To Yellowknife and back

As Dwight knocks on my door at 9AM, i lunge myself out of bed, walk to the door, and slowly my vision tunnels and dims as my tired body tries pumping blood into my eyes for another day. I have one of those 'is this it, the day my fears meet me and i go blind for some terrible reason?' moments before the world comes alive again in vivid color and clarity.
Thus is a sign to me that my body is getting weaker and weaker by the day and needs some semblance of a day off. But not today -- i don't want to take today off because we have goals to reach today. Mind you, we've already went above and beyond the goals of a typical work week. But i don't feel in the 'toil to earn the beans' mode anymore. What we have here is a mission on our hands, and we're out to complete it, no matter how much sleep we must sacrifice or personal life we surrender. The weekend began with a 7:00 AM flight out to Yellowknife, N.W.T. in KingAir 41J, where we hangared the plane and began its required Phase 2 inspection. We spent from Saturday morning til Thursday morning completing the inspection.
In a nutshell, i've had a KingAir maintenance crash-course the last six days, spending at least 10 hours on and around the plane, opening up cowls and panels and removing filters and filing propellers, taking apart components for the first time, and asking "what's this?" more times than i can count. Fortunately another experienced mechanic, Jason, was flown up from Virginia to help us, and he was more than kind to do all he could for us and help us understand what we're supposed to do.
I know i became 'at home' with our KingAir during this time when i started to have the familiar Love-Hate feelings toward the machine. When i start talking to the airplane, scolding it for being so difficult to fix, and thanking the airplane for 'allowing' me to fix it without hassle, is when i know the intimidation has fallen loose and a real relationship is forming. The final major day of the inspection, Wednesday, was really stressful at the end because there became lots of loose ends made apparent that i didn't feel i had time or understanding to deal with. Fortunately i was allowed to defer these issues for another time because of their minor priority.

I wish we could have spent more time in Yellowknife. If you ever want to go to north Canada for vacation, Yellowknife is the place to go. It's beautiful, affordable, up-t0-date, the people are lovely, and the town altogether is a good thing that comes in a small package. There's a all-city hiking/biking trail, restaurants to suit anyone's fancy, a small mall, movie stores and a theater, American franchises, and lots of places to get away or have an adventure. I wish i could have had an entire day or two just to roam and enjoy. But alas, about all I got to enjoy was a superb breakfast restaurant called Tim Horton's, a trip to Wal-Mart, one night out for dinner at Boston Pizza, and a surprise time away with God on some lovely rock formations facing the Sunday sunset.

We flew away on Thursday morning back to Baker Lake, grieved that we had to say goodbye to one of the world's finer places. It was an entirely healthy time physically, emotionally and spiritually,and Charisma and I took some more steps of growth in our relationship there too.

I left with a sense of 'owning' the airplane after having spent so much time on it. I like being able to gaze on and operate an airplane that i know the inner workings of; it gives me greater confidence and control in my relationship with it.

This is the last workday of this week, and so far my work hours total to 71.25. This could turn into a 80- hour week!

I flew 10 hours yesterday, too. Talk about being busy!

pictures later.. prayers appreciated!