A Day of Eating in Bremerton

After a lovely few days in Canada, I had Friday to enjoy in beautiful Bremerton. However, thanks to being old, I had forgotten my jacket at home and thus didn’t feel too excited about being outside in the 50-degree temperatures.

Hey, they don’t call me “Weak-Sauce” for nothing.

Around noon, I knew it was time to brave the temperatures and grab some lunch. The lovely Bremerton Bar and Grill was just a few blocks away from my hotel.

I have always avoided this place in the past because it seemed a little pricey to me. After two weeks in the Caribbean, however, I’ve realized that dropping $12 for food isn’t the end of the world. At least is isn’t $40!

So I opted to try this restaurant and wasn’t disappointed. Especially because they let me swap out my soda for hot chocolate on the daily special.

The restaurant is located right across the street from the Navy shipyard, so people are often rushed to get in, eat, and get out. For that purpose, Bremerton Bar and Grill has wisely created a rush menu with ten items that can be made in under ten minutes for ten dollars, and it includes a drink.

Though I was seriously considering getting Habanero Mac and Cheese Balls, I opted to try their shredded pork burrito from their quick menu. I loved the idea that it came with homemade potato chips. (Remember when we made homemade potato chips and devoured them with perfect manly sandwiches?)

Everything was so yummy! It probably helped that my last meal had been fifteen hours previously and was at Subway. I’m not a huge fan of that sandwich establishment, and this burrito made up for it.

Of course, while I ate my lunch, I enjoyed reading a little bit of Harry Potter on my Kindle app on my iPod Touch. I have since replaced such a reading device. Wait until you see the improvement!

Later that night, when my stomach growled and said it was dinner time, I decided to try a place just across the courtyard called Fritz. It was a Belgium fry house, whatever that means.

I asked for a glass of water, which shocked them, I’m sure. I didn’t realize that it was also an ale house! But the water was very, very good.

I’ve never been that into ale. Like, don’t even know what it is!

I also accidentally ordered this. Wait! Let me explain! I saw that they had fried zucchini, which is one of my favorite things at my favorite restaurant. So I thought I would try them here. And they were only available in the combo basket.

It’s a vegetable, right?

So I also accidentally got two chicken strips, two mozzarella cheese sticks, and a small fry with my zucchini. I was able to pick two dipping sauces with my meal, so I opted for their BBQ sauce (for the chicken) and a dill ranch sauce (for everything else).

Don’t worry. I ended up eating about four bites of this entire basket. What was I thinking?! It was good but just too greasy for me! What a waste.

The zucchini was better at my other place, too. But I managed to eat a few of the small pieces here before calling it quits. Then I just wanted to find a salad bar and go to town to make up for my poor decision-making skills as far as dinner was concerned.

Never again!

The sunset view from my window helped me feel a little better about eating so poorly tonight. Isn’t this a gorgeous view of the harbor? I really love visiting this city.

We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, but lots of flying. So, really, it’s a perfect day!

UPDATE: After finally getting in touch with the hotel manager, I was able to be reimbursed for my stolen shoes! Yippeeeee!

Florida to Texas to Home

It’s always a much longer flight home when leaving a week-long vacation in the Caribbean. We had so much baggage and people on board that we needed another stop after flying over the Gulf Coast to Texas.

Goodbye, Fort Lauderdale! You are pretty, but only to visit for a short fuel stop.

There is always lots of air traffic coming in and out of the Miami area. It is in the top-five for busiest airspaces in the United States. It was nice to leave the hectic Florida skies to fly over the eerily-quiet Gulf of Mexico.

Here is a typical Texas thunderstorm. We were going to land at Midland for fuel (right underneath this little storm) but decided to stay a little further south to avoid such a lovely little buildup.

Thunderstorms always win. Always.

Our quick turn for fuel in Texas was so quick that I didn’t even have time to take pictures! As always, the folks at Ranger Aviation were super speedy. We had a GPU and fuel in our single-point port within fifteen minutes. With the wide-open airspace at San Angelo, we were soon departing towards the west yet again.

Goodbye, San Angelo! You have such nice air traffic controllers and such wonderfully-quick fuel service. We will be back!

I am so blessed to see the most incredible views from my office. I love the clouds and can even make shapes out of some of them. That usually happens on the longer flights…

This particular cloud looks like a giant cotton ball. Am I good or what?!

We are definitely getting closer to home, since the landscaping is drastically changing underneath. This doesn’t look tropical at all!

We are getting warmer! This is a view of Chandler Airport on the south side of the Valley of the Sun.

Hello, Phoenix! I missed you, believe it or not. You don’t have any humidity, and that helps my love for you remain strong.

This is a view of Arizona Mills Outlet Mall from the air. I only get this wonderful view of one of my favorite places to shop because they fly us directly over Sky Harbor Airport on our approach to Scottsdale. That keeps us out of the way of arriving and departing traffic while we head just north to land.

It’s a pretty big mall, huh? If they only had a LOFT and Banana Republic…I would never leave. Maybe it’s best that they don’t?

This is a view of Tempe Marketplace right by Arizona State University. I show you this because this was our “five-mile final” when landing at Sky Harbor. We usually had to maintain a speed of at least 170 knots until this landmark. It is really lit up at night and easy to spot, and, since there is no water here in the desert, it is also easy to find during the daytime because it’s a huge man-made lake!

Wow, you didn’t know that you were going to get a shopping tour from the air today, did you? This is the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall, which is my favorite mall in town. Even if I buy nothing, you can’t beat the people-watching at this place. And it’s next door to Sprinkles. Though I try really hard to not get one every time I visit this general area of town.

