So I was on my way back from South Carolina. and the headwinds were brutal….and not what was forecast. Like they were supposed to be 6 knots of headwind and instead were 35+ knots….

So I did the math and even using up my reserve (a No-No) I would still be about 15 minutes shy of making it back to my home airport….

Looking at ForeFlight, there was an airport with decently priced fuel smack on my path about 60 miles ahead….runway was aligned with the prevailing wind and the weather there was decent…and it would still leave me with over an hour of fuel at that time…. So I called ATC and asked them to modify my flight plan for a stop at 0I8 so I could get some go juice to make it home.

Got clearance to go there, descended and lined up for a straight-in for landing…

The runway looked wet, and very black in the sun as I configured for landing on final. Did a smooth approach and flare ….and found out the hard way that it had snowed the night before, that no one had cleared the runway and I landed on wet slush…and very nearly did not stop. It was close to “Go-Around” time but I honestly was so far down the runway when I decided that I might not be able to stop but I wasn’t sure I could get up fast enough to clear the trees at the other end of the runway…braking action was near zero until the last 1200 feet or so. I mean, I had the nose wheel up, full flaps and all the aerodynamic drag I could produce but just ooozled down the runway, not losing speed. Like wet Black Ice but with slush instead of hard ice. A fair bit of butt-puckering there for a short moment…do I try to take off again and yank it over the trees?  or stay down and overrun the end of the runway? In the end it became just wet and I was able to get some braking action, but for a moment it looked like only bad and worse choices….I thought it was wet, not slush or ice….Lesson for me…

So I get stopped (finally), pull off the runway to the Self Serve pump, and the credit card reader is offline….All that shit and puckering for nothing….

Go into the office to see if perhaps I am doing anything wrong, and find out that the Self Serve Fuel (there is no other source) has been offline for days (but no Notam!) …it is suggested that I go to 27K, another airport about 10 miles southwest….Which I did in a short VFR hop, and which DID have a working terminal….their runway, at least had been cleaned,,, but not the taxiways…. But at least they had available 100LL….So Good/Bad ….

Filled the plane up at 27K using the fuel nozzle which would neither go to full flow nor full off (it tricked a fair bit of fuel when in the off position, which required some planning so I didn’t spill too much on the ground….and we took off again. I may have wasted a gallon or two what with the malfunctioning nozzle, but I did get the tanks full.

I guess asking people to work on Sundays or to actually have working self serve fuel terminals in good repair is asking too much for rural Kentucky……But I did get enough fuel to make it home.

Irritating though. Had I known,  I’d have paid the nearly $2/gal premium at Tac-Air at Lexington (KLEX) and just sucked it up….

But now I know, never stop for fuel in Rural Kentucky airports again.

Having said that, even with the stop, it was less than 5 hours to return. It takes a little over 16 hours to drive it.

So all the hype about the Unclean Unvaccinated is….Bullshit.

We aren’t any more danger to the rest of the public than those who are vaccinated.

Spain’s First Study on Omicron Finds Vaccinated People Spread COVID at Same Rate as Unvaccinated
Several governments in Spain scrapped COVID passports following the study’s release.

Probably paid for by Trudeau.

“there were also swastikas and other Nazi imagery, public urination, harassment of local businesses and a soup kitchen, and national outcry over the treatment of a statue and war memorial.”

I’d bet money on it. It’s page 483 of the Leftist playbook. Also a typical method used by totalitarians.

There were more kids in Chicago that were killed by gunfire in 2021 than died from Covid.

Mostly, of course, on the south and west sides.

The vaccination status of both groups is unknown

Who’a thunk that?

U.S. Senators Want To Put Brakes On LNG Exports To Curb Domestic Energy Bills.

It’s almost like they think that more natural gas supply will bring down prices. (this is corollary to the “don’t ship it overseas because then the price will go up locally” part of their message. Are these the same folks that are doing their best to make it difficult to find and exploit other gas wells here is the US? That supported a stop to new gas wells on Federally controlled land? That supported shutting down the pipeline to bring us cheap oil from canada?

Kinda two faced there , innit? I mean, yes, sending all that natural gas to europe will raise the price here. Contrawise, having even more gas supply available here in the US will make our prices go down…

If they believe that we need low natural gas prices, why are they supporting all of slow Joe’s initiatives to reduce our domestic supply of oil and natural gas?

