Posts by Jonah

Friday, July 25, 2014

I put on a motion sickness patch, that Uncle Stacy had prescribed, behind my ear before getting in bed.  Sleepiness is a side effect, but I kept waking up a lot.  I did sleep a lot in the plane later in day, but that may have been because we didn’t sleep very long that night.  Aunt Marisol made us quite the breakfast, and then we loaded up everything and drove to Leesburg Airport.  We swapped the car for the Piper Cherokee in the hangar, fueled up, and then were on our way.  We were a little concerned about the little Cherokee being able to take off with the three of us, our bags, and a full fuel load on a super hot day, but it rotated like a champ.

Uncle Stacy and Berck take turns with one person flying and the other working the radio and navigating.  I sit in the back, and if I’m behind Berck’s seat, I can put my legs down in front of me … kinda.  If I’m behind Uncle Stacy, I have to curl them up in the seat next to me.  The Cherokee supposedly has 4 seats, but you can probably only fit four very small, skinny people and no luggage and still be under gross weight.

The original plan had been to do a fuel stop in Montgomery, but the weather there was bad.  So we decided to stop at LaGrange instead.  We had to fly dodging clouds and finding holes to descend down to the airport.  Atlanta Center had been complaining that our transponder wasn’t showing our correct altitude, so we asked at the FBO if the shop there could take a look at it, because we weren’t going to be able to fly into the relatively busy Nashville airport without it.  The mechanics told us they didn’t have the correct equipment to test the transponder, and we couldn’t fly to Atlanta to get it fixed because we couldn’t fly into Atlanta airspace without it.  “But,” one of the mechanics said, “There’s a guy in Columbus, which is only 30 miles away, who should be able to.”  He called up the guy and told him we were coming.  “Go to Stark Aviation.”

So we got back in the plane and flew a few minutes in the wrong direction and landed at Columbus. An advantage of being in Columbus was that we could stay with friends of mine (that’s where I grew up) if the fix was going to take too long. The guy at Stark dropped everything and got right to work on our plane.  We went into the air conditioned lobby to wait.  Suddenly, Berck said, “I think this is the guy on the RV forums who’s always giving people really helpful advice… I bet it’s him!” He went back out to the hangar.  Sure enough. This guy is possibly the best avionics mechanic in the country, and we had just stumbled into his shop!  Berck watched him do his thing.  Apparently, the transponder’s pins had bent, so he just bent them all back into the correct orientation, and it worked great!  He showed Berck everything, which is nice, because Berck is going to be mounting avionics into the plane we’re building before long.  And he only charged us $95.

As nice as it would have been to see some friends in Columbus, if we’d gotten stuck there, The plan was to have dinner with Sydney in Nashville.

By now it was mid afternoon, though, and the thunderstorms were building.  We took off from Columbus just before it started raining, and then with the help of Columbus tower who called us to tell us we were heading straight into a cell, dodged thunderstorms in a roundabout route to Nashville.  We also got a warning call from Center saying we were on a path to bust some restricted airspace containing “live firing and fighter jets.”

We flew really high to try to get cooler, all the way to 10,000 feet.  It was nice and cool up there.  I read my book and fell asleep again.  It was also a really smooth flight, no turbulence, and I had my ginger ale and ginger snaps and didn’t feel any nausea whatsoever.

When we left Columbus, the weather over Nashville was bad, but by the time we got there it was fine.  The FBO gave us a ride off the ramp in a golf cart and told us they’d fill our tanks in the morning so we’d get the weekend fuel rate, a whole dollar a gallon off the regular price.  We called Sydney to come pick us up.  We dropped our stuff off at her house and then her boyfriend Shawn drove us, even though we could have walked, to Two Ten Jack (I requested it because of the mosquitos, and it was dusk).  Somehow, even though there was a line, we got seated immediately.  We shared all the sushi, yakatori, dumplings, etc.,  Everything was very good.  Then Berck wanted to stop by Bolton’s Hot Chicken, but unfortunately, the person in front of him had just placed an enormous order.  The hot chicken was still as delicious and spicy as ever.  Uncle Stacy had a strip, which he regretted the next day.  Then he went to bed while Sydney tried to teach us how to play Dominion (a beardless board game), while we drank beer and tried to get our lips to stop burning.

Here are pictures of Sydney’s pets:

Killer:

Dixie

And even Jorge

…who is rubbing against my legs with his head pressed against the ground.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

We really wanted to leave our car in Colorado Springs (because that was where we’d be flying into), and the fares weren’t much more to fly out of Colorado Springs and change planes in Denver for a direct flight to Orlando. But when we got up at 5:15 a.m., the flight was showing that it would be an hour late, and would get is into Denver after our connecting flight had already departed. Still, we drove to the Colorado Springs airport and got there really early anyway. The FBO that would be taking care of Uncle Stacy’s plane on our return trip let us park for free in their lot and drove us over to the commercial terminal. One of the staff members took chocks out from under their minivan shuttle before unlocking the doors for us.

The flight was still showing that it was late, which didn’t make any sense, since the weather was fine. So Berck went up to a United ticket agent to see what we could do. The next flight to Orlando from Denver wouldn’t get in until around 11 p.m., and we had planned to go say hi to Berck’s grandma and then have dinner with his mom and Uncle Stacy and his wife. The ticket agent typed furiously on his terminal and frowned at what he was seeing. Then suddenly he said, “Go. Go quickly to gate 11. There’s a flight leaving right now for Chicago. I’ll call the gate agent while you’re on your way. Go now!”

So we took off running. Fortunately, hardly anyone else was in the security line, and Colorado Springs hasn’t gotten any body scanners yet, so we didn’t have to waste time going through a pat down. When we got to the gate, the gate agent was also typing furiously at her terminal and frowning. “You’re in 1 Charlie  and 3 Delta,” she said. Berck asked her if she could print us new boarding passes. “No,” she answered, “This is all screwed up. I’m going to have to fix all this.” Berck asked her to at least write down the our flights on the back of his useless boarding pass, which she did, then we hurried on board. The guy sitting next to me graciously swapped with Berck so we could sit together. I slept for most of the flight while Berck started and finished one book and started another one.

In Chicago, we had a pretty long layover, so Berck let the way to an Auntie Anne’s for a pretzel (I watched them make them so I could copy their technique at home… I make really yummy pretzels from their recipe.) Then I followed him to Frontera Tortas, which, according to one magazine, is the number one airport restaurant in the U.S. We split two very good tortas and each had a couple of good local Chicago beers. Then we got into a huge argument about grammar.

Our flight to Orlando was completely full, except for the seat next to me… we don’t know why they seated us apart. And it was full of kids going to Disney World. But we got to Orlando fine, and Berck’s mom picked us up. We drove to Granma’s house and visited with her a bit, then continued to Uncle Stacy’s house, where Aunt Marisol had prepared us a fantastic dinner of steak and grilled peppers, zucchini, and corn. We were just eating dessert when three of Berck’s cousins,the K’s, arrived. Uncle Stacy and Aunt Marisol went to bed, and the rest of stayed up till almost 2 drinking wine and talking. One of the K’s had just gotten back from two years in the Peace Corps in Peru, and we got to hear a bunch of great stories.