Hi, all,
I'm now 1.5 months into my grand tour around the states, and it's been a pretty amazing trip so far.
(Part I here:
https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/kaths-north-america-adventure-part-i.120459/)
I spent about three weeks in Madison, WI, after the 7-day epic flight through Canada. It felt like it took a week just to recuperate from that flight. Leaving Anchorage and restructuring my life into a "my laptop is my office" lifestyle proved a bit of a transition. But I'm embracing it now!
After Madison, I stopped in Milwaukee for a few days, and then went to the 6Y9 Fly-In. That was a highlight... what a fantastic weekend! I hardly ever get to go to fly-ins like this since I live so far away from everything. The weather was so wonderful, and the company more so.
For those of you who were at 6Y9, I was supposedly headed next to a neutrino detector under construction in Northern Minnesota. But I ended up going to River Falls WI first, due to the weather. But I *did* finally make it to the neutrino thing, and I'm there now, in Hoyt Lakes (the plane is parked in Eveleth). It took so long to get here, due to a) lots of bad weather in Minnesota, and b) that I thought my G5 was broken on the one good day I could've made it and I had to wait to find out that it just needed a hard reboot (and how to do that).
The trip to Eveleth is also noteworthy as my first time filing IFR in 14 years! I'd gotten all IPC'ed before leaving Anchorage, but I was still really nervous about actually jumping into "the system" again... but all this September midwest weather was creating too many "gee, I wish I wasn't so chicken about IFR" days. So I picked a (forecast) really nice VFR day, spent what seemed like an entire day planning every last detail, and filed. It turned out to be quite anticlimactic... I got about 30 miles from my destination and was VFR-on-top, and my destination was reporting fog and 1/2- or 3/4-mile vis and VV002. I watched it for a while, but to my eye it didn't look like the kind of thing that was just going to burn off soon. So I canceled IFR and just turned 180 to an airport I'd just flown over that was clear. Landed there to wait for the fog to lift, which it did immediately. <sigh... sometimes ya guess wrong>. So zero logged actual, and zero approaches. But still a big victory for me, a mental hurdle I really needed to clear.
So, next, I'll be headed west, from Eveleth MN (KEVM) to Rapid City SD (KRAP!). I'm looking to stop somewhere in between for fuel and a meal. Where's good, and would anybody want to try to meet up? (@Sinistar? @WannFly?). I'm thinking of making the flight next Tuesday or Wednesday (Sep. 24 or 25), whenever the wx favors.
A couple weeks after that, I'll be headed for California. Possibly via Bozeman MT.
@flyingcheesehead, I deeply regret that we missed a couple chances to catch up while I was in Madison... but I'll be back at some point!
Pictures and more details on the blog, which is "beetlejuiceadventure" followed by wordpress dot com.
I'm now 1.5 months into my grand tour around the states, and it's been a pretty amazing trip so far.
(Part I here:
https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/kaths-north-america-adventure-part-i.120459/)
I spent about three weeks in Madison, WI, after the 7-day epic flight through Canada. It felt like it took a week just to recuperate from that flight. Leaving Anchorage and restructuring my life into a "my laptop is my office" lifestyle proved a bit of a transition. But I'm embracing it now!
After Madison, I stopped in Milwaukee for a few days, and then went to the 6Y9 Fly-In. That was a highlight... what a fantastic weekend! I hardly ever get to go to fly-ins like this since I live so far away from everything. The weather was so wonderful, and the company more so.
For those of you who were at 6Y9, I was supposedly headed next to a neutrino detector under construction in Northern Minnesota. But I ended up going to River Falls WI first, due to the weather. But I *did* finally make it to the neutrino thing, and I'm there now, in Hoyt Lakes (the plane is parked in Eveleth). It took so long to get here, due to a) lots of bad weather in Minnesota, and b) that I thought my G5 was broken on the one good day I could've made it and I had to wait to find out that it just needed a hard reboot (and how to do that).
The trip to Eveleth is also noteworthy as my first time filing IFR in 14 years! I'd gotten all IPC'ed before leaving Anchorage, but I was still really nervous about actually jumping into "the system" again... but all this September midwest weather was creating too many "gee, I wish I wasn't so chicken about IFR" days. So I picked a (forecast) really nice VFR day, spent what seemed like an entire day planning every last detail, and filed. It turned out to be quite anticlimactic... I got about 30 miles from my destination and was VFR-on-top, and my destination was reporting fog and 1/2- or 3/4-mile vis and VV002. I watched it for a while, but to my eye it didn't look like the kind of thing that was just going to burn off soon. So I canceled IFR and just turned 180 to an airport I'd just flown over that was clear. Landed there to wait for the fog to lift, which it did immediately. <sigh... sometimes ya guess wrong>. So zero logged actual, and zero approaches. But still a big victory for me, a mental hurdle I really needed to clear.
So, next, I'll be headed west, from Eveleth MN (KEVM) to Rapid City SD (KRAP!). I'm looking to stop somewhere in between for fuel and a meal. Where's good, and would anybody want to try to meet up? (@Sinistar? @WannFly?). I'm thinking of making the flight next Tuesday or Wednesday (Sep. 24 or 25), whenever the wx favors.
A couple weeks after that, I'll be headed for California. Possibly via Bozeman MT.
@flyingcheesehead, I deeply regret that we missed a couple chances to catch up while I was in Madison... but I'll be back at some point!
Pictures and more details on the blog, which is "beetlejuiceadventure" followed by wordpress dot com.
. What’s with this Neutrino thing? It sounds like all you can do is ‘count’ them. What does that lead to, what’s the end product so to speak.
