It all started last Wednesday morning. I got a call from my youngest brother. He is telling me that his planned trip to drive my 82 year old father down to Tampa has gone bad. The contractor that supplies my brother most of his work is going ballistic and wants Peter to work all weekend and if he doesn't then there won't be as much work was the inference. So Peter asks me if I can do the drive for him and fly back on Sunday. First thing to think about is that Tampa is over 1500 miles away and in another country. I told him I would talk to the wife and get back to him quickly. Wife and I talk it over and she is not real happy about the situation but because she knows somebody has to get Dad there and we didn't have anything planned I might as well do it. I got back to Peter and we set things up and Dad and I are supposed to leave from Peters at 7 am Thursday morning.
Thursday 7 am rolls around and no Dad. He couldn't get his *** out of bed to be there at 7 so he shows up at 8am. I take the keys from dad and we are off. Next stop is U.S. customs. They hold us for an hour because dad has some computer parts for a friend that is already in the Tampa area. U.S. Customs bothers us and lets millions of illegals walk across the border unchecked, go figure. We finally get on the road again. The rest of the day is pretty easy until just south of Washington. Big traffic jam that costs us 1 1/2 hours. I decide to pull over and stay the night in Stafford, Virginia. It seems like a nice spot so all is cool.
The next morning is uneventful as we are driving through North and South Carolina. That is a long drive. I will say that there is a ton of radar traps in Virginia, especially close to the State lines. Our next problem is a big traffic jam just before Jacksonville. We were going nowhere fast. We lost another 1 1/2 hours there. After that it was on to Tampa. We arrived there at about 9 pm Friday. Total driving time was about 26 hours and yes, I was not sparing the coal any, most of the time I was in the 85 to 90 mph range. The only thing that really slowed me down was getting gas when needed.
This brings me to yesterday. My flight back was scheduled for 6 am out of St. Pete's/Clearwater air port. Everything is going fine we taxi out to the runway and the pilot gets us moving. The plane is just starting to rotate and he shuts it down, he is hard on the brakes and reverse thrusters. Passengers are screaming and my head near hits the seatback in front of me. It was a really rough ride. Apparently the air speed indicator had malfunctioned. For those of you that don't know, that is an important gauge in a jet when it comes time to land. Anyway the pilot gets the plane stopped very close to the end of the runway and back we go to the terminal. It takes them 20 minutes to put a new gauge in and another 20 minutes to cook the log books. We go out and try again. This time we take off and we are away. We have a little bit of a bumpy ride but nothing bad. Then we get to Bangor, Maine. We are on final approach. it is snowing so visiblity is not great, but I can see the ground and we are very close to wheels down. The next thing that happens is the pilot gives it everything it has and we are going up again. The pilot comes on the intercom and says that he was told to go around because of local traffic. We asked around a little later and what happened was somebody went out on the runway when they were not supposed to. Anyway we finally got on the ground and headed for home in the snow. 5 hours and lots of frayed nerves later I got home, kissed my wife and had a drink.
SO, HOW WAS YOUR WEEKEND? LOL
Jack
Thursday 7 am rolls around and no Dad. He couldn't get his *** out of bed to be there at 7 so he shows up at 8am. I take the keys from dad and we are off. Next stop is U.S. customs. They hold us for an hour because dad has some computer parts for a friend that is already in the Tampa area. U.S. Customs bothers us and lets millions of illegals walk across the border unchecked, go figure. We finally get on the road again. The rest of the day is pretty easy until just south of Washington. Big traffic jam that costs us 1 1/2 hours. I decide to pull over and stay the night in Stafford, Virginia. It seems like a nice spot so all is cool.
The next morning is uneventful as we are driving through North and South Carolina. That is a long drive. I will say that there is a ton of radar traps in Virginia, especially close to the State lines. Our next problem is a big traffic jam just before Jacksonville. We were going nowhere fast. We lost another 1 1/2 hours there. After that it was on to Tampa. We arrived there at about 9 pm Friday. Total driving time was about 26 hours and yes, I was not sparing the coal any, most of the time I was in the 85 to 90 mph range. The only thing that really slowed me down was getting gas when needed.
This brings me to yesterday. My flight back was scheduled for 6 am out of St. Pete's/Clearwater air port. Everything is going fine we taxi out to the runway and the pilot gets us moving. The plane is just starting to rotate and he shuts it down, he is hard on the brakes and reverse thrusters. Passengers are screaming and my head near hits the seatback in front of me. It was a really rough ride. Apparently the air speed indicator had malfunctioned. For those of you that don't know, that is an important gauge in a jet when it comes time to land. Anyway the pilot gets the plane stopped very close to the end of the runway and back we go to the terminal. It takes them 20 minutes to put a new gauge in and another 20 minutes to cook the log books. We go out and try again. This time we take off and we are away. We have a little bit of a bumpy ride but nothing bad. Then we get to Bangor, Maine. We are on final approach. it is snowing so visiblity is not great, but I can see the ground and we are very close to wheels down. The next thing that happens is the pilot gives it everything it has and we are going up again. The pilot comes on the intercom and says that he was told to go around because of local traffic. We asked around a little later and what happened was somebody went out on the runway when they were not supposed to. Anyway we finally got on the ground and headed for home in the snow. 5 hours and lots of frayed nerves later I got home, kissed my wife and had a drink.
SO, HOW WAS YOUR WEEKEND? LOL
Jack
