Woke up at 9:30 A.M.  Felt really good!  Good sleep just makes ya feel soooo much better all around!

Went into town to mail a letter this morning.  I was right next to the Chamber of Commerce, so I decided to pop on in, and there I was met by a very kind middle-aged lady who was very excited to help me out!  I told her that I was new in town, that  I was doing flight training, etc., and she was more than happy to load me up with every single brochure and map possible of Chanute and south-eastern Kansas!  Jarryd said later it's probably because I was the only visitor they ever had!  ha!

I looked through some of the stuff when I got back, and it's actually not too shabby!  Kansas has quite a bit to do...you just have to be pro-active in your search!  There are quite a bit of outdoors-y things to do, and most of the events are in the spring and summer, so I'll be takin' advantage of some of those!

I did take note, however, that she wasn't aware of our flight school out at the airport.  It seems like no one in town is.  I'm not sure that's a good thing!  I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing, either, but whenever I tell one of the locals what I'm doin', they are more than surprised to learn that there is even a flight school out here!

Flew with Van around 1:00.  We hopped into the Cherokee only to have the opportunity to take a look inside a King Air on the field.  I eagerly hopped out.  It's not every day you can take a peek at a $4 million airplane!  The aircraft was immaculate on the inside (and smelled of new leather!).  I was rather surprised by how narrow and short the passenger-area was (I'm 5'7" and still had to duck down to walk through!), but the luxuriousness of it kinda made that fact appear insignificant.  Jarryd and I talked to the pilot and just marveled at the cockpit (that's a pic of Jarryd in the co-pilot's seat up there).  It's all glass-panel and has two electronic flight displays.  If one goes out, they just switch to the other one.  There are absolutely zero "old-style" instruments...it's all electronic!  Pretty impressive.  And the co-pilot was tellin' us that the system was already three years old...nicer models are already out on the market!  Yeah, I'm pretty sure I can get used to that...

And speakin' of the co-pilot!  She was a chick!  haha...granted, I know that there are many women pilots, but it's always fun to meet one!  I'm not goin' to lie, there is just somethin' about a gal that can pilot a King Air.  Or a jet.  Or even just a regular ol' airplane!  But she was married and had kids...too bad!

Van and I did my cross-country flight up to Lawrence, Kansas, and then over to Clinton, Missouri.  The flight itself was pretty basic...but I filed IFR for the first time myself today.  So I went into the system!  It's not too hard to do, but I'm learnin' the professional way of speakin' to ATC.  It's pretty easy to communicate what you're doin' and get all the necessary information across, etc., but there are proper words and I guess improper words to use.  So Van is seein' to it that I clean up all my un-needed jargon!  We had decent groundspeed on the way to Lawrence and over to Clinton, but we were doggin' on the way back...right around 80 knots!  All in all I had 3.2 hours of flight time today...

After we returned, I took advantage of our upper-60's temps today and went out for a bike ride through town.  My most recent goal is to find a motorcycle.  I just can't stand to watch everyone else riding!  I miss it!  I'm lookin' for a cheap one, of course, since I'm forkin' out oodles of money for flight training, but I'll take what I can get!  I went to a Honda shop here in town (which oddly enough is waaaaay bigger than ours back in a city of 115,000!), then to a small engine mechanic, then to a Chinese bike dealer.  And I had no leads.  I probably biked about 12 miles, too!

We'll see what happens there...

Came back to the airport to find out that a new student is here!  Jyri is his name, and he is from Finland.  He's only goin' to be here for about a month, and he's tryin' to build up 50 hours of flight time for time-building.  He's around my age and easy to talk to, so that should be fun!  I told him about the Kansas winds and tornadoes, and he was wonderin' what he got himself into!  "Um, what do you do when you have a tornado"?  haha...amateurs!

He was also tellin' us about flight training over in Europe, and it's something I noticed when I was over there, too.  I mean, I training is by no means cheap here in the States, but in comparison, it is nearly double (and sometimes more) over in Europe.  I looked into training over there, but it was simply not feasible.  Or smart!  Renting a Cessna 172 for $200/hour is plain dumb!

I had the opportunity to go with Jarryd, Van, and Jyri on Jarryd's night flight in the Twin Commanche tonight, but I passed on the offer.  Just wasn't feelin' like goin' out again.  I stayed back and studied some more, grabbed some fries and ice cream at McDonald's and hit the sack at midnight.

I fly tomorrow at 11:00 A.M.