Thanksgiving in Sanford

This year we decided to avoid the chaos of Interstate 95 and instead flew the Commander to our destination.

Thanksgiving started off bright and clear. As I checked the weather for the flight to the C&D B&B in Sanford, I noticed that not only was Florida's weather looking great, but so was the entire eastern U.S. A huge high pressure system was creating beautiful clear skies over most of the eastern states. This got me thinking of possibly extending my flight plan by a few states and fly to Ohio instead. I'm not sure what Susan thought of this, but Andrew was 100% on board. We plotted a route as direct as possible, with only a single turn at Jacksonville. The distance is too far to fly on a single tank, so we looked for a good place to land along our route. We found that Spartanburg, South Carolina had the best fuel prices in the area. We checked the extended forecast and found that the good weather was expected to last until at least Sunday. But then the practical side of my brain kicked in and I thought about the cost for such a short visit. We decided to save the Ohio flight for another time.

With the Ohio flight a no-go, we casually continued to get ready for the much shorter Sanford flight. We packed our overnight bags, the camera, and a pumpkin pie (we had to sample a slice of one pie for breakfast) and headed for the airport. The winds were 16 knots and gusting from 030 degrees, so we asked to depart runway 05. With that much wind, '57W quickly and easily left the ground behind. After about 20 minutes, we turned the corner at the Bithlo antenna farm and headed over Lake Jesup directly to KSFB.


View KMLB-KSFB in a larger map

On the ground, we were met by Aunt Cathy and Uncle Dave. Thanksgiving dinner was a peaceful event with just the five of us at the table. Everything was fantastic; even my pumpkin pie turned out pretty good. Afterwards, we played Apples to Apples Kids and u-build Monopoly.

Friday was a pretty lazy day. Susan studied most of the day. Andrew and I started working on a new Logi-Sim circuit. We built a digital piggy bank with a button representing each of the coins, and another button labeled Bust the Bank. Afterwards, we got sucked into the Discovery Channel Gold Rush marathon and watched episode after episode, all day long. We were supposed to fly home, but didn't. Susan called StarPort to let them know we'd be spending another day. We decided to go out for dinner and somehow ended up at the Seminole Mall. We were having a burger craving, but I ended up with a sandwich from Chick-fil-A. I really wanted a shake, and the mall version of Chick-fil-A didn't have the equipment, so we stopped at Steak 'n Shake for shakes. Why not for burgers, too? I don't know. Somebody in the group doesn't like their burgers because they are not actually "steak". Reminds me of the old A1 Steak Sauce commercials; "What is hamburger after all, chopped ham? No, it's chopped steak."

After another round of u-build Monopoly, we decided to actually come home today. Before the flight, I wanted to try to improve the sound quality from '57W's radios. Dave, Andrew, and I went to Ace to buy some electrical contact cleaner, then we stopped at the airport and tried it out. I'm not sure the radios are any better, but at least I did something.

Back at the B&B, Susan finished studying and packed our things. We returned to the airport, paid our bill, and headed back to Melbourne. On the way, I only had one controller misspeak my tail number, so that was nice. But I found another problem. Now the NAV 1 navigation radio is acting up, and is unable to lock onto a frequency. Do the problems ever end? Yeah, I know, they end the day I sell the plane!