Palo Alto to Palm Springs

Click here for the route.

Well, the first day is over, the hotel has internet access so I can sit and write about today's adventures. It definitely was an interesting day.

The day started, as most days do, way too early for my taste. Marc and Stacey gave us a ride to the airport and helped us pack our two suitcases, two flight bags, three headset bags, emergency backpack, one hand bag and our emergency potty into the plane. Still, with all that, we are still 130 lbs under maximum weight. I spent 3o minutes with the computer last night making sure that whatever combination we came up with for stowing all these bags would not move the center of gravity to where it did not belong. Turns out all combinations I tried were ok, and even with all this luggage we were still more than 120 lbs below max weight. And so we were ready to go.




We took off a little after 10 and were happily on our way to Palm Springs. We climbed to 9500 ft, where the weather was not as hot as down below and chugged merrily along, letting the autopilot do most of the flying. We kept in touch with air traffic control, but not much was happening.

The first stop in or non-stop flight to Palm Springs was Victorville. We were a little bit past it, flying directly to Palm Springs when visibility started getting really bad. Before it got too bad we decided it was time to land and rethink our route. I warned air traffic control of our intentions and told them I was diverting to Palmdale. They kindly informed me that that was a military base and suggested I go to Victorville instead.

I got concerned as we approached Victorville, seeing the airport apron taken by jetliners and wondering if I was going to the right place. Turned out we were, Victorville is one of those places in the desert where they store airliners and they were everywhere, except, thankfully, on the runway. We landed, taxied to the FBO and spent a few minutes relaxing going to their planning room to figure out how to get where we were going. We did come up with a plan, one that involved not getting as close to the L.A. basin and decided to try that.

We topped up the tanks, took off and the route we chose worked out just fine. 65 minutes later we were landing at Thermal, 100 ft below sealevel. And for Marc, who was curious as to what the altimeter would show, here it is:


And now, after a nice meal, we are in our hotel room, resting and enjoying the evening before tomorrow's 6 AM call to get on the road again.

Not many pictures because it was too hazy, but the highlights of the flights were seeing Edwards Air Force Base (where the shuttle sometimes lands) and the airplane cemeteries in the Mojave desert.