For those of you who don’t know, my dad is a pilot. This has both pros and cons.
Pros:
You can fly anywhere you want.
Cons:
Sometimes you have to hold a light on a map because the cabin light is out in the plane and you’re night flying and the wind is rough. (Read: tired arms and slight frustration)
Also, sometimes people just up and leave you because you have to work but they don’t. So they just fly somewhere without you and don’t even bring you leftovers from dinner. Humph.
Recently, I got the opportunity to take a friend to dinner. Guilianna was so excited from the moment I brought it up and was delighted to go. It was so fun to watch her enthusiasm…it was pretty much her first plane ride and she was beside herself. She sat in the back with my mom so that I could copilot with my dad. We got up in the air and quickly realized that we would have to completely reroute because of wildfires nearby. The smoke was so thick! We went around them and safely made it to the restaurant.
Its a neat little place called Enrique’s. It is actually built at the airport and they have a parking lot for cars and a parking lot for planes! You literally just land, taxi over, chock your wheels (they don’t have tie downs), and go eat! Pretty cool.
We were planning to do some aerial sightseeing on the way back but the smoke eliminated that possibility so after eating, we just hopped back in the plane and flew home.
I took a nice camera to take a few photos and ended up snapping a few photos on my phone too.

Just in case you’ve never seen some of the control panel in a cockpit.
These were all taken on my phone. The first ones are primarily so that you can see all the smoke…it was everywhere! If you look closely in the second and third photos, you can see the flames of the fires. It was pretty crazy.

We were preparing to taxi out after eating here. Dad was concentrating…I was not. Ha!

More control panel

Love the reflection off the wing

Look a’ that fahry skah! 😉