...and this time I get to go with him!

We're presently cooling our heels in Winslow AZ after a long 5-leg day followed by a giant Mexican meal and a few beers.

Progress report here:
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0LMgr6ALVyRz8gtVQ1JnrrmWUk8CX06AP

More stories and pics to follow!

Wow, you guys are making great time. Can't wait to see some pictures.

Have fun and fly safe.

Sure you didn't have that mexican food & beers on the east coast you can't even fly a straight line

Winslow, AZ.

Brett

Brett, our cab driver in Winslow looked like he was in the Eagles and when we pulled back the door on the van he had the Eagles playing, we were howling and he just looked at us like we were idiots.

Covered about 900nm from Gastons to Winslow yesterday. Today we're headed toward Kingman and then cut up toward Bishop, hopefully make it home this evening.

Pics to follow when we get home and get everything downloaded.

Story and pictures please. Be safe not to much scud.

Made it home safely - the trip took 3.5 days, we covered about 2300nm and the Stinson purred the whole way. Despite some jinking around some weather the first couple of days it looks like we generally lucked out. I just downloaded my camera and I have about 1200 pics, Bill has a few hundred more. It'll take some time to go through them and find the gems. Here's our route in the meantime.

Vick wrote: Here's our route in the meantime.

I know you had this bumping in the headset.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqrKxBhKdFM

Looked like a fun trip. I surely can't wait for them pics!!

Very cool! I'm going to be flying back from Oshkosh by way of Oklahoma this summer. Which airports did you stop at along that route?

Can't wait to see the pictures Vick.

Pretty lame of us not to have an update yet, but we're still sorting through all our pictures. Here's our route of flight though:

Day 1: KEWN W17 KAVL
Day 2: JZP SZY 3M0
Day 3: KCUH KBGP KSAF KGUP KINW
Day 4: L37 KIGM 0L7 BIH KGOO

Honestly, I'm still on a huge high from our great adventure!

Andy picked me up at Raleigh East (after flying in from New Bern).

Before we left though, we had to help load up my old Guiberson radial diesel engine. My friend is planning on hanging it on the front of his Stearman and running it on recycled transmission fluid. Should be an interesting project! That's my -3 in the background. For some reason Vick laughed at my hangar?!?


After lengthy consideration of the weather, we decided to launch westward towards an eastward moving cold front. The hope was to land in front of it and let it pass over us as we whiled away the hours in the motel (and bar).

This was the front headed our way:


And it was forecast to stick around over NC for a few days:


So we launched- cruising over downtown Raleigh:

Cruising along on the way to Asheville, we were anticipating the adventure ahead of us. We talked a lot about the usual flying things, but there were also long moments of silence when we were just trying to take in the incrdible beauty below us. We came up with lots of questions on the trip. (More later)



These guys were in Asheville from Boise and wanted to buy the airplane on the spot.

If those Idaho pilots can fly a taildragger in White's smokejumpers, more power to 'em!

Bugger - I was pretty well into a write up of the trip picking up where Bill has taken it so far. Not surprisingly I hit a wrong button and lost the whole damn thing So for now enjoy some pics and I'll be back as time allows to fill in the story line. I'm sure Bill will have more good narrative to go with the pics as well...

Very cool pics! Thanks for sharing!

I love this shot:



Bill, I was certain you were in your 60's prior to seeing your photo. How I get these preconceptions, I do not know. Sorry.

Bill, I was certain you were in your 60's prior to seeing your photo. How I get these preconceptions, I do not know. Sorry.

I don't know- maybe because I write with wisdom beyond my years? No, I'm sure that's not it. Anyway, I can promise you that I act far more juvenile than 60, or even my actual age. I hope to keep it that way, much to my wife's dismay!

Anyway, I promised to share some of the deep thoughts and life changing questions we had along the way, so here are a few:
-What's the story with the giant shovel (dragline?) we saw in Arizona, and what were they mining? I'm assuming copper.
-All through TX and OK we saw these smaller oil derricks which in many cases were pumping what appeared to be raw black crude into open pits in the ground. What's going on there?
-What's the proper procedure for reducing power / rpm in an aircraft with a constant speed prop when transitioning from takeoff and climb to cruise? Why? (We were each taught different things)
-Why didn't Andy get a picture of the very bored and friendly rental car checkout girl in Asheville? I can promise it would have been the most appreciated picture of all these!
-Is the oil reserve (don't know if this is the right word) adjacent to Cushing OK airport and which allegedly sits on the Trans-Canadian pipeline really the largest in the country? Who owns all that oil?
-Is it true that they used to fire a cannonball through the side of the oil storage tanks if they ever caught fire? how did this help?
-What are these things?

I think they were in Oklahoma- I guessed they were natural gas generators.

We have many more great questions that came up along the way- I'm sure the minds here at BCP will help us answer them in no time so we can sleep again.

Best question of the trip -- why did Bill still have the keys to the Asheville rental car in his pocket when we landed in Ga?