So they called Tuesday afternoon and said that the starter had arrived (and it was, surprisingly, the CORRECT starter, which isn’t always the case when it comes to parts procurement these days, be it auto, agricultural, or aviation…..)

Anyway, they said they would put the starter on, start both engines, charge the battery, check everything out and I could have the plane back by Wed at noon…which, sadly I could not do. Instead I arranged to pick it up Thursday morning.

I called Enterprise and attempted to get the main reservations desk to set up a one way to where the plane was….Nope.

My choices of rental car places is limited in NW Indiana. There isn’t all that many places or companies that do rentals, and none of them wanted to do one way on a holiday weekend. …or at least the national call centers didn’t.

I called my local Enterprise place (where I had returned the one-way Honda Accord a few days prior) and the manager there said he could indeed find a car for me for a one way trip.

He finagled the paperwork, worked the system, lied to the computers….and I soon got an email that said that I was good for a one week rental, but that I could drop it off anywhere….Which was his way of making it a one way to satisfy the system and get me what I wanted.

So Wed noon I showed up to pick up the rental.  MC wanted to go with me so it worked out. As we pulled up I saw the gray BMW in the parking lot waiting, and jokingly said “I bet that’s the one” (hoping it wasn’t….)

I was wrong…It was the car.

It was a BMW 740i. The manager of the rental place wanted it off his inventory and so it worked out for both of us. Same price as a smaller car, so it didn’t matter to me.

We did the paperwork, fired up the Beemer (really weird controls for that), dropped my car off at my hangar, and were on the road!

Basically it is I-90 going east for 625 miles until you take the exit for the airport….

and that’s what we did. I had snacks, drinks in a cooler, an overnight bag, an IPhone with a 20 hour playlist set on Shuffle…..

and off we went!

“Common sense is not so common”

“No” is a complete sentence. Nothing needs to be added to it.

“No one who makes you feel small is worth listening to”

“Always assume that Murphy’s Law is a fundamental force in this universe”

“Listen to the silence before making big decisions”

“Listen not only to a person’s words, but to their silences also”

“Try before you quit”

“The capacity to learn is a gift, the will to do so, a choice”

“No one will care how you bleed”

So I was moving though my Monday, dealing with the lack of sleep (although I wasn’t that tired, honestly) getting back in the groove after being gone for 4 days.

And that afternoon, I got a call:  they had found a reman starter for the TSIO520 on the plane.

(You’d think that it would be easy, but I called around also and no one had one in stock). Aircraft Spruce listed new and reman Skytech starters, but had no stock and could not get one for a week. They also listed the Hartzell (Teledyne) version (that came with the engine from the factory), but not available for a week either.

Everyone else had rebuilt ones at about $2k and new for about $2800 plus shipping.

These guys got me a rebuilt starter with a warranty for $2075 including overnight shipping.

I bit the bullet and told ’em to order it.

(A side note: Many airplane parts are expensive, and some perhaps can be justified to need to be, After all, if the magneto craps out, you have no spark, and that’s why there is redundancy built into the engines and other airplane systems,,,but sometimes they just charge way too much for parts that are not significantly different that what we have on automobiles (or even tractors) ….I mean, if the starter fails on an airplane, it isn’t like the plane falls out of the sky, after all… The engine just doesn’t start)  But the parts are still 5X more expensive that the nearly identical non-aviation part…..

Anyway, it isn’t like I had a choice, so I sucked it up and told them to procure the starter.

At the end of it, it could have been worse…..The starter could  failed at the super secret point where I dropped the kids off, where there was no mechanic, nearest one 2 hours drive time away….and where the are no rental cars……In fact, no services at all….Just a runway and a few buildings…..

Instead it failed where there was a mechanic, and where there were other services.

It isn’t, after all, a question of if a starter is gonna fail, but WHEN the starter will fail….

I kinda look at it as it could have been a lot worse time-and-money wise. After all, if I didn’t want to spend money I should have taken up a hobby like bowling or archery or badminton or wild women or something less expensive… (Hookers and Blow are a bargain compared to aviation)

More later….

I mean, they use code words like “Teens” and “Youths”  and “Feral” to tell us all what kinds of people they are reporting on….

“Blonde female cop beaten by group of Feral Teens”

But the media never says “Black”, or “African”

Why won’t the media face the truth and say it? What are they afraid of?

Unless, and Until we start telling it like it is, that the behvior of certain groups (especially blacks), is bad, and unacceptable, we are never gonna have a chance to fix it.

Hiding it in code words is just stupid. So is making excuses for the behavior.

Black activists be damned. They are part of the problem.

(When we last left our intrepid travelers, before the Independence Day holiday, they had just left on their journey back home via rental car…..leaving the 340 to be repaired…)

So I get back home Monday Morning about 3:30 AM .  Drop MC off at her place and pulled the rental car into the driveway….and fell face down into my pillow. I may have taken off my shoes, IDK.  Long day and lots of driving (some of it in thunderstorms) had worn me out. I don’t do 22 hour days anymore. I must be getting old…..

The sun woke me up about 6:15 AM though. Old habits die hard, and when the sun comes up, I get up. Even now that I no longer have to.

