Waiting on weather

Not dead, not gone yet. Just waitin' on weather. There was a beautiful day - but I was down sick. There was another beautiful day - and I was still trying to get over the sick. I got healthy, and the weather's been down.

Today, the weather here is good, the weather at Tok and Northway is... passable VFR... and Mentasta pass is "Um, I think I see a little sunlight coming under those clouds, maybe..."

Not that I've been grounded - I took a fellow apprentice mechanic flying, and it was as rewarding to see the fun she was having as it was to fly. She helped rebuild the tailwheel and overhaul my brakes, among other help, so it was fun to let her take the controls and enjoy the feel of being in the air in something she'd worked on.

Yesterday, I went up with The Gunny, but I was the least important passenger in the plane - the most important one was the eagle scout sitting up front, who was completing his aviation merit badge, and his father sitting behind him. The Gunny's right - you do get to see a lot more when you're an interested passenger instead of the pilot focusing on the runway coming up.

Today, if able, The Gunny and I may take his plane to Talkeetna for lunch. I'll mail out a last few items - tomorrow I'll drop off the town car my favorite park ranger in the whole wide world has let me borrow. And if I'm not gone by Saturday, unless we're socked in solid, I'll be going as far as I can, even if I have to camp, to get out of here twenty or a hundred or three hundred miles at a time.

I miss my husband. Alaska's glorious, but it's time to be gone, to be home.