And We Are Done

Well, 18 days, 47.4 hours of flying, 11 states, 17 airports, 21 landings, 1 go-around, and 9 hotel rooms later the adventure is over. It was a lot of fun and a great learning experience. We got to experience flying weather different than what we are used to and visit places that otherwise we would never have gone to. There was always something to see or do and we had a blast. Most importantly, after 47.4 hours in the same small space, Sharon and I are still talking to each other, which gives me hopes for the future of our relationship.

One question that we had before the trip was, how necessary is an instrument rating (so that one can fly through clouds) for this type of trip? Turns out it would have made some difference, but did not stop us from getting where we wanted to go. There was only day when we wanted to fly and couldn't, and a couple where we had to wait for the weather to improve. The rating would have made a difference in comfort, though; there were times when we were forced to deal with turbulence that would not have been there had we been flying over the cloud cover, instead of under it.

We'd like to finish this blog by thanking Cathy and Brian, Barb and Bill, and Linda and Rich for being such gracious hosts. We'd also like to thank Bill, Ed and Wolf for listening to our plans, giving us advice on the route and what to expect, and generally encouraging us to try this new experience. Thanks, and see you on the next blog.

Palm Springs to Palo Alto

Click here for the route.

Ah, our final day of flying. Mostly retreading over old territory, with a few things to make it more exciting. Given we are in California, weather was not a problem: no rain, no cloud cover, just the threat of possibly, maybe, who knows, thunderstorms happening in the Palm Springs area about 5 hours after our proposed departure time. No worries.

We took off around 10 am, climbed to 8500 ft and were on our way to Palmdale, skirting all those Los Angeles / California fires you've all probably been reading around in the papers. We gave them a wide berth, never getting closer than 20 or so miles to its limits. Still, we were able to see some of it and it looked like this:


The only effect on us that the fires had was to make part of the trip, between Victorville and Bakersfield somewhat hazy, even though visibility was more than 10 miles. Once we were past Bakersfield, the haziness went away and things were hunky dory.

We stopped at Harris Ranch for lunch. It's a good place to go if you like beef. The restaurant and hotel have their own airport, with a long but narrow runway. Both Sharon and I had very good salads (there was beef on mine, so they did not kick us out of the restaurant). A cool thing about landing there was hearing the voice of one of our friends, Wolf, on the radio, who was using the same frequency (but unfortunately at another airport). Still, that was a clear sign that we were getting close to the end of our journey.

After lunch we took off and immediately abandoned any flight plan, opting instead to follow the "traditional" approach to get to Palo Alto from the California Central Valley: point the plane towards Mount Diablo and fly in that direction until you see the San Francisco Bay. Simple and effective. Mount Diablo, by the way, looks like this:

We soon found ourselves on final at our home airport with one landing to go to complete our journey. Getting ready to land was a thrill, there is nothing like seeing the runway of your home airport in front of you. The view for us was like this:


And that was it. We landed, taxied to parking, tied the plane down, hailed a cab and were done with this adventure.

Palm Springs

So we decided to stay a few days in Palm Springs to relax a little after all the flying we've been doing. We picked an hotel / spa off the web and it turned out to be a good choice. Nice room, nice spa, and smack in the middle of downtown Palm Springs so we were within walking distance of most everything. This is what our nice room looked like:


Palm Springs is a fun place to do nothing in. It's in the desert under the shadow of the St. Jacinto mountains which provided some very necessary shade in the late afternoon. The place gets so hot (low 100s while we were there) that we chose to spend most of the time at the hotel and only venture out after 6 PM. This is what a downtown that is close to the mountains and is filled with palm trees that have gotten a haircut looks like:


So, what did we do there?

We drank nutritious fruit margaritas (mango for me, peach for Sharon):

We had coffee:


We enjoyed the swimming pool:


We saw a hummingbird's nest:


Had some gazpacho:


Sharon had a hot stone massage (you will have to ask her for details) that left her absolutely limp. She also managed to get wrapped up like a mummy and came out of it smelling like coconuts. I like coconuts, I grew up in the tropics!

Oh yes, we ate at many different restaurants.

Unfortunately three days was all the time we had and on Wednesday we said goodbye and headed out on the last leg of our trip, back to the steed's home in Palo Alto and our home in Mountain View.

Santa Teresa to Palm Springs

5T6-CUS-CIE-TUS-KAVQ-GBN-VICKO-KTRM

Today was another long day of flying, with two legs of over 2 hours each. What made it easy was the good weather with no clouds, great visibility and no turbulence) all the way. We are also now back in familiar territory, backtracking through our original route.


Again we got to fly close to Mexico. The closest point was at the town of Perto Palomas. It goes all the way straight to the border and the fence. It looks like this:


According to the charts, during this leg we went over the Continental Divide. It didn't look much of a divide to me, but who am I to argue with cartographers, geologists and government charts? A continental divide, by the way, looks like this:


We also flew over Davis Monthan Air Force Base where apparently the Air Force stores a lot of their decommissioned planes. This is what a lot of decomissioned Air Force planes look like:


There are more decomissioned planes in this picture than the Brazilian Air Force has flying.

