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.