My arrival at Lamar Colorado was uneventful once I picked up the Husky traffic landing ahead of me. . The Husky pilot and his wife were en route from Montana to Texas and we shared the courtesy car. After locating mutually acceptable lodging, we had dinner together and said our goodnights…but it wasn’t that simple.

I was looking at this on my laptop…FSS said it was “15mi. NW moving SE at 40kts”

and Jon was looking at this from the motel balcony.

Unable to reach the folks at Lamar Flying Service to get the aircraft tucked away, we made the mistake of driving back to the field. Our concerns were heightened when, as we drove through gusting wind and slanting rain, the tornado siren went off….not so good.

Fortunately the super crew at LFS had untied our aircraft and gotten them hangered just as the first blast arrived. In the morning, we learned that a funnel had touched down not far away…we had lucked out. The computer says it all.

Now all we had to do was get back to town without killing ourselves. As the song said…”Oh what a night…”

The morning broke bright and sunny. We fueled…wished one another safe travels and I watched my new friends depart.



Then it was off into the sun with half a plan. If weather became an issue later in the day, I was prepared to spend another night.

So long Lamar.

The plains flattened out ahead of me.

The first couple hours dragged out as I settled in and with good ground speed at 9.5 I climbed to 11.5. An hour with a tailwind is only 50 minutes long.

An old landmark appeared below me. Exactly 30 years ago this summer Warren Cochran of Epps Aviation in Atlanta and I did a pre-buy test flight from PDK to Kansas City Downtown in this old bird. …never been there before nor since…never regretted the purchase either.

West of KC, my track crossed that of the Missouri River…

then north of St. Louis…the Mississippi.

At this point, I’m seeing 190kts on a 10.5 gph burn…Indy rushed past…well, not really.

Many visits to the speedway…remembering the excitement of Parnelli Jones breaking the 150mph “barrier” in an old roadster…and Eddie Sachs and Dave McDonald’s sad coming together.

Springfield OH looks good for fuel at about 5.2 hrs. but it’s the Dayton Air Show weekend.
I pass Wright-Pat and the US Air Force Museum…

Then (part of) the Air Force…a T-1 …12 o’clock…opposite direction.

A quick splash of fuel and on past Columbus, OH

XM on my Aera shows a line of storms with lots of lightning slicing down across Western PA…we should come together right where the 250kt ring around DC and P-40 close up.

I drill down on the GPS and slide north of Camp David just ahead of the weather.

One more less pressing weather convergence, then I begin a weaving descent into the murk outside of Philadelphia…very marginal VFR… but the PHL controllers hold my hand right to short final on 26

Done…one day shy of a month and I really can’t describe the feeling…

glad to be home, but already missing the wide open western skies. Thanks for riding along…now it’s time for me to sit back and enjoy your travels. Safe flying all. / L

Eltee, would you like me to combine all your trip threads so that after 6 months of inactivity, the entire trip can be found in one place?

That would be great...thanks./ L

Very awesome trip reports and pictures! I really enjoyed these threads! Thanks again, and glad you made it home safely!