Little did we know what an adventure we were in for last night.
Being Tuesday, we were out at the Spoon, an excellent coffee house in town, and headed home around midnight.
So far so good.
Walking to the apartment door from the car, it soon dawned on us that neither of us had the front door key. Nor was it in the car. Running back over the evening, we figured that it was either still hanging up beside the door on the inside, or we had left it somewhere, likely the Spoon. (Not the first time, once before we managed to leave the power supply to my laptop at the Spoon.)

Hunting around in the car we managed to find a torch, though nothing to pick the lock with. NOt that that would have done much good - neither of us having the first clue how to pick a lock anyway. (Well, I did figure out how to open Mr Shimada's phone, in Saitama, but... anyway..)
The windows were, unfortunately, locked (to prevent people climing in from the outside... forward thinking on our part!), but with the help of the torch we could see, dangling on the hook beside the door... yes, the door keys.

Right.

We live in an apartment complex, and there is an after-hours maintenance fellow you can call. Fine, except we didnt know the number. Sarah did at least know where the office was, so off we headed in the hope that there would be a phone number written on the door.
There was, which when called led to a recorded message telling us another number to call, and also a third number to call if no one responded to the second number within half an hour. So we ring the second number and are able to leave a message. Its now 12.30.

1:00 comes and not a peep from maintenence people or anyone, so we call the third number, which is a pager. So we leave our number.
No response.
It rapidly got to the point where we were calling the pager every five minutes or so, and leaving enough messages on the answering machine to fill the tape, but still not so much as a sausage in response.

Well, at least it wasnt too cold. We slept in the car. Its amazing how comfortable it can be with the seat stretched all the way back. Nothing like a good bed, or indeed any bed, but better than nothing.

8:00 comes and neither of us had had much sleep, so we turn up at the door of the office again and wait until someone comes to work, get a spare key from them, home, and sleep solid until 1 pm.

We need a spare key.

The other flying school here in Bloomington have tiny little Cessna 150's, cute little things with two seats, a ridiculously underpowered engine and almost nothing in the way of advanced controls. You point it where you want to go, and provided you arent in a hurry, thats where you end up.
They best part is they are cheap, too - cheapest planes Ive found. That, and they have an online booking system so one can schedule the plane on the internet.
I figured I'd give both a try, so after getting a check ride in the little plane last week Sarah and I flew to Cincinnatti.

Getting there was relatively simple, taking off from Bloomington after the flying school sorted out the problems with their online booking system (it's new..), and a little over an hour later we were in Cincinnatti. Now, right over the busy part of that airspace, our transponder decided to kick the bucket. The transponder, among other things, tells air traffic control how high we are flying, and that was what it decided to stop saying. They were kind enough to let us fly the rest of the way, but those things are rather vital. Nice, kind controllers..

Spent a while on the ground at the other end, tried to call Sarah's parents, who live in that town, to meet us for lunch, but they didnt answer the phone. Sportys Pilot Shop is a rather large pilot shop, like a Target or K-Mart for pilots, but right on the airport. I spent some enjoyable time playing with the headsets, and though I liked the Bose model, very high end of the range, that was far too expensive. One day... maybe..

Off we headed for home, only to be confronted by three or four thunderstorms lurking menacingly around the city. Tough enough when they gang up like that, but corner one on its own and they whimper like babies. Anyway this time they were at least three of them, so best to turn tail and run. The controllers were helpful enough and sent us way way down south to avoid them, until we spotted a gap between two and took it. Crawling along at 80 knots ( I said it was underpowered ) there was a short while where it looked like the weather was closing in, so we headed to the nearest airport prepared to land and wait out the storm, but by the time we got there all the storms had gone to bother other people and left us alone. This was good, for it left the sky clear and smooth all the way back to Bloomington, where we could get a well deserved meal.