#that trip was cool the airplane was mostly empty and had turbulence (good) and saw the stars above the clouds

[milkyway-galaxary]

Bwuh eating dinner then airport, stress hitting harder i think this is my first airplane trip completely alone

[aplanehebuilt]

The Great and Not So Great - To Mackinac Island

Some thirty years ago, Roy introduced his friend Paul to his other friend Maria. The two of them hit it off so well that Paul asked Maria to marry him. Roy, being Paul’s closest friend, was Best Man at their wedding. So naturally, when Paul and Maria invited us to join their celebration of thirty years of wedded bliss, I said we’d be there. Sure, the party was to be held on Mackinac Island, but there’s an airport on the island, and we have a plane, and that is the great thing about having our RV-7A – we can bop across country and land at a small airport in far northern Michigan.

The not-so-great part is that the weather often sets our schedule. Two days before our planned departure date, the forecast across the mid-west said that if we wanted to join the party, we needed to beat tracks.

We were up at sunrise and filed IFR to get over the clouds resting on the Willamette Valley. The sky was hazy over the Cascades and breathtakingly beautiful. Two and a half hours later, we stopped in Idaho to fill the plane and empty the people. “We might make Nebraska by this evening,” Roy said after we took off. No, Nebraska is not on the way to Michigan. We were making a side trip to look at a tow vehicle that is part of our plan to become full-time vagabonds.

We picked up turbulent air over Wyoming. Getting rocked and bounced about un-nerves for me. We climbed to 11,500 feet to find smoother air. We didn’t find smoother air, but we did pick up a gusty 20 knot tailwind. Two more hours of bumping along and we were just over the border of Nebraska. I had a bad cramp in my left butt cheek and I was getting hungry, and hungry means grumpy was just around the corner. The great part of traveling in our plane is that we can stop and land when we want.

Half an hour later we were making phone calls in the FBO in Lexington, Nebraska. A baseball game had filled all the hotels, except one – the Minute Man Motel at the incredible value of only $55 a night. An incredible value, it turns out, because it was downwind from both the stockyard and slaughter house and the Tyson chicken plant. The not-so-great part of traveling in our plane is that sometimes our destinations are less than glamorous.

The next morning the air was still and cool and damp and the smell of the stockyard had settled. I felt a tingly rush as we drove back to the airport in the courtesy car. We’d have smooth air and clear skies for our flight to Lincoln – how exciting!

Not as exciting though, as the loud POP, POP, TRup, Trup, Pop sound the engine made as we took off. Roy muttered something about EGT’s and CHT’s and turned downwind, back to the airport. The not-so-great part is that we – we being mostly Roy – get to do airplane repairs in exotic places. There was an A&P on the field, except he was in Omaha with his daughter who was having a medical procedure. The great thing about traveling in our plane is that people everywhere are nice, and in a testament of how incredibly helpful people associated with aviation can be, the A&P texted with Roy through-out the morning, and helped us get our magic carpet flying again.

The car salesman was waiting for us at the FBO in Nebraska. He was a young farm-boy turned car salesman with slicked back hair and second-hand shoes that were expensive when new. He shook our hands, and showed Roy the van. I slipped over to the opposite side, got down on my hands and knees and studied the undercarriage. The fellows walked around the side of the van, and the young man lunged toward me, “Ma’man are you ok? Do you need help?” I guess he’d never seen a gal shop for a car before. “No, I’m fine,” I said, standing and dusting my knees off, “but I have some questions. Tell me about that check engine light, please.”

“Well, ma’am, I can tell you when I first saw this van, I was surprised at what great shape it was in. I mean, the ranchers around here, you never know what they’re gonna put in these things. They drive ‘em out on the range and toss dead cattle in ‘em. So when I first looked in this van, I stuck my nose in and took a good whif, and I was so thankful it did not smell like dead bodies. Know what I’m say’in? Ma’am, this van is in great shape.”

Since he didn’t get a response from me, he took a swing at small talk. “So, You two flew all the way here from, where’d you say, in that little plane? That’s crazy. I gotta say, ma’am, all due respect, you’re crazy for gett’in in that little plane.”  

The great part of traveling in our plane is that we can say ‘Thank you for your time. We are leaving now.’ And so we did – and crazy as it may be, it’s the best kind of crazy ever, next to sailing, and so we headed north, to a runway on a lovely, small island, where thirty years ago, Roy was the Best Man at Paul and Maria’s wedding.