April 1st: Off to Florida!

A while ago, my buddy Dave had asked me if I might want to go back to Sun N Fun again. I'm not really one to turn down the chance to drool on lots of airplanes, so in early April, we packed up his plane and headed south.

He has a Cessna 210, which is a bit faster than my C172.

We had a bit of an interesting departure from HWY; right after takeoff we had traffic in our face, then Dave had a hard time getting the landing gear to retract, but we eventually got it all sorted out and were on our way.

Visibility was great once we cleared the scattered cloud layer, but we wound up stuck in a mountain wave and Dave (or more accurately, the autopilot) had a hard time holding altitude. At least it was a smooth ride!

We continued south...

...and after a little while, landed at Lowcountry Regional (RBW) in SC.

We took a short break to grab a snack. There were some pretty cool planes in their hangar (including a C140)!

Dave was already in a great mood...he spent the whole time grumbling about how lazy the line guys were there and how he had to top off his own plane. I had to keep reminding him that he manages HWY, not RBW.

Dave eventually got his plane topped off and stopped grumbling, and we were off to Florida.

Bye, RBW!

There was plenty to see on the next leg of the trip. We passed a few big fires...

...some neat looking marshy rivers...

...a really interesting shipping facility in Georgia...

...and then flew directly over a jet on final for Savannah (SAV).

After a while, though, the clouds started creeping in.

I was really looking forward to this part...I don't fly in weather like this very often!

Right after I took the picture of my iPad, we went into the clouds. I always like flying actual IFR...it's so neat!

The further we got into the weather, the bumpier it got. One of the controllers climbed us from 4,000' to 6,000' to avoid some slower traffic, and it got even bumpier. (And of course, the traffic wound up being just close enough to our speed that we weren't able to ever really pass them and descend back down for a better ride.)

As we got closer to Kissimmee, the clouds started to break up below us.

They vectored us right over one of the Disney parks, which was pretty neat.

They lined us up on final...

...and a few minutes later, we were on the ground in Kissimmee (ISM).

They had the rental car ready for us, so we unloaded the plane, then drove over to visit Dave's daughter-in-law and granddaughter for a few minutes since they live so close to the airport. After that, we checked into the hotel, spent a few minutes settling in, then went back out to grab dinner.

There was a Steak n Shake nearby, so we went there. It's one of my favorite burger places, and the one near us recently closed, so I try not to pass up any chance I get to have some! After dinner we went back to the hotel and split up; I grabbed a shower and headed to bed. I wanted to make sure I was ready to go for the first day of Sun N Fun!