Two Missions, Two Days… One Purpose

On Sunday, October 27th we departed Homebase at 11:45 am headed for Raleigh-Durham International, landing at 12:30 pm. At Raleigh, we picked our Angel Flight passengers Connie and her mom Diane and flew them to Baltimore International where Connie had a medical appointment scheduled for Monday morning.

These two ladies are such a pleasure to fly, last year we flew them for their very first Angel Flights and from the start, they felt like family to us! This was their second time using Angel Flight… and they requested, if possible, for us to be their pilots! (during our flight, I jokingly informed them that if they ever do have occasion to fly with other pilots then they may find out how good… or how “BAD” we actually are since they presently have no one to compare us to!)

Along with exchanging hugs at Baltimore, Connie and Diane presented us with two beautifully wrapped gifts, one for each of our wives Barbara and Sharon! (They said these were to thank them for sharing and supporting their husbands so that we could be away doing these Angel Flights… how sweet!) After our “goodbyes” we headed our and departed for back home… it was not so much of a goodbye as it was “see you all in the morning” because the very next morning we were going to be back to Baltimore to take these two special ladies home!

Now, a little about those beautifully wrapped gifts. Both of our wives were overwhelmed when they meticulously unwrapped them and found custom made printed pillows, designed by Connie, using pictures pulled from each of our Facebook pages! (These pillows are amazing!) My wife Sharon and my little girl Mikayla both said that now while I was away on Angel Flights they could hug this pillow and feel like they were hugging me! Thank you so much, Mrs. Connie and Diane, for these very, very special gifts to our wives!

After a good night’s sleep, we were back at the airport Monday morning rolling down runway 22 at 10:00 am heading back to Baltimore. We arrived just slightly ahead of Connie and Diane and upon they’re arrival we once again exchanged many hugs and talked about how things had been since we saw each other the evening before (if you haven’t noticed, we love HUGS, both giving and receiving!) 

After loading up, we departed Baltimore heading back to Raleigh. Our route from Baltimore south takes us around the east side of the DC area, with spectacular views of the Chesapeake Bay area as we go. In about two hours we arrived in Raleigh landing on runway 32 with our purpose of two missions in two days being achieved… Connie and her mom Diane safely back home! Our goodbyes were happy/sad… and of for sure included many, many hugs.

With warm hearts and smiles on both our faces, we departed Raleigh and headed back to the beautiful mountains of the Shenandoah Valley, the place we proudly call home!

Our flight time for both days totaled 10.5 hours covering 1,085 nautical miles and the most dangerous parts of all this were our drive to and from the airport!