Grassstrippilot wrote:Haha! Yes, a bath for the plane is on the todo list!

Gas, mineral spirits, or Simple Green seems to work well for cleaning the belly.
Cleaning the belly is an unpleasant job so I avoid it.
I find it helps if you wipe off the oily mist just aft of the breather after every flight,
instead of letting it migrate down the belly.

Yeah I used the green stuff. Good idea on wiping off the small remains on the breather tube.

For our summer trip this year, we decided to go see a few things we've never seen before: Yosemite, the Redwoods, Tahoe, and for Dee and the kids, Crater Lake.

We flew from northern Utah to Lovelock for fuel, then over to Columbia. A pretty cool little town and a nice grass runway and campground. Rich Finkle and his wife met up with us there and walked downtown with us for some ice cream. For years I've heard, read, and watched all the stuff posted about Red Hills and always wanted to get over there. Rich gave them a call and we had a great afternoon sitting on their porch visiting and sharing stories with Jack and Myrna. It was awesome!

The next day we flew down to Yosemite. Breathtaking! We hiked the Misty Trail and Mirror Lake. We will be going back to do more. After two nights at Columbia, we moved over to Truckee to spend a few days at Tahoe. We did some hikes and visited the Vikingsholm. Unfortunately the forecasted winds were going to be 50 knots at 12,000' on the day we had planned to leave, so we left the evening before. It ended up being one of those flights were things just weren't working out. Our first stop for fuel in Oroville we found that the pumps were out of order. So we hopped over to Willows. We got fuel but now we were most likely not going to make Shelter Cove before the lady at the campground left. So, we decided to call it a day and go to a hotel. Some nice people from the crop dusters offered us a ride. When we got to the hotel that we had called, they told us that they just sold out. So, off we went walking to the next hotel after we fed the kids. It worked out but I was tired.

The next day we got to Crescent City after dodging some showers and spent the day checking out the redwoods. Very cool! Our last stop for the trip was Klamath Falls to visit Crater Lake. More stunning scenery. We had planned to go to Cowboy Dinner tree, but we couldn't get reservations. On our way home, we stopped at Rome Station for some awesome burgers. Their strip is in great shape and they are happy to have you drop in.

All in all, 16.5 hours flown in a week and a lot of beautiful country seen and memories made.



Lovelock was serious about not letting someone walk off with their ladder!


Columbia





Rich and I at Columbia.


Red Hills






Yosemite






Happy Burgers on our way back to Mariposa after hiking in Yosemite. Yum!


Tahoe


Eagle Lake near Tahoe


Vikingsholm at Tahoe


Dee cooking a casserole in our oven at Tahoe. Love that thing!



Picking our way around clouds and showers to Crescent City.




Redwoods



Playing on the rocks on the beach.


Crater Lake





Rome Station

Great trip!

Wow, those burgers!

Kurt

Great trip. Thanks for sharing. Love the pictures. Boy the kids are growing up.

Cheers..Rob

Yeah they sure are getting big. Growing up too fast. Yeah we found some really good burgers on this trip. Rome Station and Happy Burger are worth the visit!

Nice trip report here on my very favorite of all the forum topics. Hope to meet up with you and your family at an airstrip burger joint sometime!

onthegas1 wrote:Nice trip report here on my very favorite of all the forum topics. Hope to meet up with you and your family at an airstrip burger joint sometime!

Thanks! I do hope we do get a chance to meet up! Where are you out of?

Looks like a great trip!

I hope your keeping a good journal of these adventures Cory. I see a book in yours or Dee's future, something like "Seeing America by air and by foot, The insiders guide to happy kids". Title too long?

Rich

Haha! Great idea Rich!

Your trip reports always make me hungry for some reason. Glad you guys had a good trip. Cool you got to get together with Rich and meet Jack and Myrna, they are good people!

I suppose I should introduce myself! Roger from Minden NV. You were near me on your epic adventure. I am 6 months into Cessna 185 ownership. A smattering of other planes in the past including a Husky. Flew A320 at AWA. Years ago I had a thread on the forum about landing at all the California public airports. I plan on doing some Idaho airplane camping this summer and appreciate your sharing camping and equipment experiences Thanks again for letting us in on your really great family flights. I think it is a wonderful thing!

onthegas1 wrote:I suppose I should introduce myself! Roger from Minden NV. You were near me on your epic adventure. I am 6 months into Cessna 185 ownership. A smattering of other planes in the past including a Husky. Flew A320 at AWA. Years ago I had a thread on the forum about landing at all the California public airports. I plan on doing some Idaho airplane camping this summer and appreciate your sharing camping and equipment experiences Thanks again for letting us in on your really great family flights. I think it is a wonderful thing!

Nice to meet you Roger! Congrats on the 185. A320?! That’s my current work ride.

I hope we are able to meet up...in Idaho or maybe at HSF!

Looks like you guys had another great trip! I was wondering if that might be the case with the Cowboy Dinner Tree. They fill up pretty fast which can make it tough to be spontaneous sometimes.

And I'm glad you made it north of Shasta! There was some weather blowing around near the time of your trip and I was wondering if you'd get up this way or not!

CW

clippwagon wrote:Looks like you guys had another great trip! I was wondering if that might be the case with the Cowboy Dinner Tree. They fill up pretty fast which can make it tough to be spontaneous sometimes.

And I'm glad you made it north of Shasta! There was some weather blowing around near the time of your trip and I was wondering if you'd get up this way or not!

CW

Yeah our plans didn’t solidify until later and I was afraid we might not get a reservation. They put us on their waiting list but they didn’t have have cancellations. We still kept ourselves entertained. Luckily that weather retreated north enough that it didn’t mess with us too much!

Loved the pic's and report. Always like places like Rome Station!!!!

Looks like a great trip! Sorry I couldn’t meet up with you guys while you were out here.

robw56 wrote:Looks like a great trip! Sorry I couldn’t meet up with you guys while you were out here.

That’s ok. Rich told me you guys are kind of busy right now!

Hi Corey!

Wow great pics.....hopefully see u up in IDAHO this summer.....!