Lots of changes on the “vaccine” front in Canadia, likely influenced by the border blockade.

No “tax” on the unvaccinated (for now)

In some places, an end to Vaccine mandates.

I still think that this ends with violence, as the Canadian Government will not let this disrespect and disobedience pass. At some point, arrests (and maybe worse) will happen….likely as soon as they figure out how to get enough tow trucks mobilized. THe cops will, as always, follow orders.

Further, I’d bet that other retribution happens later, as they will track down each and every protester they can, and use the tax people or some other agency to punish them for being uppity. Bet on it. Lots of ways to make life miserable when you have the poser of the government of a country to wield.

“Why do all the snowplows have Trump stickers in the windows and “Lets Go Brandon” stickers on the tailgates?

“That’s because no one in government gives you a Truck with a Snowplow, you gotta buy them,  and the folks who drive them actually work for a living”.

You can guess which one was me….

Seems that there is another protest happening, and that there are some lanes opened up at the original site after some negotiations.

Lots of people are coming and going, so there is still a lot of support amongst the Canadian people. I am told that there are deliveries of free food and hot drinks to the protesters.

Oddly, the American press has barely  mentioned this protest. Were it not for the internet, you’d never know that there is a protest at the border, that hundreds of trucks, thousands of people are blockading….that farmers have joined the protest. You’d never know that men and women have driven for hours to come and join the protest…essentially to sleep in their car in below freezing weather, with nor facilities, just to protest the vaccine mandates……Not by the mainstream print and broadcast media coverage here in the US you wouldn’t.

I predict this will end badly for the protesters. Trudeau and his masters will grow tired and impatient and he will decide that he doesn’t want to look bad and incompetent and powerless, and he will demand action and there will be violence.

But despite the attempts to minimize the news, people are aware.

Was the economic cost worth it?

And when I say “anyone” I’m talking about those folks who can think…. who wasn’t a sheep that follows blindly what the “experts” (who were most obviously guessing) told them:

A new report led by a Johns Hopkins University economist found that overall, lockdowns reduced Covid mortality in the US and Europe – including Britain – by just 0.2 per cent.

But hey, we gotta listen to the “experts” amIrite? Bags of hot air who pontificate on things that they really don’t have a clue about….and this whole “Pandemic” demonstrated that for anyone who wants to see.

If you are old enough, you can remember the “Affirmative Action” programs and their like, when in the 70’s and 80’s and 90’s there was a big push, and lots of pressure on companies, to hire and promote black people and women into positions of greater responsibility, and hire black people/women/Vets to any position. There were quotas for many businesses as well.

Sadly for those folks who came after, the promotions and hirings were often done regardless of fitness or aptitude for the jobs that they were placed into. “Diversity Hire” became an excuse for incompetent people that were women and black……..in other words, “we had to hire a black person, or a woman, and so we did…. Sorry they can’t do the job, but we can’t fire them because they are a protected minority and it will screw up our quotas so we (and you) are stuck with them”.

This did a lot of damage to the image of blacks and women in the workplace, as one never knew whether the woman or black person that was supposed to be managing, or assisting, or whatever the job required was was actually competent, and whether they actually had the skills and qualifications for the job , had earned their way into the position, or had simply been appointed to fill the quota. Lots of people were, sadly, not competent in their field, and it made those who WERE competent look bad…..”did they get their position by experience and ability or because of the color of their skin or their body plumbing?” which often led to people dismissing as useless the perfectly qualified and competent folks because one never knew how they got their position….or assuming they would get substandard service or work because that person was female, or black, or some other minority….If anything, the pressure to hire and promote did, I think, more damage to the folks the program was designed to help….it likely set their image back many years.

Sadly, since Biden made such a big deal about appointing a Black Woman judge as a a Supreme Court Justice, we will never know if that person he appoints actually has the chops to do the job, the experience and competence and skills for it, or if they just fit the description of “Black and Female”.

I’d not want that hanging over my head were I a competent female Judge with dark skin. How would you like to have every person wonder how you got to the Supreme Court of the United States? Each person, even your peers and fellow judges wondering whether you’d earned your right to be in that position or had simply been appointed because you ticked the box of “black” and “woman”. To forever have your competency questioned?

Thus has Biden tainted the position he will soon appoint a (likely very competent person) to…..