A Few Days Chilling (Literally) in New Jersey

After a long and bumpy flight from home to Teterboro, it was time to borrow a crew car to grab a bite to eat. Since the hotel was on the way, we stopped there, too, to drop off our bags.

As you can see, the crew car isn’t exactly a Beemer. But who can complain when a free car is available?!

I wish I would have thought to get a picture of the flag. It was sticking straight out from the wind. Yuck!

I’ve stayed at this nice Holiday Inn before with this job, when we were here last September, but I’ve stayed here countless times with my old job, too.

This is the lobby area. After getting my room, as high up as I could, I headed to the elevator to drop my bags in the room.

It’s a recently-renovated Holiday Inn and is certainly a nice place to call home for the next five nights. A comfy bed, a great work desk, and even a reading nook.

They’ve done a great job making guests feel at home. I love when a room has everything that I need and then some!

The view was fun. If I looked way to the left, I could even see a little of the Manhattan skyline.

But I couldn’t figure out this “pool.” It was next to a high school, but it wasn’t being chlorinated. In fact, the local ducks and geese had claimed it as their own! It didn’t really look human-friendly any more, if it ever was.

I wonder if the birds use the slide to get into the pool. I totally would.

While waiting for the elevator to take me back downstairs, I grabbed a shot out of the east side window. You can see the city in the distance, and Teterboro Airport hangars in the not-so-far distance.

I can’t wait to get over there to visit NYC! I love that place!

After getting rid of my luggage, it was time to meet El Capitan downstairs to run for a quick dinner. I hadn’t eaten since early that morning before our flight, so I was ready for some healthy grub!

I was dropped off here, much to my delight. I love Panera Bread. It is a lot like Paradise Bakery, but for some reason, we don’t have any in Phoenix. So It’s always a nice treat to eat here when visiting the east coast.

No one was behind me at first, so I took my time reading the menu. I loved that the calories were listed next to each item. It helped me to make a good decision for dinner tonight!

I got a sandwich and even splurged on potato chips, since I was way under my calories for the day.

Not eating all day really helped that, I’m sure.

After dinner, I headed back to the hotel to settle in for almost a week in this room.

Don’t be alarmed, but I brought a stash of food options! My trainer, Lindsey, has helped to me be prepared so that I always make good decisions with food. If I’m starving, I might not be very wise!

So I brought some food and snacks to enjoy while staying in Teterboro. What of it?

I had another reason for bringing some food, too. I couldn’t walk to a church near the hotel, but I also tried not to break the Sabbath any more than I had to! So I ate this food instead of going out to eat.

May I just recommend the Velveeta Shells and Cheese microwavable cups? Yummy! And only 180 calories?!

On Sunday, this was one of my meals. I had never tried these microwave meals from Healthy Choice, but I love their freezer options.

It was delicious, and I felt very lucky having a microwave in my room. I had requested one, so maybe I shouldn’t have been so relieved when my room actually had one.

This was nice and filling.

I was thinking that I would get to spend Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in the city. But after checking the weather forecast, I knew that all three days wasn’t going to happen.

Monday was forecasted to be rainy, windy, snowy, and only in the mid-30s for temperatures.

If you do the Micah Math, that’s way too cold to spend outside all day wandering a city!

Isn’t the city pretty, though? I wish that I had more time over there, but I don’t want to freeze to death to make that happen. I’ll wait until Tuesday!

Monday morning meant a healthy breakfast from the microwave, once again. One of my food selections before coming had been things to eat for breakfast, since I knew that the hotel charged for breakfast and had no continental options.

I hate paying for breakfast!

Steel Cut Oatmeal is one of my favorite meals right now! So I was excited about this dish! It was good, but I’ve never been a fan of fruit in my oatmeal. It was very warming and filling, however, and I needed that for my walk to the gym!

That’s right…a gym. I lucked out by having a 24 Hour Fitness just half a mile from my hotel! I knew that their equipment would be much nicer than the hotel’s, so I headed outside to brave the windy cold.

I’m glad that I did. It felt great to spend some time on the elliptical, even far from home!

Since I was on-foot, I was at the mercy of local eateries for my meals. McDonald’s, though not a first (or even thirtieth) pick of mine, was right next to the hotel. And, luckily for me yet again, they had an entire healthy menu from which to choose.

For lunch, I had the grilled chicken sandwich with a side salad. The sandwich was delicious…

…especially after I scraped off the excess mayonnaise! I’m kind of a mayo snob like that. And it wasn’t worth the calories to keep it on!

The side salad was good, too, even though I didn’t put any dressing on it. It just tasted nice to have some fresh veggies!

It feels really great to make healthy decisions. It’s fun to see some results from it, too.

This particular McDonald’s was nice and had been renovated to reflect a young, hip atmosphere.

Which only meant that I no longer fit in here! I’m neither young or hip!

Later that night for dinner, I headed back to McDonald’s again for a healthy bite. After computing my calories for the day, I figured that I could get the Southwest Chicken Salad. It had roasted corn, chilies, tortilla strips, and black beans with grilled chicken on top of romaine lettuce.

After adding some Paul Newman and a squeeze of lime…I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner.

Apparently.

But tomorrow will be what I’m really waiting for! A whole day in New York City! I can’t wait!

