Up early, with only a cursory glance at all the Pontiac Trans Ams in the parking lot (we didn't realize that Dayton was playing host to the 24th Annual Trans Am Nationals and the Drury Inn was Trans Am Central) and a quick breakfast, we took a cab back out to Wright Brothers Aero and I pre-flighted the airplane while Dan did the weather briefing (he just has better luck than I do at not getting put on endless holds). Dan came out a bit slowly, never a good sign, and said he had filed us to Spirit of St. Louis, (KSUS--another stop from last year's trip) which was far to the south of where we wanted to go. The line of storms hadn't moved much during the night but there were some holes throughout and we were going to get updates in the air to see if one of the holes grew.
We launched into a cloudy sky at about 0915h and headed west along our clearance. In talking to the controllers and consulting the XM Satellite Weather updates, we saw a hole opening up ahead and to the north. The controller gave us a great steer and we diverted towards Gary, IN, (KGYY) almost due north. Liz started humming "Gary Indiana" from The Music Man immediately. However, there's a great feature on the G1000 system that allows you, with the push of a toggle button, to isolate the pilot and co-pilot from the rest of the passengers. Soon Liz was singing at the top of her lungs, but it made no difference--we couldn't hear her! (Just kidding, Liz!)
I actually like flying through clouds--there's a real rush as you speed into the wall of a cloud, bounce a couple of times and then pop through the other side into the clear. There were a couple of times we came out into a tunnel of clouds and it was just an awesome view. Another time, we could be at the bottom of a valley of clouds, towering on either side; or punching through wispy little things you could see right through. We only ran into a couple of rainy spots and the turbulence wasn't bad at all. The weather radar also helped a lot in helping us avoid anything with yellow on it. I know not all the passengers like flying in clouds, so we tried to avoid what we could within our IFR clearance, but there was enough cloud punching to keep me happy, and not enough to make Liz sick in the back. A good compromise!
Our leg into Gary was 2.3 hours, of which 1.8 was actual instrument conditions. I shot the ILS 30 approach and we broke out at about 800 feet above the ground pretty well lined up along the runway. We tried to get gassed up quickly (this was supposed to be a quick-turn stop) but had to cool our heels a bit because the two line guys were a) not playing well with each other and b) were busy helping a well-to-do family that had just arrived after us on a twin prop charter. Turns out their pilot was a woman--great to see women as professional pilots--not nearly enough of them around! So after a bit of a wait and gobbling a peanut butter and jelly sandwich Liz had picked up for us at Panera in Dayton, we finally got our fuel and got the hell out of Gary, heading west towards Mason City, IA.
Our climb out of KGYY was very slow as we had a 20 knot headwind fighting us. We even joked with the controller that we thought we saw a little kid on a bicycle pass us on the road below. In reality, cars were going faster than us on a couple of straight stretches as we continued our climb up to 6,000 feet. We also had a lot of traffic around us and our eyes were continuously swiveling as we cut through the southern end of Chicago's Class B. At one point, a Southwest airliner went 1,000 feet directly below us, heading north to land at Midway.
Once past Chicago, the skies opened up a little bit to small puffy clouds below us and a few larger ones at our altitude which we occasionally had to punch through. We also got to see a red biplane doing some aerobatic maneuvers a couple thousand feet below us at one point.
The leg into Mason City, IA (KMCW) was 2.9 hours, some of that due to our headwind slowing us down. Dan claims that wherever he flies, he expects a headwind--it's just in his nature to be fighting one. I shot the GPS 30 approach, the first time I've done a GPS approach. Not much is different from other approaches, just that you follow GPS waypoints as your approach fixes, instead of VOR radials or DME markers. And sure enough, KMCW was in the middle of corn fields.
One of the reasons for choosing KMCW was that it advertised food. The airport has a small restaurant in the back that services not only hungry pilots and crew, but is also a meal stop for the interstate buses that travel I-35 north and south. Just after we arrived, a busload of folks wandered in, with such and eclectic mix of people. There were Mennonites, in their conservative attire (including an adorable baby in a long black dress), farmer-looking types in overalls and a bunch of teens, including one kid who stood 6'11"!!!
The woman pictured in the forefront of the captioned photo in the gallery, (lifted courtesy of the Mason City Airport website) was minding the register while an older gentleman (possibly her husband?) was cooking in the back. After the crowd cleared, she came out to ask which of us had had the two cheeseburgers. Liz and Dan immediately pointed at me (the human seagull) and she wondered how I could have packed them away, along with fries and a delicious slice of homemade cherry pie. She was a kind woman, but honestly I could have eaten three or four more of her burgers--I was just being kind to my fellow crew for the next hop by not overindulging!
