green

Night flight, with an awesome landing into AVL (Ted even got an atta-boy from the tower

Checking the charts

Panel by night

And here’s a little video of our very smooth landing at AVL:

A few snaps before the sun sets…

During our stay, Ted kept an eye on the weather and saw some large winter storms heading our way.  Our original plan was to leave TX on Wednesday, spending Christmas Eve through the weekend in NC, but with the turbulent weather on the way he decided we should depart a day early to avoid them.

Tuesday morning was calm as we left Texas, with clouds below and haze above.  This leg was short and uneventful, just the way we like it: a little panettone for breakfast, a little knitting, and watching clouds out the windows.

The Greenville FBO lent us a van to drive into town and directed us to Sherman’s Restaurant for lunch, one of the few remaining local-owned restaurants (they like to support local businesses, and we do, too).  After the Sherman’s Burger and some southern sides, we headed back to the airport for our next leg of the day…

Sunset over McKinney…

Texas sunset

Landing @TKI

Ted saw some icing forecasts in yesterday’s weather reports and thought we might need to wait until midday to depart, but the morning’s reports were far more favorable, so off to the airport.

The Santa Fe night was quite frosty, however, so the plane needed to be de-iced before departing (I spent this time in front of the FBO fireplace; sometimes it’s good to be the passenger

The landscape during this leg was far less dramatic and colorful, so not so many highlights this time around.  We crossed over the VEGGE intersection (woo), and I spent some time working on my Lizard Ridge project.

The excitement began when we were coming in to land at Amarillo.  Runway 4 at AMA is big.  Really big.  13,500 feet long big  (To put this into context:  our home airport is big for us and that’s just shy of 5,000 feet long — half that is a very comfortable length, says Ted).  As we landed, I noticed this huge gray plane off to the right.  It was so low to the ground I thought it didn’t have wheels and must have been left there as more of a decoration, but as we neared it was clear this was a very active plane with all four propellers spinning.

It wanted to depart; we wanted to leave the runway and it was occupying our nearest exit (and the next taxiway would be a considerable distance ahead — did I mention how big this runway is?).  So rather than have us keep going and slow up the festivities, the tower directed the C-130 to pull out into position so we could sneak around behind it and out of the way.

The C-130 is ginormous–the kind of plane you use to transport large cargo–and it looked heavy as it took off.  The view of this behemoth directly in front of us on a runway is something we’ll likely not see again for a very long time.

The second leg of our day’s travels was a trip over a sampler of colors and textures.  The landscape ranged from dirt browns, copper greens, rich reds, stony grays, and expanses of snowy white dotted with trees.  Smooth sailing all the way into Santa Fe, wrapping up with New Mexican cuisine and micro-brewed root beer.

In the weeks prior to the big trip, Ted begins to talk about his planning.  To me it sounds like a lot of thinking out loud, as he works through the various routing possibilities.  While I do tend to research trips to new places when we fly commercial, I have very little to do with our flights in N32169.  As the pilot in command, Ted needs to do a fair amount of planning (and contingency planning), and generally likes flying into new airports, so I usually ask about the kind of weather to expect and just show up.

This year, he kept mentioning “northward route” and “Sedona” and seemed to be very excited about the prospect of flying into SEZ, but being preoccupied with holiday activities and preparations, I confess I didn’t think much about how we were going to get to our destinations.

We started out on an unbelievably clear morning in the Los Angeles basin.  Crystal clear.  So clear, the usual area landmarks just popped.

I tend to conk out at higher altitudes and this leg was no exception, so I missed some of the more uneventful terrain, but Ted did wake me up for Beautiful Needles Airport (we love Needles Airport).

The big show came after we started our descent into Sedona Airport, however.  Located on the top of a flat mountain, the airport is surrounded by gorgeous red rock formations.  The colors of the terrain coupled with the dramatic way the rocks catch the light made for jaw-droppingly beautiful vistas.

Ted takes me to the best places.

It’s time for what seems like the annual blog posts–another cross-country jaunt in the little plane.  We’re hoping for clear skies along the way, and looking forward to spending some time with our families in Texas and North Carolina.

For those of you new to the blog, comment spammers have forced us to set things up such that your first comment must be approved by one of us. Once approved, your subsequent comments will go straight up to the blog. We don’t like having to do this, but hope you understand.

xoxo,

b & t

I finally got to meet Ted’s uncle, John, during his short visit while passing through Los Angeles. After staying the night, Ted took him up for a little sightseeing tour around the LA basin. Fun!

Leaving the poppies behind, we headed back into Lancaster proper for a bit of refreshment before returning home. We passed the jerky vendors and more sheep, but could not pass up a sign that read RANCH YARD SALE.

. . .

Well, it was pretty much like most yard sales I’ve been to, though a bit heavier in the rusty tool and crock categories. Still, it was nice to stop in, if only for the interesting scenery:

Sleepy dog enjoying the shade

We trundled on, turning towards an area that seemed ripe with commerce in hopes of finding a place with some cool drinks or maybe even ice cream. That was when we saw this:

and this:

Ted and I love going to minor league baseball games, and we just happened to be in the home of the Lancaster Jethawks (farm team for the Boston Red Sox). Serendipity was leading us around by the nose today, as we saw a parking lot full of cars and signs directing traffic into the stadium. They would have cold beverages—they probably even had ice cream—so we pulled in, just minutes after the game began.

Minor league games are a whole lot of family fun. The tickets and concessions are reasonably priced, every seat in the house is terrific, they have silly races and contests at the top and bottom of each inning, and you’re almost guaranteed to see some flubs you’d likely never see at a major league game. There’s a feeling of community, as you see people greeting each other or just striking up conversations with their fellow fans.

Kids participating in a mid-inning tire race around the bases

KABOOM, the Jethawks mascot

We ate junk food, we watched the crowd, and we saw the Jethawks getting spanked by the Lake Elsinore Storm (final score was 11-1). Ted wanted to be able to do his pre-flight walk-around while there was still some light, so we headed out during the 8th inning.

We also hoped to get back to Santa Monica before the tower closed at 9pm (not for any other reason than it just makes things a little bit easier for him during landing). The flight was generally smooth sailing in calm skies, and as we flew through the Sepulveda Pass we heard the SM tower announce the time as 8:55. Ted rounded base to final, landed, and got cleared to taxi back to parking when we heard the tower close. Couldn’t really cut it much closer than that…

A perfect end to a fantastic day.

See Ted’s account of the day