Day 22: Miami, FL

Day 22: June 21st, Miami, FL. On this morning, George, Abigail, and I drove to the Bartow airport outside of Lakeland. George and Abigail had some work to do on their airplane, which is hangared here. My airplane was sitting in front of the Custom Avionics shop. Despite having my transponder and VOR receivers checked out thoroughly before I left, I noticed that VOR #1 was about 30-40 degrees off and was therefore unusable for navigation. Custom Avionics in Lakeland was able to tighten a loose resolver and recalibrate everything so that it is now usable. I preflighted, picked up my IFR clearance to Miami and departed Lakeland, waving goodbye to George and Abigail as I started my takeoff roll at about 10 am. I arrived at Miami's Kendall/Tamiami airport just before noontime.

I was in Miami to visit with my friend Eduardo Saravia and his family. Eduardo has just returned from Santiago that morning and he was pretty exhausted, so after landing, I sat in the FBO for a while finishing some computer work. He arrived and brought me back to his house in Miami. There, his daughter Andrea and her husband Diego were grilling up a Father's Day lunch for Eduardo. It was nice to see Andrea again. The last time I saw her was in 2002 when I flew down with Ed Haddad. Her brother Nicholas was also there. Her brother Francisco was still in Troy, NY finishing up summer classes at Hudson Valley Community College. Interestingly enough, Francisco was my student last semester for Calculus I.

That evening, Eduardo, Andrea, Diego, and I went to Miami Beach. We drove along South Beach, past all of the swanky nightclubs and Versace's house. We then went to a more toned-down section of town called Lincoln Rd. It is an outdoor mall, featuring a variety of shops and restaurants. We ate at Pizza Rustica, and, not surprisingly, ordered their signature dish, a pizza rustica. It was excellent. It was getting late, and we were all a bit tired, so we headed back to the house and went to bed. I made my ritual visit to http://fltplan.com/ to prepare flight plans for the next day. There was a lot of flying in my future, a bit more than I actually anticipated.