[I’m finally submitting this about two weeks after our trip. The adventure of the flight was definitely a
highlight, but the challenge of settling into our new place quickly after our
arrival has overwhelmed the majority of our move. I hope to finish submitting this trip log in
the next day or two.]
I know that I haven't checked in
for several days, but we've been a little busy. I'm writing this from our Days
Inn room in Dawson Creek, British Columbia. That's Canada, Don't ya know. [Note:
I’m not submitting this until Thursday the 27th. We were just too busy with the flight and
settling into our new home to make any headway.
Additionally, we just had internet installed today. There is only so long you can sit in a
McDonalds sucking the Wifi out of them.]
After having breakfast with my
cousin Rick, who I haven't seen in many years, we loaded and prepared to depart
Franklin, NC for someplace in Kentucky. I honestly forget the name of the
airport or city that we planned to use for our first stop. The weather was less
than ideal with ceiling and rain issues in the mountains north and west of
Franklin. I filed IFR and we were all ready to climb through the clouds to
beautiful blue skies. Only, Flight service couldn't issue an IFR clearance over
the phone because of some incoming traffic. They said it would be 20-minutes.
Jeez! No worries, we had the ceilings to work our way through the river valleys
northwestbound and get my instrument clearance from Knoxville Approach south of
their class B airspace. This first section of the leg became an exercise in
evaluating the ceiling and visibility around each corner compared to our
ability to turn around. After some
difficulties getting the right frequency for Knoxville, we climbed up to the
blue skies on top of a broken to overcast layer and enjoyed a smooth and uneventful
IFR flight.
Whatever our original destination
was (ends up it was Stuart Powell Field in Danville, KY), it had a storm cell
right over top of it. This necessitated
a diversion to somewhere less hostile. Addington Field (KEKX) fit the bill
nicely. We topped off the tanks and everyone stretched their legs. The nice
lady working the counter was generous enough to give Brayden a small model
airplane kit. Super stop and I would recommend them to anyone.
I originally planned our next stop
for somewhere just North of Chicago in Wisconsin. From Addington, I amended our
plan with a stop at Rochelle Municipal Airport (KRPJ) in Rochelle,
Illinois. This shortened our distance,
but increased our fuel costs. I sensed
that our first day was a little long for the passengers and I tried my best to
shorten it while reaching our daily goal.
There is a big skydiving operation
that dominates the field at Rochelle. We
even listened to and watched a turbine single drop a load of skydivers while we
were on the way into the field. Lucky
for us, the skydive folks opened a nice restaurant filling our need for lunch. I've learned that our crew operates
better on a full stomach. Rob, from the
airport's FBO, met us at the self-serve pumps and gave us all rides down to the
restaurant. What a guy. He's a talker, but he is probably more dedicated to
promoting his airport than anyone I’ve met.
We got a history lesson, update on current happenings, and a detailed
schedule of the future goings on that he was sure we would attend. Kudos to him.
We all hope he remains successful.
Similar to most of the stops on our trip, we recommend this little for a
quiet lunch stop. If we had more time, I
might have convinced Uncle Norris to get in a jump.
After some burgers and fries, it
was time to launch. We planned to make Fargo, ND as our final stop for the day,
but that too was abandoned. I attempted to out climb the scattered afternoon
buildup without success. At 12,300 feet,
I realized that we weren't going to get over them without oxygen, which I don't
have. I descended to get under the scattered to broken clouds, but couldn’t
find an altitude that didn’t beat us to death.
Additionally, I was getting pretty tired. I decided to refrain from
wearing out the passengers on the first day, and we diverted for dinner and a
hotel. We chose Flying Cloud Airport
(KFCM) on the south side of Minneapolis as a sure bet for services and a nearby
hotel. The staff at Thunderbird was nice enough to let me do an oil change
while my Dad arranged for a hotel and rental car. I’m not sure what the fuel price was, but I’m
sure it was high with the great service and multitude of jets at the FBO.
During the day’s legs, Dad and
Uncle Norris seemed to really appreciate the nuances of the changing
countryside. As we left the Southeast,
the built up areas became sparse as the shear vastness of the midwest’s farmland
took over. Most of the farms to this point
seemed to be family owned spreads with a house, barn, and associated facilities
for each field or set of fields. Deeper
into Minnesota the family farms yielded to corporate farms on massive expanses
of fields with only one house, we presume to be for the main caretaker. Seeing the unending landscape of farmland
along our route really put perspective to the magnitude of people in the
country that are dependent on environmental factors for their livelihood.
We stayed at the Days Inn, and
luckily they had a complementary dinner.
I forget the Mexican dish that was served, but I had a couple
portions. The crew was tired and ready
for bed early. I, however, had to figure
out what my password was for EAPIS. I
opened the account a couple months ago to make sure I knew how to use it. I’ll be damned if I didn’t completely forget
the password. It was easy enough to get
it recovered through email. Filling out
the EAPIS was simpler than I thought. There
was a lot of info to put in, but it was pretty straight forward. The only catch was needing the decal number
to complete the airplane information. I
called the FBO and groveled to get the nice lady on duty to write it down for
me. Note to self: I better record that number in my phone for
when I’ll need it in a couple days. Off
to bed after a pretty successful couple days.
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