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.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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