It’s Been Too Long, Teterboro

I had a feeling that this new job would take me to New York City quite often. But, truth be told, this trip was only my second time there in a year.

That’s OK. It just makes me appreciate it even more when I do get to go.

Especially now that we usually stay long enough to make the trip worth it. In this particular case, we landed in Teterboro just west of New York City on a Saturday afternoon and didn’t leave for home again until the following Thursday.

Sounds good to me!

With such a long flight, we really have to load the airplane up with fuel. Luckily, enough went in through the single-point fueling port that we didn’t need to unlock the over-the-wing fueling caps to allow for another fifteen gallons or so.

The flight will take just over four hours to get there. I love tailwinds.

I was the first one to the airplane, like usual. So I started getting her primed and ready for her big date flight towards one of my favorite places on earth.

Great joy comes when thinking that I will even have time to explore the city for a few days! Eek!

With some passengers and their baggage loaded up, it was time to be on our way. We passed one of the two FBOs here on the field.

I love being part of a private hangar, where we don’t have to use an FBO at our home field. It’s awesome!

At the beginning to Runway 21, we waited for this old Learjet to land before it was our turn for takeoff.

Those things on his wings? Those are fuel tip tanks because his old engines burn so much!

Goodbye, Home! See you next week! But only for an hour before we are gone for another three days.

Busy few months? I should say so.

It was a little hazy today, but that can happen here occasionally. I pretend that it isn’t caused by pollution.

But it very well could be. Who’s to say?

That’s a little winglet peeking out from Gladys. She don’t need no wingtip fuel tanks!

We crossed the Great Plains on our way to Teterboro this morning. Since it was March, it made sense that there was still a lot of that yucky white stuff down there on the ground.

I’m not a fan, really.

With the tailwind helping to push us along, we made great time from home to the east coast today. We even had an excess of 400 pounds of fuel, above our usual 900 extra pounds!

But that is just insurance, since New York Center usually has to drop us down lower quite a ways out, which burns more fuel. It all worked out well today. We had the extra to burn.

Even though our indicated airspeed at Flight Level 450 was only 197 knots, we were going 503 knots groundspeed. Awesome! We were still able to get about 445 knots true up there, which is pretty derned impressive.

But I am biased. You should know that by now.

It’s really a small miracle that anyone can read my chicken scratch when copying a clearance. They usually talk so fast! But I have to admit that flying into Teterboro is a heck of a lot easier than into JFK.

Yuck! I wouldn’t mind if we never had to do that again!

Speaking of Teterboro, we flew the Wilkes Barre Four Arrival into the area this afternoon. Luckily, it wasn’t crazy busy, so we were cleared directly to the Wilkes-Barre VOR to begin the arrival.

And why isn’t it very busy down there? Because it’s nasty windy, that’s why.

It was gusting about forty knots when we landed, and it certainly wasn’t straight down the runway.

It was a rare instance where it felt really good to be back on the ground…after so many bumps on the descent from the Low Level Wind Shear, as well as a tough approach and landing by El Capitan.

Wind is my least favorite form of weather, I think. But that white stuff isn’t very fun, either.

It looks all calm and sunny out there, but from about 12,000 feet to our touchdown in Teterboro, we were getting knocked around quite a bit. I even tightened my seatbelt a time or two.

It’s no fun for people in back when the bumps are so strong. But they handled it like champs!

This is the MetLife Stadium and IZOD Center in New Jersey, where some of the professional teams play. A few days after landing at the airport, I rode right past these stadiums in a bus on my way into the city.

They look a lot smaller from the air…

On final approach for Runway 1, I had a great view of the city from the right window. Can you see the One World Trade Center being built? How about the Empire State Building, which just got passed by the One World Trade Center as the tallest building in the city?

There’s a lot to explore over there, and I’m so excited to have a few days to spend!

What a relief to be on the ground with such awful winds.

OK, I’ll stop complaining about it now.

But it was windy, just so you know.

Speaking of things that I hate, look at those piles of snow from the winter plowing? Isn’t that crazy?

We got to admire lots of pretty airplanes on our long taxi to the Meridian Aviation FBO. We love going there!

Gulfstreams, Falcons, and Westwinds. And there are five FBOs on the field, so this is just a few of the incredible display of airplanes parked at Teterboro.

You see, Teterboro is the corporate reliever airport for the New York City area. It’s really hard for the non-airliners to get into La Guardia and JFK, so we come here instead. It’s just a short half-hour drive through the Lincoln Tunnel and into the city from here.

And believe me…it’s a lot easier on the pilots!

With our passengers loaded up in their car, we were soon enjoying the view of some other metal on the ramp where we parked.

This old Gulfstream has the old, loud, low-bypass engines, but they have fitted a silencer of sorts to help it meet the strict noise requirements of lots of the popular airports these days.

Can you see the white cones attached to the ends of the engines? Shhhhhhhhh.

Hello, Meridian!

And hello, Little Beechjet. I’m so glad that I don’t fly you any more.

Gladys is way better. ‘Nuff said.

Standing on the ramp in Teterboro, you can see the city skyline just over the Hudson River.

I’m coming to see you, New York City! I’m coming!

But first, I’m going to sleep. Because a five-hour workday is just killer, you know?

Can you hardly wait for the rest of this trip to unfold?! It’s going to be good…