Totally amazing to get so close to Chicago and hear that they had evacuated the tower at the field we were headed toward (Midway). We are (very) happily on the ground in Champaign,IL.

We weren’t able to get out of Albuquerque last night (thunderstorms, night, mountains), but we were up early and out in the morning.

A fuel stop on Guymon, OK made us think of our friend Dean. Now we are in Kansas City where we landed on a flat tire. Everyone is fine and we are enjoying some BBQ.

The tower here at ABQ pointed out twenty knots of wind shear off the departure end. So we are delaying another half hour. We still hope to make Witchita tonight, although there will be no early morning departure tomorrow.

We have found the Natural History Museum in Albuquerque. We dodged thunderstorms on the way here. We might stop on Guymon, OK.

We made the first leg! It went great. Off to Albuquerque soon.

Returning west, we were often dodging through the clouds. We flew at ten thousand feet or so, and descending to an airport seven thousand feet below took fifteen to twenty minutes. At least, that was a comfortable rate. We could also just push the noise over and scream down, but then we would be swallowing a lot during the ride to lunch to get our ears to pop.

The ride up through the eastern portion of Kansas was a real game of storm dodging. Kansas City Center was extremely helpful. There was another line of heavy precipitation headed our way, but we were half an hour ahead of it. We were headed for Manhattan, Kansas, which calls itself “The Little Apple.” So cute. Click to continue »

So the rule I follow is that if maintenance has been done on the plane I make the first flight alone and I stay over the field for at least fifteen minutes. That way, if something goes wrong I can just glide back to the field.

Today I went down to Long Beach where a different shop was working on my plane. It was finished and I needed to pick it up. Click to continue »

Friday was a gorgeous day in the middle. There was a fog bank that hovered off of the shore for the whole day and occasionally drifted inland for half a mile, but it was warm and clear above the fog. I flew out to Catalina to collect my parents. We loaded the plane to its limit and it flew (slightly slower) off of the humped and bumpy runway at Catalina’s Airport in the Sky to Torrance’s Zamperini Field.

Click to continue »