Black Hills
I set my alarm clock for a 3 a.m. wakeup to give me time for a shower, a quick breakfast and an easy drive to the airport for a 4:30 a.m. departure.
At 2 a.m. I was wide awake and knew if I went back to sleep I'd be in bad shape when the alarm finally went off at 3.
So it was up and into the shower, then bacon and eggs and even coffee. All a luxury as breakfast is usually a quick bowl of cereal or nothing at all.
The flight down to Sioux Falls was routine. In and out of IMC and rain nearly the whole way but the outside air temperature hovered around 1 to 2 degrees centigrade and I flipped the ice light on every few minutes to check that the wings were clear. Thankfully, they were.
I spent a whole six minutes with the engines off in FSD as cargo was offloaded and onloaded then it was back to work and on to Rapid City.
No beautiful sun rises over the Badlands this trip, just darkness and I touched down just as started to get light.
We are actually off duty during the day in Rapid City because our sit time is so long. If we stayed on duty we'd run afoul of the 16-hour duty day limitation so the company provides us with a car and a place to rest.
Unfortunately, the car that had been here was no longer around and nobody seemed to know which set of keys belonged to our new ride. No bother, I trudged upstairs to the pilot's lounge at the FBO and was fast asleep a few minutes after finding a comfortable couch.
By the time I woke up a few hours later the pilot who normally does this run had been in touch and the whole key deal was settled so it was off to an early lunch and more coffee.
It will be dark long before I'm home again tonight.
"Left in the dark, came home in the dark" is becoming more and more common. Still, it beats working for a living.
At 2 a.m. I was wide awake and knew if I went back to sleep I'd be in bad shape when the alarm finally went off at 3.
So it was up and into the shower, then bacon and eggs and even coffee. All a luxury as breakfast is usually a quick bowl of cereal or nothing at all.
The flight down to Sioux Falls was routine. In and out of IMC and rain nearly the whole way but the outside air temperature hovered around 1 to 2 degrees centigrade and I flipped the ice light on every few minutes to check that the wings were clear. Thankfully, they were.
I spent a whole six minutes with the engines off in FSD as cargo was offloaded and onloaded then it was back to work and on to Rapid City.
No beautiful sun rises over the Badlands this trip, just darkness and I touched down just as started to get light.
We are actually off duty during the day in Rapid City because our sit time is so long. If we stayed on duty we'd run afoul of the 16-hour duty day limitation so the company provides us with a car and a place to rest.
Unfortunately, the car that had been here was no longer around and nobody seemed to know which set of keys belonged to our new ride. No bother, I trudged upstairs to the pilot's lounge at the FBO and was fast asleep a few minutes after finding a comfortable couch.
By the time I woke up a few hours later the pilot who normally does this run had been in touch and the whole key deal was settled so it was off to an early lunch and more coffee.
It will be dark long before I'm home again tonight.
"Left in the dark, came home in the dark" is becoming more and more common. Still, it beats working for a living.
posted by Will at 3:25 PM
1 Comments:
entertained, as always, and envious, as always.
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