St. Augustine

Downtown St Augustine
Originally uploaded by sasnook.

It has been very quiet around Vero Beach this weekend. Everyone emptied out for the holiday weekend flying to Atlanta or Key West. Paul and I found ourselves alone on flight safety’s campus. I stuck around Vero because I need a bit of a break from traveling. I am craving to sleep in the same bed for seven straight nights. But despite the initial urge to sit still for a few days Paul and I decided we needed so go somewhere for at least one day. So we figured since everyone else was renting an aircraft to go somewhere, we decided we deserved to as well. Besides we could justify the flight. It was a needed flight because Paul has his CFI check ride this coming week in the Arrow and I had not flown since before I had left for Europe. And with two extra seats in the back, we invited Nicole and Jay to come along too (Which if you haven’t checked out their blog, you should, it is on my links list). Our destination was St. Augustine.

St. Augustine is a cute, Spanish influenced town and it happens to be the oldest city in the United States. In order for both Paul and I to log the time I went under the hood and he was my safety pilot, but the weather was beautiful on the way up and Paul, Nicole and Jay got a good view of NASA’s space shuttle on Cape Canaveral and Florida’s eastern coast. After playing around in St. Augustine for most of the day, it was time to return home. The weather was a bit of a different story. We flew through thunderstorm after thunderstorm, it was the first time I had ever been in hard IMC (Instrument Metrological Conditions). It was raining hard and at one point we were in a cloud for a solid twelve minutes. I’m not going to lie, I was a little nervous, but it was a blast. As we approached Melbourne the weather cleared up and the four of us returned home safely. I’m sure there will be another adventure around the corner.