Flying Home from The Lone Star State

I had a wonderful trip to Disneyland this past week, thankyouverymuch. I’ll tell you all about it soon!

Meanwhile, let’s get back to some flying! After a wonderful day seeing some cute boys, it was time to fly home to The Valley of the Sun.

This was my first time at Dallas Love Field, and it was impressive indeed. They just do everything big in this state!

Welcome to the refreshment center in the lobby of the FBO. Not too shabby, huh? I mean, I could get used to this type of popcorn/soda/hot chocolate/slushies/juice treatment…anything that your little heart desires!

I didn’t have any of this, of course. Who needs all that sugar?!

Cookies, freshly-popped popcorn, apples, and candy. I feel like I’m at an amusement park all over again!

The waiting area for passengers was nice, too. I sat here until I spotted my passengers’ arriving car. We got them loaded up and headed home!

The FBO had a giant canopy outside, which always makes loading and unloading a little easier in the shade. It was a nice place to stay for the night, even though the runway construction was a little tricky to navigate in the dark.

I love airplanes, but reflections of airplanes are pretty cool, too.

And this place was busy! We were supposed to leave around 6:00 PM tonight, but they ended up arriving around 5:30. Even better! Let’s get these folks back to their own beds!

Pretty Gladys. I’m still in love with this airplane.

As you can see, it was a gorgeous day in Dallas. Blue skies, calm winds. It’s perfect flying weather, if you ask me!

On our taxi to the runway, we got another view of the airport construction taking place. It was easier to avoid in the daylight hours, that’s for dang sure.

Dallas Love Field is the home base for Southwest Airlines, so the place was crawling with purple-and-orange Boeing 737s. We got to follow one to the beginning of the runway this evening.

I love the view of downtown Dallas in the background. It’s one of my favorite cities in the country.

We were holding short of Runway 31L for this arriving traffic. Then it was our turn to fly away!

Goodbye, Love Field!

This was another great view of the construction taking place down there. We parked just underneath where our wing was in this shot.

Goodbye, Dallas! Somewhere in the distance, two cute little boys are waving back. I miss them already.

Actually, we flew pretty close to their suburb! Goodbye, little guys!

The rest of the two-hour flight home was nice and quick. We had about seventy knots on the nose the entire time, but I’ve seen it as high as one-hundred and thirty this time of year! So I’ll take half of that any day…

I thought that these high, wispy clouds were so pretty. They almost look like waves coming up a beautiful beach.

I’m a fan of beautiful beaches, by the way. Even better if there is a hammock placed between two palm trees on said beautiful beach.

This is my chicken scratch pad. Can you even read what I’ve written?! I can’t!

I write our clearances on this thing, and when we get long instructions in flight. Sometimes, Ground Control can give a whole lotta directions to get across a runway, too, so I am very careful to write that all down so we don’t go the wrong way.

That would be awkward!

The evening flight home was beautiful. We passed over a whole lotta Texas before crossing New Mexico and into Arizona.

Aren’t these mountains cool?

Arizona has a lot of copper mines, too, which helped the state become what it is today. We passed pretty close to one as we descended into the Phoenix area this evening.

Copper and scorpions are some of our state’s highest exports…

The sunlight was just gorgeous tonight, too. It made for some pretty colors on the mountains below as we complied with the altitudes and speeds on the SUNNS7 Arrival.

And soon, civilization came into sight! This was the very far southwest side of town near Willy Gateway Airport.

Are you as surprised as me to see green fields out there?!

This was on the south side of town near Chandler. It looked like a giant race track for water boats! There were big spectator stands and everything. Who knew that this was so popular?

We crossed right over Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport tonight before descending into our home airport. It’s a big city, and it always feels great to come home.

Can you tell where the Native American property begins? I’ll give you a hint…it isn’t this side of the freeway! And it could be the land that has a giant casino on it!

I love the man-made lakes and rivers that are put in housing developments. Amazingly, these water spots help lower our insane temperatures during the summer.

Near our house, however, they just provide lots of free mosquito action. Fun!

They don’t bother me, but Hubby always seems to lose that battle. It’s probably his own fault for smelling so good.

Well, hello, Runway 21. It’s nice to see you again, too!

We loaded up the car with three weeks of baggage and got them on their way. We still have a few more busy weeks ahead of us, but we are actually home for a few days before that starts again. Won’t that be nice?

I hope that I can remember how to cook!

We flew into the sunset all night and had a gorgeous view with gorgeous lighting by the time we got everything set after the flight. Isn’t this airplane pretty?

Why, even the stairs are good-looking! I love how bulky and real these stairs are on Gladys. It’s one of the many things that makes were feel like an even larger airplane. I’ll take it.

Because we had picked the airplane up from maintenance the day before, we drove alllllllll the way back down to Willy Gateway to pick up Pearl. Doesn’t she look pretty waiting for my 45-minute drive back to the house?

What a great trip on the road. But I’ll be honest here…I’m kinda excited for a few days of breathing, too!

More work coming up!