A Return from the South

I got a lot done on my day of downtime while in Atlanta. I worked on some computer projects and then got antsy to get outside to enjoy that beautiful fall weather!

Just a short walk north of my hotel was the Perimeter Mall with lots of fun things to do and see. They just redid this busy street on my walk, and lots of cops were out to watch the flow of traffic.

But the new street was very pedestrian-friendly, even creating a designated walkway through both lanes of traffic! At least, I think that this is where I’m supposed to be walking!

I was hungry for lunch and couldn’t make up my mind what to eat. And then I settled for something in the food court and regretted my decision immediately. If there is a Cheesecake Factory, I probably shouldn’t try to eat a crummy ol’ sandwich at the food court, right?

I have never eaten anything from Godiva before, but after my poor lunch decisions, I realized that a treat might help me feel better.

Now I understand why I’ve never tried this establishment before…this little guy was $3. It was called a Salted Caramel Parfait. I had some trepidation about eating it after spending so much to purchase it!

But it was absolutely divine. I’ve never had anything like it! A light, fluffy chocolate moose in a crunchy chocolate shell surrounding salted caramel. But that salted caramel. Oh my goodness.

Anyhow, it was soon time to return home. With winds cooperating, we can make it all the way without stopping! It was a long flight, though. 4.7 hours flight time after it was all said and done!

We arrived to the airport just after a morning storm rolled through. Man, I love waking up to the sound of rain. Is there anything better?!

This pretty Westwind was parked next to us. I always think that these guys are going to scrape their bellies because they sit so low!

I hope that the rain didn’t hurt the new asphalt that was just laid!

Good morning, pretty girl! Let’s go home! We are scheduled for a 10:00 AM departure, which is surprising since that is 7:00 AM our time. I was up and at ‘em at four this morning!

It’s easy to hop out of bed when flying is going to happen that day.

Even early on a Thursday morning, this place was busy. I am glad when good businesses do well, and Epps Aviation is a good business for sure.

Our passengers showed up early (wha?!), and we were soon on our taxi to the active runway. Look at the residual rain still left on the windscreen. I love it!

Once we were airborne, these drops of water didn’t stand a chance of hanging on!

And just a thousand feet above the ground, we were above all of the rain and mess. I love when we rise up through the dark storms to enter the bright light and blue skies.

This is usually where I realize that I forgot my sunglasses in my flight bag.

In the top-right side of my Primary Flight Display, I can tune the frequencies to talk on the radio. Right underneath that is the altitude tape, which has so much information stored in such a little area.

I really love flying with a glass cockpit, as this is called, instead of the old “steam gauges.”

As we got closer to home, I flew just south of my previous home in Albuquerque! I rarely get this close, so I eagerly waved at Susan, Ken, and Robin. I left behind lots of wonderful people with whom I still keep in touch.

This is a wonderful place to live, if you can handle the occasional snow day (and, consequently, drivers who have no idea how to handle snow).

We were cleared to Winslow for the JCOBS2 Arrival, but that simply wouldn’t work with our fuel level at this point so late in our long flight. So I sweet-talked a shortcut to go directly to SWIRL. Hard to do during the dinner rush, that’s for dang sure!

We were soon over the mountains of northeastern Arizona. There are all sorts of canyons and lakes in this area. Hubby has taken the Scouts hiking here on numerous occasions!

Here was our turn for the shortcut, thank goodness. We still landed with nine-hundred pounds of fuel, which is plenty (about another forty-five minutes of flying, actually). But we don’t like to go less than that. Their original routing would have been too far out of our way.

Oh man. I love this picture. It ties for my favorite shot of the day.

We were kept at 8,000 feet by Phoenix Approach Control until we passed these little mesas. About the same time, we can usually see our home airport. Then we were cleared for the visual approach, which meant that we could descend to make our own route for a landing on the runway.

Airport in sight!

This is another favorite shot of the day.

But I also really love this one, too! Sheesh, can I ever make up my mind!

Maybe all shots of Gladys are pretty? I think we all know the answer to that!

As part of the post-flight walk around, I leave the pitot tube covers out to remind me to put them on before I leave. They get so hot during the flight (on purpose…for ice protection), but it takes a while for them to cool down after we land someplace that is also still really warm.

These little blankets slip onto the pitot tubes to protect them while parked on the ground. Bugs would love to creep up in there to make a new home, but then we wouldn’t be able to receive proper instrument feedback. So we cover them to prevent anything like that happening, and then we “remove before flight,” just like the instructions say!

This is one of three pitot tubes. It looks pretty inviting for a little critter, huh?

What a great, long flight home. It’s always kind of fun to put these long ones into my logbook. Lots accomplished in a very short amount of time! What a wonderful day to fly.