You took advantage of some free time to go flying over the weekend. It had been almost two months since your last flight, so you took the rental 172 around the pattern nearly a dozen times and got the rust off of your crosswind landings. On the drive home you replayed the flight in your mind and suddenly realized that your next thought was, “Now what?” You’re getting bored. Grinding around the pattern isn’t as fun as it once was—which is why you haven’t been flying as much as in past years. There’s got to be a new challenge to meet.
You run through a mental checklist: Tailwheel checkout—accomplished, but the trainer was groundlooped and never rebuilt; there’s nothing aerobatic to rent in the area; you want to get a multi-engine rating but the cost and inability to afford to rent a twin—even if one is available—after the rating makes that unrealistic.