Last Sunday I flew down to Durango to spend a couple days with my Sis, and flew home today. Here are some pix:

Downtown Denver from 10,000'--that's Mile High Stadium on the right:




Pike's Peak:




Heading west from roughly Walsenburg--not a good idea to try it VFR, right?




The San Luis Valley from 14,000'. Shortly after this, I had to land in Alamosa--Molly dog had tangled her tail in her tether and was complaining mightily!




Soon after departing Alamosa west bound:




This family greeted us as we left the Durango airport:




We went for a hike on Monday, up the Junction Creek drainage. That's the Animas Valley and Durango visible between the trees:




Molly dog counting all the leaves and pine needles:




Vallecito Reservoir today--plenty of water:




What a gorgeous day!




Blanca Peak. Named correctly, right?




Pueblo Reservoir. There were a bunch of USAF Academy cadets swarming into Pueblo. But as I was handed to Pueblo Approach (which is actually operated by Denver Approach), the controller had a bunch of questions about Molly: Did she like to fly? How is she belted in? etc. (I had stated "Golden Retriever on board" in the remarks on the flight plan) He handled all that traffic from the cadets plus we had our conversation.




Then when I was handed off from Colorado Springs to Denver Approach, a controller had more questions about her--and said, "Good dog"--I replied, "Very good dog." It was actually kind of touching, this curiosity of the controllers. That's Colorado Springs, with the airport in the foreground.




It is such a privilege to be able to fly, and especially to be able to fly in such beautiful country. Life is good!

Cary

That's good stuff and a great TR, Cary. Thanks for sharing. Oh!, and good girl Molly dog!

Brent

Nice!

Awesome!

Great pictures Cary.

That high country sure is nice. Thanks for the posts, and I am interested in how you secure Molly. We have an aging coon hound and she is not enthusiastic about flying, but sometimes has to go with us.

Years ago I found a pretty sturdy harness for taking dogs in cars, at a local feed store. It comes in both a padded and unpadded version--I first bought the padded version but it didn't take long before the "padding", which was sort of a faux fur stuff, began to shed and come apart. But the basic harness, without padding, fits well and is very strong. It comes with a push-button clamp that would go onto the "LATCH" tether clips required on all new cars to attach baby seats, and an adapter with a heavy ring for the clamp and a fabric loop that a seat belt is supposed to go through, for older cars without the built in LATCH clips.

But if I used the adapter that way, the whole thing would be long enough that she could get too far forward, so instead I attached the adapter to the center seat belt attachment under the back seat, and that works pretty well. Because she turns around so many times while we're flying, I added a heavy hardware swivel. Obviously, since she still catches her tail in the tether at times, that's not totally successful, but it's better than before I added the swivel.

I can't recall the name of the manufacturer of the harness--not sure if it's on the harness, but next time I go to the airport, I'll check. There are a number of harnesses for that purpose, though some are obviously junk.

Cary

Nice Pics Cary. Flew over to GXY for breakfast yesterday along with about a hundred others for breakfast at the Barnstormer, then to Sterling, to Pine Bluffs, and back to Sidney. Was a beautiful day to fly with Ron in his Beach Sundowner.
HC

Yeah, Saturdays at GXY in nice weather can be pretty busy. I thought about driving over, but I had a small list of honey-dos to accomplish--which I actually got done!

Cary

Hey Cary, what's that white box with the black antennae over the panel in the third pix? Great pix, by the way. Thanks for sharing.

Eduardo

what's that white box with the black antennae over the panel in the third pix?

It's an early version of Zaon's PCAS. All it does is show whether a transponder equipped airplane is nearby--doesn't tell direction or altitude. Unfortunately, its power supply also sends out some RF which occasionally interferes with the com radios so that they broadcast static, so I often shut it off. It works OK if I unplug the 12v supply and run it just on batteries, though.

Next to it is my XM receiver, which I pull from the car and plug into the audio panel of the airplane--really nice to have tunes on longer flights! Now that works really well, and the audio panel automatically immediately mutes it when something comes onto the com radios, then brings it back up slowly afterwards.

Cary

Do you know if there is a newer and better PCAS now that works better than that?

Yeah, Zaon makes a couple of them. Look at http://www.zaon.aero/.

Cary

Looks like great stuff for the price! Thanks Cary!!

Just saw on Avweb this morning that Zaon appears to have suddenly gone out of business.

Cary