Early morning is a pilot's friend. Thruout this trip the early morning weather was about the best of the day. 7 pm or so and things tend to settle down again, but that's a bit of hit or miss. 7 am is almost always great. Good thing we are morning people. Day Seven, day two of the trip home, and its up at 6, a light breakfast with my mother-in-law and off to the airport. A spectacular day opened up in front of us, clear blue sky, a light breeze down the runway from the east and we were on our way, destination St. Cloud, MN. At 5,500' the air was smooth and the flying easy with a slight push and ground speeds around 110 knots. Effortless, I had the wing leveler on, feet flat on the floor. One eye on the weather though because there was definitely a line of storms in the area of Minneapolis. About 2 and 1/2 hours in it became clear that a little better examination of weather conditions was the prudent thing to do and so we landed in Alexandria, MN a tad short of our original goal. A nice young lady refueled the plane while we de-fueled our bladders. The weather picture was probably the most confounding one we had the entire trip- there was pleanty of nasty weather out there but where was it going and when would it get there? The answer my friend was blowing in the wind ( sorry but MN is Dylan's home state) so we did what seemed like the only reasonable thing to do- file IFR and go. Well it was more like go and file IFR in the air. Regardless, the ATC guys vectored us around the weather with a minimum of cloud time and we broke out about 100 miles from Oshkosh, WI, our new destination. Easy, Peasy. Another stop, another bathroom break, more fuel. Ladies and Gentlemen, the absolute winner for cheapest fuel along our route of travel, and some very accommodating people to boot, Basler Aviation, Oshkosh, WI @ $5.39 per gallon full service. Lunch, another look at the weather and it was very apparent that we needed to cross Lake Michigan today or get ready to sit for what looked like a week waiting for the storms to run out of rain- and thunder and lightning. Conditions were what could be best described as hazy, which means that there isn't much view forward, like to the end of the prop or so it seemed. This time we filed IFR on the ground because we wanted another someone paying attention to where we were over that lake- its about 55 miles wide where we crossed and that's an awful lot of cold water to go swimming in. Yes we had our life vests close at hand. 21374 was running perfectly, I would not have gone this way if she was running otherwise. Destination St. Clair, MI. Once again easy, peasy. The toughest job was finding the field to land. When traveling from East to West the time changes work out in your favor- you get to land before the FBO closes and the fuel guy goes home. Traveling from West to east, not so much. We missed the FBO and the fuel guy by 40 minutes. Beautiful night in north easy Michigan and it would have been lovely to camp out, but we wanted a bed and a shower and some food, and a beer wouldn't hurt either. Fortunately, Marlys brought along the GPS from her car and we were able to look up the hotel and the taxi lickety split and before long Mikey, professional driver, had us in his cab and on our way into Marysville, MI. I love Mr. Garmin and I don't begrudge him one penny of all that money he is making while keeping me headed in the right direction. Mikey set us up for the ride back to the airport the next morning and directed us to the best restaurant in town. A couple of cold ones, black russians for Marlys, a meal that couldn't be beat, a comfy bed and this day comes to a close. Home is less than 3 hours away.
Early morning is a pilot's friend. Thruout this trip the early morning weather was about the best of the day. 7 pm or so and things tend to settle down again, but that's a bit of hit or miss. 7 am is almost always great. Good thing we are morning people. Day Seven, day two of the trip home, and its up at 6, a light breakfast with my mother-in-law and off to the airport. A spectacular day opened up in front of us, clear blue sky, a light breeze down the runway from the east and we were on our way, destination St. Cloud, MN. At 5,500' the air was smooth and the flying easy with a slight push and ground speeds around 110 knots. Effortless, I had the wing leveler on, feet flat on the floor. One eye on the weather though because there was definitely a line of storms in the area of Minneapolis. About 2 and 1/2 hours in it became clear that a little better examination of weather conditions was the prudent thing to do and so we landed in Alexandria, MN a tad short of our original goal. A nice young lady refueled the plane while we de-fueled our bladders. The weather picture was probably the most confounding one we had the entire trip- there was pleanty of nasty weather out there but where was it going and when would it get there? The answer my friend was blowing in the wind ( sorry but MN is Dylan's home state) so we did what seemed like the only reasonable thing to do- file IFR and go. Well it was more like go and file IFR in the air. Regardless, the ATC guys vectored us around the weather with a minimum of cloud time and we broke out about 100 miles from Oshkosh, WI, our new destination. Easy, Peasy. Another stop, another bathroom break, more fuel. Ladies and Gentlemen, the absolute winner for cheapest fuel along our route of travel, and some very accommodating people to boot, Basler Aviation, Oshkosh, WI @ $5.39 per gallon full service. Lunch, another look at the weather and it was very apparent that we needed to cross Lake Michigan today or get ready to sit for what looked like a week waiting for the storms to run out of rain- and thunder and lightning. Conditions were what could be best described as hazy, which means that there isn't much view forward, like to the end of the prop or so it seemed. This time we filed IFR on the ground because we wanted another someone paying attention to where we were over that lake- its about 55 miles wide where we crossed and that's an awful lot of cold water to go swimming in. Yes we had our life vests close at hand. 21374 was running perfectly, I would not have gone this way if she was running otherwise. Destination St. Clair, MI. Once again easy, peasy. The toughest job was finding the field to land. When traveling from East to West the time changes work out in your favor- you get to land before the FBO closes and the fuel guy goes home. Traveling from West to east, not so much. We missed the FBO and the fuel guy by 40 minutes. Beautiful night in north easy Michigan and it would have been lovely to camp out, but we wanted a bed and a shower and some food, and a beer wouldn't hurt either. Fortunately, Marlys brought along the GPS from her car and we were able to look up the hotel and the taxi lickety split and before long Mikey, professional driver, had us in his cab and on our way into Marysville, MI. I love Mr. Garmin and I don't begrudge him one penny of all that money he is making while keeping me headed in the right direction. Mikey set us up for the ride back to the airport the next morning and directed us to the best restaurant in town. A couple of cold ones, black russians for Marlys, a meal that couldn't be beat, a comfy bed and this day comes to a close. Home is less than 3 hours away.
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