We trefueled at Marana Regional (the airport where we got the funky van on the way out) in Arizona and then took off for California. Again we got to fly over a lot of nothing. To give you a different perspective on how much nothing there is, let me explain a little differently. Our plane's GPS / moving map always shows the distance and direction from the nearest airport, town or navigation aid so that we can easily report our position to air traffic control. This is displayed on the lower right hand corner of the display. Usually, we are never more than 10 miles away from something. This is what it showed when were flying over nothing (actually it said 45, but by the time I got the camera out we had moved closer):


The same river was there marking the Arizona-California border, only this time it had a name; apparently it is the Colorado River, the same one that goes through the Grand Canyon. Here's what a river with a name looks like:


Now we get to spend a few days at a spa in Palm Springs, resting and eating and drinking until our last leg back home and the end of this adventure.

Oklahoma City to Santa Teresa

Click here for the route.

KPWA-HBR-CDS-KLBB-HOB-CNM-CONNE-WHOLE-5T6

Today was a different flying day than the ones we've been having lately. Woke up at 6:30, made it to the airport by 8 and took off around 8:30. No waiting for clouds to go away or for visibility to improve. Everything was hunky dory.

The first part of the trip was to Lubbock, TX where we intended to stop for refueling. Flight there was a non-event: 6500 ft, visibility more than 10 miles and smooth sky all the way. This leg was the "energy" leg. We saw windmills:



And hundreds of oil wells (each square is one well):


We also passed the Carlsbad Caverns (or so our charts said):



Landing at Lubbock was special. First because it's the home town of one of our friends, but also because airliners had to wait for us to land before they could take off. Ah, the power! This is what a waiting airliner looks like:


After refueling at Lubbock we were back in the air, this time heading for Santa Teresa, NM, on the outskirts of El Paso. This time we climbed to 8500 ft and stayed there. Clouds began to appear in our path, which made us unhappy, as we know that with these clouds come turbulence. And so it was for the next two hours, 15 minutes of turbulence, 15 minutes of smooth air, until we landed at Santa Teresa.

We got a courtesy van in much better state than our previous one, got a hotel room and went to explore the east side of El Paso. We saw Mexico from the ground this time, and it looked like this:


And that was it for this stop. Tomorrow we keep going westward, with hopes of making it to Palm Springs, where we will spend a few days kicking back and relaxing before taking the final leg back home.

By the way, did you know that Starbucks in El Paso have drive-through windows?

Springdale to Oklahoma City

Click here for the route.

We woke up with the front past us, as we had originally expected. The cold air mass had left everything foggy, though, so we had to wait for the sun to heat everything up before we could leave. The weather people said things should pick up by 10 am, so we headed to the airport around 9 am, prepared the plane and waited for the minimum visibility and ceilings for us to feel comfortable with the route.

Well, the weather guys were optimists. By the time the weather was good enough for us to depart it was past noon and we scrapped our plan to move on to Lubbock, TX, after our stop in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma City became our destination for today.

The flight was like most of our flights have been since we left Kansas during our trek east: clouds keeping us flying low and bumpy. We started at 2800 ft, but the weather improved as we flew: by the time we were around Tulsa we were flying at 3200 ft, and soon after the sky magically cleared and we were able to climb to 4500 ft for the rest of the trip.

After landing at Wiley Post airport we did the usual arrangements, got ourselves a car and were off to explore Oklahoma City. For us this consisted of visiting the Oklahoma City National Memorial, a tribute to the victims of the '95 bombing. Built on the site of the original building it is very nice, very well kept and just a pleasant place to be in and reflect. This is what Sharon and I looked like when we visited the place:


The only other thing we visited in Oklahoma City was Bricktown, a very nice looking restaurant and shopping quarter. Unfortunately, parking was impossible so were not able to stop and stroll through the area. From the car, it looked like this:


Dinner was Mexican food and now we are back in the hotel, getting ready for bed. Tomorrow, we cross Texas!

Evansville to Springdale

Click here for today's route.

Today's trip was an interesting one. Our goal was to get as far west as possible and then land before crossing the cold front moving in this direction. This way we'd be safely on the ground when the front and its accompanying thunderstorms and rain showers hit. That's how we chose Springdale, AR. They were predicting thunderstorms starting there around 4 PM, so we thought we'd aim for being there by 1 PM.

After our now traditional 6:30 am breakfast we checked the weather and, since visibility was bad, decided to wait until it improved. We finally left Evansville around 10 AM once all weather stations along our way were reporting 5 miles or more visibility.

We turned right after take off and immediately ran into our favorite river, the Ohio. From the air (for the last time), the Ohio looked like this:


Unlike the previous days where we had to stay under the clouds and in the middle of the turbulence, this time the skies were clear enough that we climbed to 6500 ft and stayed above the few clouds for most of the trip. No turbulence meant Sharon could sleep. This is what Sharon looks like, when she's sleeping on a plane:


We made it to Springdale while the weather was still ok, though the cloud cover had forced us to descend to 3000 ft and stay there for the last fifteen minutes or so of the flight. We landed in relatively good weather, tied the plane up and went to get ourselves a car and a hotel room. Two hours later the bad weather rolled in. This is what the view of the weather was like from our hotel room, before the thunderstorms started:


Sharon and I drove down to Fayetteville, the local university town. We found a very nice cafe and decided to hang out there while the rain fell, enjoying espressos and reading. Sharon went pensive on me at some point. This is what she looks like when she's pondering:


And that was it for today. We are now back in our hotel room, getting ready to bed. If the weather people are right the cold front will be past us tomorrow morning and we'll have relatively good weather on our way to Oklahoma City and possibly Lubbock tomorrow.