Florida Trip

Last weekend, Feb. 17-18th, we were planning on flying to San Diego to visit Ellen and do some fun SD things. Allison had Monday and Tuesday off for President's Day so we can't pass that up. Problem is, no one else could either.

Our usual ritual is for me to drop Allison at the terminal, drive back to the employee lot to save on parking costs, take the bus in and then meet her at the gate. This has never failed us. Until now.

Long story short, she got stuck in a massive security line never seen before and the plane left without us and 30 empty seats. About 20 of those seats were supposed to be occupied by 20 revenue passengers stuck in the line with Allison. See where this is going? Those 20 people carried over to the next flight which was oversold.

After some discussion, all the parties involved decided to try for it another weekend in the future. So there we were at the airport at 11AM with 3 days at our disposal. Where else could we go?!?!

Nothing looked good. Then suddenly I had a thought.

"We've never really been on a road trip before. Florida is pretty close. Let's go!" or something to that effect.

About 1.5 hours later, we were picking up our rental car there at the airport and hitting the road for Ft. Walton Beach/Destin, Florida. I've had many overnights there and after telling Allison about them, she was extremely jealous and wanted to go. Such a sucker for the beach. Not that I can blame her really.

Why did we rent?

1) Both of our cars need some maintenance work.
2) USAA gives uber-discounts on rentals which the lady at the desk even commented on. "Wow, that's a really good rate!"
3) The Chevy Cobalt we rented got 35 MPG.
4) We drove 967 miles on in 2 and a half days and none of those miles went on our cars.

Our route took us southwest out of Atlanta on I-85 to Montgomery, Alabama. We did some brief touring and continued on I-65 towards Mobile. About 2/3 of the way, we left the interstate and headed straight south towards Pensacola, FL. The plan was to drive the entire Florida panhandle's "Gulf Coast Highway 98," if you will. Allison got to see the oh-so-lovely Bay Beach Inn in Gulf Breeze where I've unfortunately stayed on overnights. After Katrina or one of those hurricanes from that season, it was closed down due to water damage but has since re-opened. Darn.

We continued east on 98 to the Ft. Walton/Destin area and checked into our hotel around 7pm. I took Allison to the Mellow Mushroom where I first discovered the wonderful pizza heaven that is M.M. I ordered the exact same thing on my pizza and had an Abita Amber, just like the first time. Tear! Yes, I'm a dork like that. You really don't understand how much we love Mellow Mushroom.

After dinner, we checked out Fudpucker's, a 2-chain local restaurant that is supposedly famous for their T-shirts. I bought one back in 2003 when I went on my first airline overnight in Ft. Walton as an intern. The one in Destin has a club attached to it so we checked it out. There was a quite-decent live band playing a bunch of 80's to current covers so we sat there like an old married couple and enjoyed the music. :-)

The next day, we headed for the beach, although it was about 50 degrees and windy so not exactly ideal beach conditions. But it was great to be in the sand. We checked out the local shopping district and had Whataburger for lunch. Then it was over towards Eglin Air Force Base which has a tiny corner dedicated to civilian operations, better known as the terminal building. There is a small aviation museum nearby that I've seen before but never been to. So we went. It was closed on Sunday (resisting urge to insert some Alice's Restaurant lyrics) but you could still wander around the airplanes outside. So we did.

After that, we went back to the hotel, had a short nap, and then went back out to watch the sun set on the beach before dinner. I really think it doesn't get much better than watching the sun set like that. Absolutely incredible. And since it was our pseudo-Valentine's celebration, quite romantic as well. With the beach still in view, we split a shrimp quesadilla and crab cakes with green beans and cous-cous.

The next day, Monday, we started out early for the drive back to Atlanta. As before, we took the scenic route back, following 98 east, through Panama City, until the beach ends and the swamp begins all the way to Tampa. We stopped over in Tallahassee, the state capitol, and had lunch at a local college hang-out looking place on the Florida State campus. Then it was through south Georgia and a lot of farm and orchard country until we met up with I-75, south of Macon, the rest of the way to Atlanta.

Here's a map of our route with the start/end point indicated by the green dot and a green arrow pointing to Ft. Walton/Destin where we spent the majority of the time. Click to enlarge.





