rolling off my face in rivers. I have to keep a washcloth in my hand so I can keep it out of my eyes so I can see.
The bad news is, I gave zero rides on Friday. So I was out there sweating and wiped out all day long, for no income or interaction, really. Almost nobody came through the gate, so we sat under a tent that day with no breeze just stifling until it was time to go home, with the occasional walk out to the ramp and answer the questions of the few people who did come.
Part of the issue is that Border Patrol/ICE, Customs, and the TSA were all out there, and they were causing issues from the get-go on what we could do, not do, how we could let people in or around the planes, etc. They made everybody who came in show a driver’s license, and then checked their name on some list of apparently bad people who couldn’t come onto the field. It was RIDICULOUS. They would card all of us CAF people going in, and if we left the gated area to go to our trailer which had to be outside the gate, then they had to look at our ID again to let us back in. This is how stupid this is. By the end of the week here, one of the guys would just wave us in and out. But they’d bring new people to stand there in the heat and do it, and they’d do it by the book. Stupid little government lemmings doing stupid security theater bullcrap.
Anyway. Zero rides on Friday, and I drank water and gatorade all day long, still dehydrated, still had a headache arrive at 3 am on cue. Saturday, today, hotter than yesterday. We met in the lobby at 6:30 am and were out there by 7 am setting up the tables, which gets you sweating good and early. I got the plane ready, and then finally around 9:30 am, I had my first load of riders. I only had two, but Glenn O took pity on me as he was flying the T-6 and is a heck of a salesman, and he got me three more riders to fill up the seats. From there we were off and running. I did four rides pretty much in a row, which was fabulous for the airplane, as 20 people paid in total $3580 to ride today. We needed that revenue. The bad thing was that it’s 110 degrees outside and probably close to 140 or more in the airplane on the ground before you get up in the air. Did I use the word brutal yet? I had to keep wiping my face off to keep the sweat water from making it so I can’t see out of my contacts. But everybody had a good time. I had three planes where everyone was chatting and excited and loud and happy the whole time. The 4th plane we were stuck on the ground in the heat for almost 30 minutes before tower would let us out, and it was a quiet load of folks. The energy was low for all of us, but they swore they had fun and liked it. I had kids on board squealing, a couple veterans, a former Twin Beech cargo guy, a retired Delta pilot, and a fresh new tailwheel endorsement guy who also flies a jet who tried to keep acting like my copilot, wanting to touch my frequencies and type in squawk codes and tell me where taxiways are and what my clearance is. I’m amused, like…my man, I’m not sure how I did this without you this whole time! But he was excited, and brought his logbook back, and I signed it for him so he could log the .4 of C-45 time. Why not, right?!
We broke up the party early, stopped rides at 2 pm, stopped tours at 3 pm, because of the brutal heat, before worst of it hit, so that the elderly (okay and us) wouldn’t drop dead out there. When we got back to the hotel, unlike yesterday where I walked out of my clothes and into the shower, I gathered up all my clothes except what I had on, and walked 1/4 mile over to another hotel, one that has a washer and dryer. It was only $1 to wash, and $1 to dry. Small little loads, but I only had a small little load. I did not pack enough clothes for the conditions in which I found myself. So I also needed to wash my bra. But I couldn’t walk all the way there not wearing one. So I put everything else in the washer and then went into an elevator and didn’t select a floor so that I could quickly whip it off, get back off, and put it in the washer. I then had to hang out for the next hour and 15 minutes and pretend to be part of that hotel without drawing attention, because there was nowhere to sit in the laundry area. This was fun. There was also only one washer and one dryer working out of four, the rest were out of order. The dryer is busy and she has three wet loads to dry and I have a dinner at 6 pm and I need to be done. She leaves but then her load is done and she isn’t coming back. I wait almost 20 minutes and then I pull her stuff out and put it in the INOP dryer so it’s not just sitting out, put my own in. Five minutes later she walks in, wet laundry basket on the floor. I tell her she can take my quarters and finish her next load, but she was just like “nah, I’m leaving anyway”, and she walks out with a basket of wet laundry. I had already pulled mine out of the dryer and apologized, but nope, she did not care. I don’t know if she was out of quarters or just didn’t want to mess with it or what. When I bought detergent the front desk was like “Do you want to put it on your room” and I said “Ah, nah, I’ll just pay cash for it” as opposed to “I don’t live here” ;) I got by with it. When my clothes were done, I had found the public bathroom, which is a better place to go to put your underclothes back on than an elevator that hasn’t been called yet, and then I traipsed back to my own hotel. It was so hot out there that I was a sweaty mess again by the time I got back to my own room. It’s ridiculous out here.
At 6 pm we all went to dinner at an Asian place. My seafood delight was tasty. And I talked to a lady and her husband about coming up to Kokomo to do training. Him T-6 training, assuming I have one, and her regular private training because she hated her instructors so much she quit right after solo. I tried to tell her there were other good instructors that had to be closer to her than me (they live in Texas), so hopefully she takes the advice on what to ask and who to look for and goes from there. We have a lot in common—she’s an introvert too.
Got back to the room and started working on some things I’m behind on. Tomorrow we meet at 6:30 am again to start early to end a little early to beat the worst of the heat. I’ll give rides if there are any, do a T-6 checkout if his schedule works out for it, and then go home in the Cirrus afterwards. Wish me luck and health. ;)
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