A window of opportunity presented itself for me to visit my parents on the way home from Bay St. Louis. To be able to spend time with them, I needed to reach Austin ahead of Steve. He would pick me up and we’d drive back to Santa Fe together.

A friend of Steve’s, Jason, was giving a talk outside of New Orleans and planned to spend a few days with us in BSL. He was returning to Santa Fe Sunday morning and could drop me off in Austin on the way. We would be flying Jason’s EADS Socata TBM 700. A sweet 6-seater, turbo prop with short takeoff and landing capabilities. I haven’t been in a cockpit since my pilot training back in the late ’70’s. It was a real treat traveling at 200 mph at 27, 000 feet. Flight time was 1.5 hours from New Orleans. The automation was dizzying to me but old hat to him. Jason clearly has the flying chops.