And of course, what trip would be complete without photos. Check them out on shutterfly:

Florida Trip in Photos

We had an excellent time making the best of our failed original plans. Hope you enjoyed reading and viewing it. One thing's for sure, it reminded me how much I love road trips and how much I miss driving places. I guess that's why my old truck had seen the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico in it's lifetime with me. :-)

Since I've done 2 entries today, I think I'll say goodbye until next time...

Midway Landing Video

Okay, here 'tis finally. If you want to view all my other stuff on YouTube just click on "dwg921" to the right of the video. There's more RJ stuff. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbfC-d3Q0u8

Oh, and for the smarty pants people, the Pink Floyd you hear in the video was added AFTER the fact. We don't have a in-dash CD player that we listen to while flying, although....Hmmmm.... :-)

Landing on runway 4 Right at Midway normally looks like this when the weather is nice. Excellent view of downtown. Another unique thing about Midway is that it is surrounded on all sides by either residential or industrial stuff. So you fly really low over houses when you land there. No fields of grass or airport property between the end of the runways and the airport boundary. Cool.

Here's few shots I took while doing the post-flight inspection in the blowing snow, as well as the plows plowing the runway we're about to use for takeoff on our way back to Atlanta.

Snow in the Windy City

So my trip that started yesterday began with a round-trip to Chicago Midway airport. From what I heard, I'm lucky it was the first flight out from Atlanta b/c things in Chicago just got worse as the day went on. It was pretty bad when we were up there too. I believe the weather at the time we landed went something like this:

KMDW 131452Z 05022G30KT 2SM -BLSN OVC010 M08/M10 A3017

In English, that METAR reads: On the 13th day of the month at 8:52am local time, the current weather conditions on the field are winds from 050 degrees (out of the north-northeast) at 22 knots, gusting to 30 knots with 2 statute miles visibility in light blowing snow, clouds are overcast at 1000 feet above the ground, temperature minus 8 degrees Celsius, dewpoint minus 10 degrees Celsius, altimeter (aka barometer) 30.17 inches of mercury.

Two miles visibility and 1000 feet overcast is ALMOST considered visual conditions so it wasn't all that bad. Bad would be 1/2 mile visibility and 100 feet overcast. But needless to say, it's still very exciting.

Since I started the trip last week, as in, I was the first to fly the plane, it was the Captain's turn to start so he was flying the plane from ATL to MDW. FYI, one pilot flies the plane until we're at an outstation (i.e. not Atlanta) and then we swap duties between "pilot flying" and "pilot monitoring." So I flew us back to Atlanta from Chicago and then on to Lynchburg, Virginia where I am right now. When we go to the plane today, it will be his turn again for the next two legs. That way in a typical 4-day trip of about 14 legs, we each get 7 takeoffs and 7 landings. Make sense? Okay, on with the story...

Since I wasn't flying, that left me with a free set of hands with which to operate my camera. Oh and the landing gear, flaps, etc.

:-)

I shot a 3-4 minute video from about 4 miles out from the airport to taxing clear of the snowy runway. I think you all will find it enjoyable to see what it looks like in those type of conditions.

But before I post it and you view, it's time for some simple flying 101. When I eventually post the video, keep in mind that our approach speed is typically around 140 knots airspeed (roughly, the speed at which the wing "thinks" it's moving through the air). So depending on the winds, our groundspeed (our speed relative to the ground) can be higher or lower than that. Yesterday, the winds on final approach were coming straight at us (headwind) at about 30-40 knots, making our groundspeed about 100-110 knots, while the airspeed is 140 kts. That's fine, it just means our final approach takes a little bit longer. So in the video, you may sit there thinking, are they ever going to get to the runway?!?

Since I'm on a roll, here's some superfluous information that has nothing to do with the actual video I shot. Think of the opposite situation. Landing with a 30-40 knot tailwind. Which, by the way, is absolutely ridiculous. Instead of going slower than normal, you're going A LOT faster than normal relative to the ground, even though your speed through the air is the same. The tire speed limit on the CRJ is 182 knots groundspeed. So if we land at 140 knots with a 40 knot tailwind...you get the idea. The whole point being, it takes a lot more runway to slow down. The runways at Midway are fairly short, due to the fact that it is surrounded by roads and houses on all sides. Everyone remember when Southwest went off the end of the runway last year at Midway? I think they landed with like a 5-10 knot tailwind. That is why airplanes takeoff and land into the wind. Okay, flying lesson over.

I also took some pictures of snow-covered everything once we were on the ground. I will post them when I get home and get a chance to do it. :-)