Knee deep in gear

We're leaving for Alaska in a week. Most of the gear is in hand, the last bits are either en-route or at Will Call ready for pick-up. Have to restock the survival vests, replace all the batteries, buy food, pack clothes and then figure out how to camp a month's worth of home into the back of a small plane...

Postcard from the End

We left Algona early in the morning with the intention of making Sheridan, Wyoming for lunch. Clouds were already forming in wisps that would grow to towering cumulus later in the day. Running just above them we were able to catch some smooth air and a bit of a tailwind. Crossed the Missouri River, then the Badlands and stopped to fuel up in Rapid City before deciding how to deal with the Black Hills.

Badlands

The Black Hills are always the most challenging leg of the cross country flight. Like the Bermuda Triangle of the west, the hills make their own weather, they're turbulent, there are very few places to safely land, and unless you're flying well over 12,000' there's no real help from ATC because they can't see you on their radar and they may not hear your radio. Beyond that, the NEXRAD sattelite weather feed to the GPS is not particularly current - we found that out while dodging storm cells on our way around the Black Hills, cells that weren't showing up on radar.

My own theory is that there's a whole lot of bad karma around the Black Hills resulting from the near extermination of native americans whose souls just don't want us around there anymore. Having experienced everything from head-banging turbulence to icing to mechanical failure over the Black Hills, I for one am happy to oblige them. We flew around to the north.

Devil's Tower in the Black Hills

On the other side of the Black Hills we found Sheridan sitting right under a monster storm cell that was just about to cut loose. It was already snowing in the mountains just above the town and there was every indication that if we landed there we might not get to leave for quite some time. We decided to keep going north and about an hour later landed at Billings for lunch.

Storm cells

The weather was opening up to the west and the passes looked relatively clear, so we fueled up and started out for Sand Point Idaho. For the first part of the route we followed I-90 into the Rocky Mountains. Finally - real mountains. It'd been six weeks since I'd seen any snowcapped peaks and it made me feel like I was getting close to home.

Crazy Peak, west of Billings, MT

It felt good to be flying amid the mountains again. We passed Bozeman, Butte and Missoula. Then we turned north to follow the Clark Fork River to Lake Pend Oreille.

Along the Clark Fork River

Lake Pend Oreille

We landed at the far side of the lake at Sand Point, Idaho. We'd planned to fuel up and go to town and call it a night. But they'd run out of fuel at Sand Point. If we wanted fuel, it was another 20 minutes away at Cour d'Alene. For that matter, it was just another 2 hours to Seattle. Well, once we'd wrapped our head around going on 20 minutes for fuel, it wasn't that big of a stretch to just fuel up and go home. We felt good, and at this rate we'd be coming across the Cascades as the sun was setting behind the Olympics. That's an amazing sight to see, so that's what we did.

Rain over Ellensburg, WA


Sunset over Seattle

Home in Seattle we had dinner at our favorite restaurant down the street and slept in our own bed for the first time in a long while.

Postcard from Algona

Better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air...

We had a better time in Waterloo than Napoleon did but even so we were pretty happy when the starter finally showed up. Left around noon and dodged growing cumulous clouds until we got pinched off by thunderstorms converging around us. Stopped in Algona (yep, only got 90 miles) and hangared the plane before the rain came. Took the Courtesy Vehicle out for a ride and toured the town before lunch.

One of the best things about flying cross country (and sure, sometimes the worst) is that you get to spend time in small towns that are nowhere near the interstate system. They aren’t quite the towns that time forgot, but often enough they're the towns that Wal-Mart and Starbucks haven’t gotten to yet.

We cruised along main street in the pouring rain past the old storefronts that were still filled with mom & pop stores, the post office, the bank, the three-screen cinema, the coffee shop and the local bar. Hospital's at one end of town, the jail at the other. Tidy park, lots of trees and plenty of homes with big front porches. Lots of american cars. Algona is alright.

We’re going to see StarTrek tonight. Then we’ll get an early start tomorrow and try to get out of the flatlands before the thunderboomers build up again.




Hey Megan - the courtesy car in Algona is a Buick le Sabre Limited. Maroon on Maroon. Naugahyde interior with a wraparound dash and push button controls. It also features infinitely variable seat controls conveniently located on the door just aft of the ashtray, and the Deluxe Concert Sound II stereo system (storage for your cassette tapes located in the center armrest). It’s a smooth ride and handles somewhat like a boat. Oh and the best part - it’s got official city vehicle plates.

Postcard from Waterloo

Fuel stop - Riverview, MI

Left the sunny outer banks just as the weather was moving in. Wound our way around Philly, NYC and Chicago airspace cutting through cold fronts and dodging smaller systems as we flew west.

Crossed the Mississippi and stopped in Waterloo, Iowa for fuel but then couldn't quite get going again. Turns out the starter failed on the airplane. The fuel-injected system makes hand-propping a huge chore so we asked the folks in Kamloops to ship one out to us overnight.

Unfortunately, the Men In Brown let us down and lost the package in Kentucky. On the bright side, turns out there’s lots to do in Waterloo and Cedar Falls. John Deere’s Engine Works and large tractor assembly plant are located there. It’s also home to the National Cattle Congress, the hometown of the most unfortunate Sullivan brothers as well as the home airfield of Johnathan Livingston - one of the most accomplished pilots of the golden age of aviation.

We headed off for a tour of the John Deere assembly plant. It’s the biggest assembly plant in the US after Boeing’s 747 plant in Everett, WA. They make the really big tractors there. The ones with tires 10’ tall. And the ones with tracks. It was pretty cool to tour the factory floor and see those huge chassis get turned into tractors.

New starter should show up in the morning and with any luck we’ll be headed west again before noon.

Cedar Falls, Iowa

Postcard from Nags Head

Northern Outer Banks, NC

A little yellow airplane circled over Ocracoke towards evening and I rode down to the airstrip to meet my guy. Loaded up my gear the next morning and since it was sunny, warm and a tailwind was blowing, I decided to ride back up to Salvo and meet him there later in the day. I was cruising along on my bike going 20 when he overflew me going about 140. Nice.

Took a scenic flight over the outer banks today and it’s amazing what a tiny strip of sand it is way out there in the ocean. Schools of stingrays just offshore. Dolphins too. A few too many McMansions lining the shores but a few good hurricanes will take care of them in time.