On our next leg, I flew left seat with Liz in the right for a short VFR hop to Worthington, MN (KOTG) in the southwest corner of MN (1.3 hour leg). We only flew at about 2,500' the whole way, looking at the windmills and farm fields spread out all around us as far as the eye could see. FLAT...F-L-A-T! I had Liz do a lot of the flying, which she seemed to enjoy and did well at, once she got over her Vulcan death-grip on the yoke. We'll get her to schedule that shoulder surgery yet!
After grabbing fuel, I got the back seat for a nap leg while Dan and Liz flew us to Wall, SD (K6V4)(2.8 hour leg). We again went pretty low, pretty much following I-90 westward, skirting Sioux City and then a while later crossing the Missouri River. Immediately west of the reiver, the terrain starts to get hilly, unlike the flat plains of the previous few hours. It was a welcome change to see small crags and low hills--I even spotted a small herd of antelope scurry up one of the hills as we flew over. Their tawny and white bodies made them pretty easy to spot from the air.
Coming in to Wall, we started to see the Black Hills of the Badlands and some mineral deposits. In the sinking sun, you could just start to make out mountains far out to the west. Dan made a nice short field landing into Wall and we taxied over to the ramp, watching an older gentleman zooming around on a rider mower. As Dan headed over towards him, he came roaring up and introduced himself as Dave Hahn.
He was the classic image of the older guy who hangs out at the airport, willing to chat with just about anyone about just about anything. He confessed he didn't have a self-serve pump but would be more than happy to sell us as much gas as we needed. We had planned to fly another half-hour to Rapid City for gas, but we gladly took him up on his offer as it would allow us to cut out an extra fuel stop for the night. After taxiing the airplane up to one of his hangars, we fueled up our Cessna. Dave handed me a souvenir pen and then gave us directions for walking into town to Wall Drug (the tourist mecca calling us for this visit to a town of about 800 people) and wished us a good night.
NOTE: In writing this up, I found that Dave Hahn is the long-time mayor of Wall, SD, having served over 20 years. To get some additional flavor of what he's like, you can find him quoted in an article about Wall here: http://www.kansan.com/stories/2004/sep/27/digging_wall_dr/ Note that the article was written in September 2004 and Hahn claims it's his last term as mayor. Hahn was unopposed in the 2006 election and is still holding down the job.
Wall Drug is....well, it's Wall Drug. Like South of the Border, it's just one of those places you have to visit to get the full cheese effect. If it's tacky Western motif you're looking for, this is the town for you. Clothing, Indian crafts, foodstuffs, souvenirs of all types (bumper stickers, shot glasses, magnets, snow globes, plastic cow patties--and that's just the normal stuff) can be found throughout the complex. Somehow I staggered out of there empty-handed. We hoofed it to the other end of town (not a long walk) to find Liz some mega-lottery tickets and then wandered back to find dinner. Unfortunately, we picked a tiny place right across the street from Wall Drug. The salad bar was a pretty sad affair and the dinner wasn't all that great (though better than I expected)--I wish I could remember the name of the place so I could warn folks off....
Anyway, refueled and Walled out, we trudged back to the airport under amazingly starry skies despite the nearly full moon casting its glow over everything. Looking at the stars at the darkened airport, we just gazed in wonder, and spotted a satellite. Dan got stuck on hold on the phone for a briefing.
Side note: The FAA recently handed over operation of flight briefing and flight service centers to Lockheed Martin. The consolidation has been happening all summer and I've found that the on-hold wait time has been increasing significantly every time I call for a briefing--sometimes as long as 20+ minutes. That's a lot of daylight and cellphone burning. The FAA has established an 800# to record a complaint on long delays for briefings/filing flight plans. It's not well publicized, so here it is again: 888-359-7782. We'll post it on the blog somewhere so people can easily find it. Please call and make your voice heard--it's in my speed dial now.
Our last leg of the day, K6V4 to Casper, WY (KCPR) felt long, though it was only 2.5 hours. After climbing straight west out of Wall, we headed directly over Rapid City (KRAP) before turning slightly southwest to pass over Mt. Rushmore, lit up in the night. From our altitude, about 8,500 feet, it was pretty tough to make out the faces, but we got a look. Then it was a long dark but moonlit shot into Casper, where we arrived late to a quiet, empty airport around midnight. Exhausted (don't forget we lost 2 time zones during the day), we tied down the plane, called a hotel for 2 rooms and got a cab.