Whew!
It has been a wild last few days. One giant cross-country flight turned out to become a mid-west satellite photo of the letter 'C'.
Allow me to fill you all in: My coworker and I departed an airport just east of Mobile, Alabama on Friday. The plan was to relocate to Sandusky, Ohio there on lake Erie. According to my feelings of previous seasons, still quite early to be in the north for work... Apparently we finished off much of the south and have nothing left but to move northward. The prognostic charts for the weekend was showing a large section of snowy weather over much of Tennessee, Central Ohio and Kentucky. The furthest one could go directly north on Friday was the Huntsville, AL. Then sit for several days waiting for it to play out. Instead, we decided to fly west towards Little Rock, Arkansas. Spending the night in Pine Bluffs (just south of Little Rock). A fairly uneventful Friday relocation.
Saturday was fun. We wanted to fly east towards Evansville, Indiana via Cape Girardeau, MO. Lucky for us, I have on-board live weather/radar. The visibility went from amazing to rather crap. 5 miles or so. Strictly legal for visual flight is 3 miles, however, with 5 miles visibility in flight, its still difficult to see much. Remaining out of any cloud layers but still enjoying the occasional light snow blowing past. Cape Girardeau was our alternate if we couldn't make Evansville. Turns out we couldn't make Cape either because of low ceilings, snow, and visibility. Instead we flew north bound to a small place called Sparta, IN. Geesh was it blustery cold fueling our high wing airplanes! Brr.
Still further we ventured after checking out the radar on ground. Heading up past St Louis, MO. East towards Decatur, IL and beyond. Happily skirting south east of Champagne, IL airspace northbound.
Vermillion / Danville Airfield was becoming very difficult weather with low ceilings and not pleasant visibility. We broke off our direct route and ventured straight northbound along a railroad until the visibility went from 3-5 Miles to a much more pleasant 7. Along the way you could make out in the haze all the hundreds of various electric windmills turning beneath us. (I was nicely above them and purely legal.)
According to the ADSB radar there was a blob of snow precipitation north of us towards Lake Michigan, a corridor break in the middle, and then another to the south east. Lafayette which we were heading towards went down to 2 miles visibility from the snow. It looked horrific toward that direction. We opted to divert back north along a stretch of highway until following an intersecting one heading due east towards our destination of Logansport, IN.
The Ceilings started to lift a bit. Visibility increased substantially. The snow to the sides of us moved off into the distance. The destination grew large in front of us and a boring landing ensued. :)
Fun times!
My coworker walks up to my plane to inform me that we got a new work email. They are changing the destination from Sandusky, OH to Kentucky. Hmm. Back South. Where all the soup was. Turns out we flew that large 'C' for naught! HAH.
Today is Sunday, with it marking a lazy day of non-flying. The prog charts that called for snow in the center of the country became true. We are grounded for the day after having set up our tents in front of the FBO.
My record of 20F still stands. Only made it down to 25F, but it was a blustering wind 25F.
Another day towards my goal. Closer to being set free. Reuniting with the cat. Finally setting in motion lavish garden plans like the rest of you all!
Take care, everybody. Stay Warm.
133 Days in : 73 Left to Go.
P.S. We placed our tents close enough to get WiFi while bundled up inside warm sleeping bags. No point roughing it when you can still get netflix!