At 7:45 AM I get a text from the mechanic dude…..He pulled the cowling and found the left starter with a Teeny-Tiny issue:

The theory is that the brush holder failed (It appears to be an original Cessna/Continetal starter, and I don’t care enough to go back through 40 years of logbooks to find when (or if) it was ever replaced). And they didn’t wanna open it up as that might mean that we lose the core return value, ($450) so we left it alone…

I told him to find a new or reman unit and let me know.

I then got a call from MC, who had also woken up and was ready to face her day, and she agreed to meet me at the car rental place so I could return the car…As long as I bought her breakfast…

The car, a nearly brand new (2100 miles!) Honda Accord, was a pretty nice car. especially for a rental. Comfortable seats, good (not awesome, not sporty, but decent) handling, adaptive cruise control, Decent sound system…all I needed (Although I would have been satisfied if they’d given me a 2000 Geo Metro with a half million miles and a broken AM radio,  I mean, after hours on a Sunday,,,,I just wanted to get home) Anyway, as I said, a pretty nice car. It got an honest 40 MPG even at the speeds I drove it (Honest, I kept it 5 MPH under the speed limit all 700 miles)…..

Eyewitness reports of speeds over 95 mph for many tens of miles at a time have misidentified the car, I am certain)

We returned the car and got a late breakfast…

More to come as I get time to write.

That July 4th,….Independence Day….is the real “No Kings” protest day.

The liberals can suck it.

I mean, he could live at the poverty level, get rid of all the trappings of Mayor, choose to have a smaller security detail,  cook his own food, spend less on fancy suits, drive himself, etc.

How many millions could the socialist mayor of New York City save that could go to help those he thinks are so terribly disadvantaged?

He obviously thinks that it is OK to complain about successful people accumulating wealth, yet here he is living large when most of those trappings could go to help those he complains are downtrodden.

He could, of course show everyone the way, but that just isn’t what Leftists do, is it?

Think of  most Liberal Politicians and activists:  think Bernie Sanders, think Patrisse Cullors of BLM…and now Mayor Zohran Mamdani….They all live large on the backs of those they claim to represent, and decry the people who have gotten rich with hard work and good choices and intelligence. Yet they don’t set the example….

Hypocrites, each and every one of them

They all hate the country that gave them the wealth and power they decry in others.

Not by me, but by Adaptive Curmudgeon.

He. like me, is proud of his country and is glad that the Doomsayers predictions turned out to so much hot air.

If you don’t follow him, you should.

It started with a bunch of colonists, and some hotheads, and some folks who had had enough of the rule of a king on another continent.

It became the Best Damned Country on this planet.

It became the country that the strongest, the best and the brightest chose to emigrate to, the brave and courageous souls were willing to leave friends and family on a one way trip in order to come here for the opportunity to succeed.

It became a country that fed fully half the world, because it had farmers who worked hard and grew incredible amounts of grain.

It became a country that had the greatest industry…..and the most productive workers…. so much so that in WWII it outproduced all the other allied countries by a factor of 12, so much so that the United States GAVE AWAY war materiel and machines to their allies.

It became the country that was a shining beacon for the people who merely wished for a chance to live and work and to succeed…Many of whom risked their lives to simply arrive at those shores.

It became the country that held back Communism, on two fronts, that kept half or more of Europe free (for a given measure of Free) as well as a significant portion of Asia..

It became the country that did more, helped more people, fed more people, defended more people and saved more lives than all the other countries on earth COMBINED.  That put a Man on the Moon, and demonstrated what real Free People can accomplish.

And today, this day, 250 years ago, is the day those leaders, those rebels, those radicals, those representatives of the colonists… They told the king of England that he was no longer their ruler.

Read that document here, just in case you haven’t.

Read it carefully: it is well written. A portion:

In Congress, July 4th, 1776:  The unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another

AND:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,

Go on, read the rest. I’ll wait.

Just words, written on parchment by hand, But those words changed so much. Created a country that is so much.

Those men, with their signatures, began the birth of the greatest country on earth, one that I am incredibly lucky to be born as a citizen in, one that gave me the rights and advantages that I had over nearly every citizen of any other country. That pledge, by the signers, of their “Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor” was the start of a wonderful thing.

That Declaration, that statement, along with the Constitution that would come later, made the United States what it is today. Not perfect, perhaps, but Pretty Damned Good.

And I, for one, am proud and honored to be a citizen of that country.

Go celebrate this day, this Independence Day. This birthday of a country: Remember what the celebration today is meant for, and remember the people who made it happen, and those who have defended that country and that way of life that began 250 years ago….The immigrants  that became citizens, that built this country into what it is, and what it is. Raise a glass, take a moment, and honor those who signed that Declaration and chose to rule themselves….and be thankful that you can do so 250 years later, here in the best Damned Country ever on this planet.

Happy Birthday USA!

The next time someone says “have a nice fourth of July!” I’m gonna lose my shit.

We don’t say “Merry 25th of December!” fer chrissake.

It’s Independence Day, the day that the founders of our country told the King of England to Stuff It and brought about the birth of the greatest country on earth.

That day just happened to be the 4th of July, 1776.

But for the love of all that is Holy, call it Independence Day, name the Holiday for what it is.

To call it the “4th of July” waters it down to just a day off, not something worth remembering.