An Aerial Road Trip to Fort Myers, Florida
June 22 - 29, 2005

These were Kristy's words at the onset of her first airplane ride with me in October 2002.  It was a smooth, still day - perfect for an introductory flight.  By the end of the flight, my wife's comfort with the concept of flying had increased greatly.  On later flights, bumpy air still elicited an unhappy reaction, but her comfort level grew with each experience.  If only I could convince her that flying was fun, rather than merely tolerable...

The Idea

The idea for our adventure in June 2005 was actually an obvious conclusion to a practical need.  Kristy's parents were moving from Michigan to Fort Myers, Florida and needed help unpacking at their destination.  Considering that travel by car would require 24 hours and that commercial airfare from Kalamazoo was expensive, it did not take us long to realize that we owned an airplane capable of making the trip in about 10 hours.  For a successful trip, all we needed was decent weather and sufficient comfort level on Kristy's behalf.  Previously, her longest ride in Warrior 481 was the hour required to fly from South Haven, MI to Flushing, MI where her parents used to live.  These trips had become sufficiently routine that she often slept during them.  To my surprise, and to her credit, she suggested that a long cross country to Florida would be a lot of fun provided that I gave her something to do.  She had already become very adept at understanding ATC (air traffic control), working with the radios, and setting the transponder.  Delighted to have Kristy as an active participant in the flight, I promised that she could carry out these duties.

Though I was a bit concerned about how Kristy would handle the trip, I also knew that it would not be a trivial undertaking for me, either.  My only previous cross-country experience in excess of two hours was flying Warrior 481 back home from Guthrie, Oklahoma.  That was a 600 nautical mile trip.  A one-way ride to Florida would be just over 1000 nautical miles.  As I contemplated the logistics of the flight, several items came to mind that my wife might not like.

"Remember, this will be more of an adventure than just a trip by car.  We will probably be delayed by poor weather," I cautioned her. 

"I understand," she said.  "It will be like a road trip."

 "And it will be hot, so there will probably be some rough air, particularly at lower altitudes."

"I'm much better about the bumps," she assured me.

We built extra time into the schedule and planned an itinerary that had us flying during the morning hours to avoid pop-up thunderstorms and choppy air.  A key piece of this was an overnight stay with our friends Gary and Cheryl in Calhoun, Georgia.  We had talked about flying down to visit them anyway, so it worked out well that they were along our route.  Other stops were planned for approximately every two hours and I compiled information on several airports along the route with available avgas.  As the day of the trip approached, Kristy was genuinely excited about it and I realized that she had had come a long way since her first airplane ride.

June 22: When Everything Went According to Plan...

We departed South Haven at 8:00 am on June 22, 2005.  It was a beautiful, high visibility morning.  With the airplane loaded with fuel and luggage, we pulled the car into Warrior 481's usual spot in the hangar, closed the door, and taxied to runway 22.  I lined-up with the runway centerline and applied full power.  With full fuel, two passengers, and a week's worth of baggage, Warrior 481 was heavier than usual and reminded us of that fact by momentarily chirping the stall warning horn as the weight transferred from the wheels to the wings.  With only that brief complaint from the airplane, we climbed smoothly into the clear azure sky.

At 5500 feet, we had a tailwind that endowed us with a ground speed of 144 knots (166 mph).  We overflew distinctive landmarks in northern Indiana like Notre Dame and Grissom Airforce Base.  Once beyond Indianapolis Class Charlie airspace, we were cut loose from the watchful eye of ATC and began a descent to our first stop - Bloomington, IN.  The first leg of the flight was not quite two hours in duration.  Our trip had only just begun, but Kristy had already traveled two-fold farther in our airplane than ever before.

Bloomington was a logical stop for us.  We had lived there five years while we were both in graduate school.  Moreover, Bloomington has a nice, tower-controlled general aviation airport with two outstanding FBOs on the field whose competition has driven their fuel prices down to the lowest in the region ($2.41 a gallon when South Haven was up to $2.99).  As we rolled-out on runway 35, the tower controller asked me where I wanted to park.  It seemed as though the moment I uttered "BMG", the FBO's "follow-me" Jeep was moving on the ramp with its distinctive orange and white checkered flag flapping in the breeze.  A lineman leapt from the Jeep and directed us to a parking spot.

BMG is a wonderful FBO: low fuel prices, internet access for checking weather, and even nice flowers along the sidewalk leading off the ramp.  Comments on AirNav also revealed that there was a nice rental house on the field available at a reasonable rate on a first-come, first-served basis (foreshadowing!).  Kristy also noted that hand lotion was available in the women's bathroom, an amenity evidently missing from South Haven that morning.  As the lineman topped-off Warrior 481's fuel tanks, I checked the weather.  The haze was increasing, but visibility was more than adequate for our flight to Calhoun, GA.  We took a brief snack break and were airborne again within 30 minutes of our arrival.

Crossing the Ohio River into Kentucky, the haze became progressively denser, though visibility remained above eight miles.  We watched the countryside transform from the ordered rectangular section lines of Indiana to haphazard boundaries meandering across the Kentucky and Tennessee terrain.

Two hours out of Bloomington, it was time to stretch our legs again.  We landed at the Upper Cumberland Regional Airport in Sparta, TN (SRB).  Once parked on the ramp, a lineman from Averitt Aviation escorted us to a gate between the ramp and the FBO, entered a code on a keypad, and the gate slowly opened before us.  Sparta thus became known as "the place with the Magic Gate" (our journey was rife with whimsy).

