This is ironic timing...

I just had to cancel my reservation for the club's 180HP 172. Was
planning to fly this past Sunday evening from Morristown, NJ to
Roanoke, and then from there to Gainesville, GA. Well, weather wasn't
the best, but for the first leg of the trip everything looked VFR. The
second half would have put us in Gainesville sometime around 1:30am
with very low IFR - iffy if we'd even get in with just the localizer
approach, so I planned on PDK as the alternate (only airport nearby
allowed to file as an alternate, and with an ILS approach).

Turns out all this planning was for naught, as the primer pump on the
plane broke on the guy who had the plane before me (who, irony #2, is
also one of the club's maintenance officers). He and the other officer
couldn't get the part fixed, so the plane was grounded. That, plus the
bad weather forecasts for Monday and Tuesday up in the NE this week
convinced me to just hit the road... left home at 6:40pm, arrived
somewhere in the boonies of NC (Statesville?) around 4:30am. Hotel, 5
hours of sleep, shower, and my wife and I hit the road for day 2,
finally arriving in Gainesville, GA, around 3:30pm today. 21 hours on
the road, versus around 7 in the air. Yup, General Aviation is great
when it works, but sometimes you just can't get there.

--
Guy