After an enjoyable breakfast with the family, Melissa dropped me off at the airport, and the waiting began. After almost incessant checks of DUATS and the ADDS weather sites, I made the decision to go, and it turned out to be the right one. All the precipitation had pretty much passed by Ft. Collins, but I had to be careful, as there was a SIGMET for severe icing in clouds and precipitation along most of my route of flight.

I took off and headed out on course, watching the ceilings, which started out about 1,500’ AGL and steadily decreased as I flew. Just as importantly, though, it was cold, and getting colder. Within a few minutes of departing, the outside air temp was 6 degrees below zero centigrade, and at that temperature, the canopy of my plane bends slightly, allowing a blast of cold air to enter the cockpit. Even with cold weather clothes and my heater going full bore, I was chilled to the bones.

The terrain along this route is actually pretty open and flat, although the ground is as high as 7,000’ in places. I altered my routing slightly to stay closer to highways, roads, and sometimes just open pastureland, in case something went wrong and I needed to land right away. Most of the ground was covered with a fresh layer of snow, so although it was pretty, it was also inhospitable.

One “feature” of flying in the northwest of the US is the extent of the open spaces. At one point, my nearest divert airport was 40 miles away, and that to get to a dirt runway. The farther I am out in the countryside, the lower my standards. I generally have the GPS showing me the nearest strip at least 2,500’ long regardless of the surface type. I assume that if I ever had to use some of these fields, I would fly into them, but the only way out would be slung underneath a helicopter.

After about an hour, the clouds started to break up, the ceiling lifted, and I began to warm up slightly. The snow slowly receded into the hills, but the wind picked up. For the first time on the trip, I found myself facing a bona fide headwind, although of only about 15 knots. It also got pretty bumpy, to the point that I could not have opened a drink if I had wanted to.

I landed in Cody and taxied in, being very careful to monitor my brakes. Although they were soft, they worked fine.

I met up with Bob and Linda Evans, some great people who also happen to have one of the higher time VeriEze’s, with about 2,500 hours on the plane. We had a great lunch right there at the airport where I tired to thaw out, Bob worried about me (as always), and Linda just listened to the two of us trade barbs.

After lunch, I set out on what has become my most frequent cross-country trip: a 4+ hour, non-stop trip from Cody, north along the eastern face of the Rockies to Livingston, MT, then along I-90 all the way into the Seattle area. In my earlier days, I had done it so often that I memorized the course, distance, and VOR frequencies for all the legs. I’ll admit to having forgotten the numbers, but no the routing.

I did the whole route based on memory, but it is very easy. You could fly it quite comfortably at 6,500’ MSL , although it is a little more comfortable at 8,500’. With I-90 between your legs, there are no shortages of places to put down.

When I was between Livingston and Bozeman, I encountered a flock of large white sea birds at 9,100’, or about 4,000’ above the valley floor. I don’t know what kind they were, although I tried circling back around to look. Although I have been rather depressed throughout the whole trip over the lack of other planes in the sky (flying is great - why don’t more people fly?), it was nice to know that I did actually have company.

As I neared Mullan Pass, I was surprised to see four large forest fires burning within a 20-mile radius of each other. Although this is the time of year when there are prescribed burns, these seemed much too large for planned burns. I then remembered the storms that had hit Wyoming and northern Colorado the night before, and realized that they were probably the result of lightning strikes, so I called them in to Flight Service. Most every time I go through that area in the summer, I find myself calling in fires. I have even had the unfortunate experience of watching fires start on two occasions, days when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, so the only cause could be humans.

I continued to listen to the music on my MP3 player, including the series of lectures on “How to listen to Classical Music”. When this was done, I repeated an old tradition for me: clearing Mullan Pass, the last pass out of Idaho and into the flat desert of Eastern Washington, I put on Gary Jess’ “Northwest Trilogy”. There is nothing unusual about this album, other than it is an instrumental piece that was inspired by the mountains and waters of the Pacific Northwest. For over 10 years, it has been the piece of music I have listened to as I have crossed the arid eastern portions of the state and then broken out into the expanses of the Puget Sound. Hearing it always lets me know that I am getting close.

I chose not to overfly my home, as I used to do when returning from a long trip, as I thought there would be no one home. Turns out Kay had stayed home with Sean, so I should have flown by, but there will always be other trips.

It was a great trip, and I am glad that I did it. I realize that I was too much of a slave to schedule, and some of my days were far too long (the first was 21 hours bed to bed). On the plus side, though, I managed to see the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf Coasts over the nose of my plane in less than 4 days. I saw old friends that I hadn’t seen in many years, met some new people face-to-face that I had known only through e-mails, and met many new friends along the way.

I re-experienced the wonders of the open spaces, the stresses of congested airspace, and the changes in how we deal with these in this post-9/11 world. The freedom we have to fly in the United States surpasses any other country in the world, not to mention the variety. I went from swamps to snow-covered mountain in just a few flight hours, sea level to 14,000’ peaks in minutes, and tree-covered hills to wind-blown prairies in less time than it takes to listen to a music album.

I wouldn’t trade this experience for the world, with one exception: I wish I could have taken my family with me to share in its wonders.

Day’s Total Distance Covered:  959 nautical miles

Day’s Total Flight Time: 6 hours 14 minutes

Day’s average groundspeed:  154.42 knots

Day’s Flight legs: 2

Day’s Highest Altitude reached: 10,000’

Day’s Highest Groundspeed attained: 173 knots

Total Trip Distance Covered: 5,218 nm

Total Trip Flight Time: 33 hours, 9 minutes

Total Trip average groundspeed:  157.4 knots

In-flight food consumed today: Bag of fresh popcorn, 1 20-oz coke, 1 20-oz Gatorade, Doritos

Other planes seen (outside of the terminal area): 2