This mall is home to my favorite store, Crate and Barrel. It’s a fun place to be.

Now that we are past the main Phoenix airport, we can begin our descent to Runway 21 at Scottsdale. The airport is at the base of these mountains in the distance.

Hello, Scottsdale! You are so pretty. And dry. Pretty dry.

Let’s turn base-to-final for landing on Runway 21. We get close to these mountains, so I am always glad when we land in the daytime.

Mountains, just like thunderstorms, always win.

Well, hello, Scottsdale Tower! After five months of being based here, you finally didn’t have to ask where we were parking! I finally feel included in your elite club.

What’s the secret handshake again?

This is Gladys’ cousin, the Phenom 100. Isn’t it cute? Isn’t Gladys way cooler?! This six-seat airplane parked right behind us on the ramp.

We love our line guys, by the way. They can’t be beat!

After a month of having this lovely little 61-pound addition on board, we can finally put Life Raft back into our storage locker. Since we won’t be flying over large bodies of water any time soon, we can save the space and weight by putting him away.

It gave me warm fuzzies knowing he was on board, but Life Raft deserves a break in the closet.

Doesn’t it feel great to be home, Gladys? And you’re not even dripping with condensation here, like you were in the past three stops. It always feels good to come home.

Especially with a killer tan.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

We saw this coming eventually. I knew that I would actually have to leave paradise and return to reality. After six days in heaven, it was time to pack my bags to head west. Pardner.

This was the hotel lobby. Can you see why it is so hard to leave this place?

We took a taxi from the hotel to the airport, which took about twenty minutes. We passed some pretty views, and I got to see all of the downtown points of interest from an air-conditioned car. I’m glad that I saw it on foot, too.

The ramp was full of other airplanes. I am sure their pilots struggled with a tough week in paradise, just like me. This first one is a Westwind, then a Citation, and then a Hawker.

But, just like she always is, my Phenom 300 was the prettiest girl at the dance.

The beautiful custom interior was added just a few months after the initial purchase of the airplane by the first owner of Gladys (we are the second owners). Everything in this cabin is custom and definitely a step up from the original interior. I approve.

Thanks to the heat/humidity combination of St. Thomas, this ice was melted before we even took off. It kept the drinks cold for the first few hours of the flight, and I had some thirsty boys on board!

They were also hungry, so I made sure to stock the airplane well before we left Scottsdale. We have chips, pretzels, crackers, cookies, and Teddy Grahams. In drawers further down, I have granola and breakfast bars, chewing gum, and almonds in four flavors.

This airplane is a flying snack section of Target!

Goodbye, St. Thomas Tower! Thanks for answering my stupid questions. And thanks for not making me park at the fire station.

This is a cool old Convair airplane, which dates back to the 1930s. It was parked on the ramp, and I don’t know if it is flyable. I love old airplanes and wish I could have peeked inside this one.

Just to the right of Convair is a rather large and probably expensive yacht. Nice!

We were cleared for takeoff and were soon in the air. With an incredible view. While performing the After Takeoff checklist, I was able to snap this picture over one of the Caribbean harbors of St. Thomas. Are you sure we can’t stay? Forever?

Here we are in the turn towards Florida after departing Runway 10. Can you see the runway in the distance? Or are you too distracted by the gorgeous blue water to care about a bunch of concrete that lands airplanes?

Goodbye, St. Thomas! I will miss you, until we meet again. (Fingers crosses that we meet again…)

It’s going to be a while until I see tropical paradise from the sky like this. Arizona doesn’t even remotely resemble this, you know? It was a real treat to experience the Caribbean this month. I’ve never been, and now I’ve been twice in three weeks.

Not too shabby!

We’re getting close to Florida after a few hours of flying. They turned us right off the arrival to prepare to land at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport just north of Miami. Just like a few weeks ago, we need to clear Customs here before we can fuel up and head further west.

Well, hello, Miami Beach! Aren’t you pretty! I remember visiting you with family fifteen years ago before heading through the Everglades and then to the Keys.

In fact, I was in Miami when I first heard Will Smith’s “Miami” song. Is that cool or what?! Maybe your measurements of cool are different from mine.

Gladys recovered from her inspection by the Customs agents. It is similar to what normal airliner travelers experience at the TSA Security inspection line. Plastic gloves were slapped into place.

She felt violated. I will just leave it at that.

I stuck with the airplane while she got fueled. Then I cleaned out the trash and wiped up an exploded soda in the ice bucket. That was fun.

We love Banyan Air Center at KFXE. They always treat us like royalty. And, like you guessed, I don’t mind that at all. Here Gladys is hooked up to the free Ground Power Unit. When you buy fuel, you get the GPU for starting the engines.

And we bought lots of fuel!

Our passengers were carted over to the café on the other side of the Banyan ramp, so they didn’t get to enjoy this beautiful lobby. By the time we were fueled and paid, the passengers were back from their lunch and were ready to continue on our trek home.

This is the customer service desk at Banyan. These people are wonderful to us.

This was my view of the Banyan FBO from the back of a golf cart. We had time to order lunch to-go from the same café that was feeding my passengers, so we went to pick it up.

Since I had very little green food all week in St. Thomas, I opted to get a spinach Mediterrean salad with artichoke hearts and kalamata olives. I always carefully eat olives in case the pit is inside. These had the pit inside. Who has time for that?!

I love artichoke hearts. They could be considered one of my favorite vegetables.

Gladys, let’s go home. I know we have to make another fuel stop in Texas before we can get there, but let’s head out.