The adventure began in NC where I picked it up. I spent an afternoon flying it around the Outer Banks getting familiar with it and gleaning points on care & feeding. Flew over the Wright Brothers monument and all the way down to Ocracoke.
First Flight, NC
Satisfied that I wasn't likely to bend the thing provided the winds cooperated a bit I then proceeded up the east coast to NJ to pick up my co-pilot for the trip, my Mom. Raced up the coast ahead of a tropical depression and squeeked into the field in NJ in the nick of time.
Over the eastern shore of Va
Gnarly wx over Philly
Safely tied down ahead of the storm
Within an hour of landing it became clear that we weren't going anywhere soon. It absolutely poured for the next few days, all I could do was keep refreshing the radar picture and prog charts waiting for a sign that it was about to move off of us. One upside of the delay was that I was able to attend the 90th birthday of a gentleman from my hometown - retired AF Colonel who flew B-24s in the war. He doesn't fly any more but he's still going strong.
The original plan was to head straight west and stop through the National Stearman Fly-In in Galesburg, Il, but given the residual wx from the system the only option if we wanted to get going was to head southwest. So we launched for Ky. There was still plenty of nasty wx so I filed and got a mouthful of a clearance from NY. Four hours of heavy IFR later we found clearer skies.
As much as I dislike wx flying the panel made pretty easy work of it.
Found this guy at our first fuel stop - he was ferrying it from Tx to NJ so it could be crated and shipped to a buyer in Poland. The pilot had a few thousand Beaver hours and lots of good stories about flying them up north. Just like most every stop I found myself torn between trying to stay on schedule and slowing down to spend more time enjoying the company of the neat folks you meet along the way.
Flew over this set up somewhere in Ky - the one on the left is a drag strip, the one on the right is a runway. I'm sure there are some good stories about student solos getting them mixed up.
After a day of multiple amendments to the plan we made in in-flight executive decision to drop into Gastons for the night. This is my second time there and I think I'm just going to count on using it for any future trans-con flights. Has everything you need for a night - nice grass strip, motel, and a restaurant.
Catch the start of the breakfast buffet at 6am and you get this view of the sunrise.
And the obligatory Gastons sign shot.
From Gastons we headed for a fuel stop at Neosho, Mo. This place was a gem - cheapest gas of the trip and an FBO full of the nicest people I've met anyhere. We spent at least an hour hanging out talking airplanes and regretfully climbed back in the plane to make more progress west.
Next stop was Pueblo for more cheap gas, but once I had the self-service pump all set up the machine froze up. The FBO folks gladly offered to fill us up for $1 more a gallon but just on principle I jumped in the plane and flew 25 miles west to Freemont. From there it was straight west over Salida, Gunnison, and Monarch Pass.
Coming down the west side of Co we slid past the San Juans and did a little sight seeing around Moab. Thought about landing there for the night but the field didn't look convenient to anything so we eventually pressed west. There was more wx ahead too and I wanted to work around it before it started getting dark.
On reports of more cheap fuel we aimed for Richfield, Ut and stumbled on the second great fuel stop for the trip. We originally intended to gas up and press on to Bishop, Ca for the night. The wx ahead was getting dodgy though and Richfield had everything we needed, not to mention that the folks there we truly welcoming - definintely a recommended stop if you pass through the middle of Utah.
I thought that a lot of the convective activity would settle down over the night but it was actually worse the next morning. I still wanted to head for Bishop so we could fly up the eastern Sierras, but SIGMETs started popping up directly in out path. So we kept leaning west until we were just pointed toward Reno.
I don't know who took more pictures - me or Mom
Lots of angry clouds out there, make the rocks hard to see.
I never get tired of the irrigation circles.
Once I saw the lake I could smell the barn.
Three fun days and about 20 flying hours later we were back in Ca - another great trans-con in the books!
. Congrats
Was it Sedona?
