Salida was fun. My wife had a friend up there and she gave us some good ideas of stuff to do. She took us rafting on the Arkansas river and told us how to get to an old ghost town up in the mountains where we saw a lot of neat stuff and fed chipmunks out of our hands! We also rode the Royal Gorge train and visited the park.
It was finally time to go home. We had been watching the weather and while it was clear in Pueblo, there was a line of rain reaching across Texas from a stalled cold front. It was showing on radar east of Abilene which was where we planned to stop for lunch. We got to the airport around 9:30, paid for parking and fuel, loaded the plane, and turned in the rent car. We took off and headed toward our first stop of Abilene as we climbed to 9000 feet which kept us above a scattered layer of clouds. We had a pretty smooth flight and shortly after 3 hours, we had the field in sight and started to line up for landing. After an uneventful landing we taxed over to Abilene Aero and parked. A lineman was there at my door with a red carpet that he placed on the ground for me to step out onto! Very cool. The facilities were great and the people were very nice. We went over to the terminal where we had a very good lunch and then returned to pay for gas and get a new preflight briefing.
As I mentioned in an earlier posting, the trip home was pretty uneventful and our luck held. The long line of thunderstorms across the state had broken up completely and there was just some stuff north and south of our course on radar. We departed to the east and started our climb to 9000 again. I had planned our course to go sort of north of Waco to miss some rather large MOAs (Military Operator Areas) between us and Houston. Well, about 10 minutes into the flight, the center controller called us up and said that he had an ammended clearance when I was ready to copy. I grabbed my pen and said, "Go ahead." He then said that the MOAs were "cold" (inactive) and we were cleared across them direct to College Station. He then added, "That route will keep you out of all the weather all the way to Houston." He was right. While we watched stuff build to the left and right of our course, we cruised along in the clear above all but one or 2 small ones that we punched right through without any bumps. All this time the frequency was saturated with the controller and airplanes continuously getting vectors around the building weather near both Dallas and San Antonio. Meanwhile we cruised along in smooth comfort and watched towns and airports drift by below.
As we got to College Station we received a few small course changes and a descent to get us on the STAR (Standard Terminal Arrival Route) in to Hooks. Finally, about 20 miles out Approached asked if we wanted an approach or wanted to continue for the visual approach. We were below scattered clouds to we elected for the visual and via the GPS, pointed the nose straight at the airport. A short time later we were back on the ground at home, glad to be breathing the "thick" Texas air, but still missing the LOW humidity back in Colorado!
After all we went through and the unconfortable condidtions around Amarillo, I was amazed to hear my wife say on the drive home, "Next time we're giving the kids Dramamine on every leg!" Yes, you heard me correctly...She said "next time"! After the stressful flight up there, I thought we had taken our last trip as a family. Apparently not!
Next up...Oshkosh!!!!
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