Pat's bro: Busy September

It was a busy September with not a lot of flying. So, while I intended to blog before my October schedule began, it just didn't happen. I thought I do it during some down-time on the trip, but, there wasn't much down time. A monday departure at 1PM and an extreme headwind gave us an arrival time about 6 hours later. (7PM body time-4 PM local) . Drive to the hotel, change clothes, drive to dinner, a couple of beers to overcome the flight dehydration, back to the hotel (11PM body-time-8PM local) bed. Tues-back to the airport at 8AM-flight prep, refuel, 10AM departure for Reno, NV. - lunch-flight planning and takeoff at 4:30 PM for 2 hour flight to Tucson. No hangar in Tucson so it takes a little more time to secure the aircraft for overnight. The hotel is about 10 miles from the airport across town during a busy travel time. Arrive at the Hilton east at 8:30PM, change clothes-out to dinner(Mexican, of course- La Parrilla Suiza 0n Speedway) about 9:30 PM. 11PM Back to the hotel-bed. Up at 5:30 for a 6 Am drive to the airport-no time for breakfast. light plan prep for 8AM takeoff to Houston. Houston is Central time and we're leaving Pacific time. A two hour flight puts us on the ground at noon. Lunch and a short break and prep for a planned 4 PM departure back to Tucson. Passengers are late because no one set their time to local and they lost track of the time zone changes. 4 PM Flight became a 5:30PM takeoff-2 hour flight puts on the ground back in Tucson at the same time as takeoff(Central to Pacific time). We taxi in and pick up a couple of passengers who we left behind in the morning. Taxi back out and take off at 6:30 for Scottsdale-thankfully only a 20 min flight. Hotel and dinner in Old Town (Tucson is great this time of year) Temps in the high 60's and locals wearing jackets wishing it would warm up. Last overnight and going home tomorrow. A 1PM departure allows a relaxing start to the day(breakfast at the GoodEgg, a drive through Old Town and a 10 AM drive to the airport.
So I hope that explains the failure to update during my trip.
( This blog site is not the easiest to manipulate and I put pictures on it prior to this trip but it's very time consuming to move those pictures to the top, so I'll start with the present and work back. The above pictures are from yesterday. The first one show the 157 knot tailwind that helped me make my fastest trip:Scottsdale, AZ to Trenton, NJ in 3 :45. Of course I faced those same wind as a headwinds on my way to Vegas on Monday and the trip took 6:05.
Below are a few of the sights from the trip. The first is a conference table at the airport in Houston-Million Air FBO. It's made from the wings of a light single-eng airplane.
The middle picture is my view of the camel back mountains from my hotel room in Scottsdale.

The third picture shows the early snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains. Talk is of an early ski season this year.
Just prior to this trip, I attended a New Jersey State Police awards party at the Tropicana Hotel in Atlantic City. One of the honorees was my nephew (Ronnie's oldest brother's son) Craig Costello. He was selected as the Trooper of the year for 2009. A very career enhancing award.

Craig and his wife Rhianna

A stroll on the Atlantic City Boardwalk : Ronnie and I with Rich (Craig's dad) and his wife Pat

I had lots of time in September to enjoy the treasures in my life. Here, Cate is showing me her new fall parka. When I asked to take a picture, she crossed her arms and said OK.

I had the opportunity to witness Finnian's first steps. He is very proud of his new ability.

If you haven't heard, Trader Joe's has come to the Princeton area. Just in time for newly immigrated Australian to land a job.
Kat started work about a week before opening day and is enjoying everything about it.