I woke Claude up at 6 AM, and we headed out to the airport. We packed up what little else I had to put in the plane, and then I departed Fitchburg (KFIT) for the last time. I had an uneventful 80 minute flight to Syracuse (KSYR). Deanie picked me up at Piedmont-Hawthorne, where I tied the plane down for the day.
We headed back over to the Red Roof Inn Motel, where Zach was still asleep. We woke him and packed all the stuff in the car for the short ride over to Syracuse University. We got a parking pass for his dorm, unloaded all the stuff (apparently, the amount of crap he brought was about average, although I thought that it would represent WAY too much). Volunteers helped us carry the two cartloads of stuff up to his room, and we spent the next couple of hours setting him up, putting things away, and meeting his roommate and his roommate's relatives (who seemed very nice - the whole lot of them).
We then went over to the cafeteria to get something to eat, where Zach proceeded to make it relatively easy for us to want to leave him there by acting obnoxious to Deanie. Separation anxiety - standard teenage crap - I don't know, but it gets old. We said goodbye to him and decided to take a walk around the campus before leaving. The weather was beautiful, and the university campus is very nice. We wandered through some buildings and around the quadrangle, got some drinks and then went back up to catch the shuttle bus to where our rental car was parked.
We drove back to the airport, dropped off the car, packed up the plane, and then put in the most expensive 100LL gasoline I've ever seen ($4.88/gal). I only put in 10 gallons. We then took off after 4 F-16's from the NY Air National Guard wing and a business jet, and flew right over Syracuse and the university before heading back east toward Northampton, MA (7B2). I dropped Deanie off there to visit with her friend Marilyn overnight, and then I filled the tanks and took off for Caldwell, NJ (KCDW). My parents picked me up there and I went to their house to spend the night.
A productive day (albeit frustrating, at least with respect to dealing with my son), and one that would have been MUCH longer and more difficult without the plane.
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