Though cruising at altitude is usually very comfortable, descending into the heat and a slow taxi on the ground makes for a hot ride in the Warrior.  Averitt's terminal building was comfortable and cool after being in the airplane.  After a short break and snack, we chatted with the folks at Averitt for a while.  Before long, we were once again airborne and bound for Calhoun, GA.

We climbed to 6500 feet to clear scattered clouds.  Our route took us directly over Chattanooga.  Once clear of Chattanooga Class Charlie, we began our descent into Calhoun.  Northwest of Calhoun, we saw several high ridges that ran roughly parallel to our course.  This terrain was very different from the rolling hills that had begun in southern Indiana.

Calhoun's airport, Tom B. David Field, has a single, 5000' paved runway.  We landed without difficulty in still air, refueled the Warrior at the self serve fuel pump, and parked near the terminal building.  The airport was quiet that afternoon and the only things that really caught my eye were four weathered jets sitting on the opposite side of the ramp.  We had flown a total of 4.8 hours that morning.

Once parked, we unloaded the airplane and called Cheryl.  Then we tethered our bird to the ground, fitted her with noseplugs to deter any industrious nest-building birds, and covered her with a cabin cover to keep the water out in case of any rain.

We spent the remainder of the day visiting with Cheryl and Gary.  It was our fist visit to their nice new house.  They treated us to dinner at the local Japanese steak house, Sumo.  Given the name of the restaurant, I was glad that we did not have to wrestle anyone for our dinner.

The mission was accomplished for Day One; on-schedule and without incident.  Naturally, this left us with an inappropriate sense of hubris that meant nothing would go according to plan thereafter.  

June 23: Haze and Crop Duster Purgatory

Cheryl dropped us off at the airport early the next morning, but the haze was so thick (notice the photo at right) that we spent a couple hours on the ground waiting for it to burn off.  Calhoun's well-appointed terminal building featured internet weather access and a very comfortable lobby decorated with large model aircraft.  It was a terrific place to wait out the weather.  While we waited, I chatted with the gentleman at the counter.

"So, tell me about those jets out there."  I pointed to the four weathered aircraft that had caught my eye the previous day.  He explained that they were Paris jets, jet trainers built by the French during the 1950s.  They were not terribly successful as military trainers, though some were still used by  third world countries.  A Calhoun-based company called Your Aircraft Source was refurbishing them and selling them to private owners.  Paris jets carried four people, cruised near 400 mph with a range of 1000 miles, and were fully aerobatic.

"One just left for a test flight a moment ago.  It should be back anytime.  We had it down at Sun 'N' Fun earlier this year."  As he finished this, I heard a distant, high-pitched whine.  Moments later, something shiny and blue sped past the window on its landing roll-out.  As it taxied back to the ramp, the whine from its engines was overwhelming, even though we were inside the terminal.  "They make an awful lot of noise at low RPM," he commented.  As it pulled onto the ramp, I realized that I had seen and heard that jet before.  At Sun 'N' Fun 2005, Dave, Kent and I had been standing near a taxiway when the very same jet had rolled past.  It was memorable because of the deafening shriek of its engine; we had to plug our ears as it taxied past.

I continued to pass the time chatting with the man behind the counter.  We had a great conversation about Sun 'N' Fun, Oshkosh, airplanes in general, my airplane in particular, and about our trip.  Like many people we met along the way, the folks in Calhoun were interested to hear about our long VFR cross-country trip.  That morning, I discovered something that held true almost everywhere we went.  We knew going into it that this flight would be all about the journey, but we underestimated the fun of meeting interesting people along the way.

I continued to check weather reports in the area.  The visibility was better along our route to the south and had risen to a marginal VFR condition around Calhoun.  I presented a plan to Kristy that we launch from Calhoun and try to climb above the haze.  If the visibility did not improve, we would return to Calhoun.

We bid farewell to the FBO staff at Calhoun, readied Warrior 481 for flight, and launched around 10:00 am.  At 7500', we were still in the haze with approximately five mile visibility.  Automated weather observations ahead of us revealed steadily improving conditions so we decided to press forward.  It was safe, but the view was not inspiring.  Fortunately, there were several airports along the way should the already marginal conditions deteriorate.

Flying in haze is fatiguing.  As a VFR pilot, I don't tend to look at my AI (attitude indicator) very frequently.  Much like flying at night, however, it proved quite useful in the haze for keeping the wings level in lieu of a distinct horizon.  For Kristy, it was boring because there was not much to look at.  Ground features, while visible, were fuzzy and relatively uninteresting.  Taking pictures was absolutely pointless; they would not have been pretty.  The only interesting thing that we saw as we skirted Atlanta's airspace was a C-130 cargo plane.  It was well below us and descending into Columbus, Georgia.  After about one and a half hours of hazy monotony, it was time for a break.

We made for nearby Souther Field in Americus Georgia.  We left the cool air of our cruising altitude and let down into the haze, feeling the heat and humidity rise as we did so.  By the time we turned off of runway 5 and onto the parallel taxiway, Warrior 481 had become a rolling greenhouse.  We popped the door open while still taxiing to the ramp for better ventilation.

Not far from our parking spot was a large field filled with about 40 airplanes.  I had noticed them during landing, but had not truly looked at them until now.

Americus is evidently where crop dusters go to die.

I saw a couple of Piper Pawnee and a Grumman AgCat.  The rest of the aircraft were of the same type and bore the same paint scheme.  I believe they were PZL Dromaders, apparently all belonging to the same fleet of spray planes.  Some had obviously been wrecked and still bore twisted and mangled propellers as evidence.  Others simply appeared to have been left to decay under the open sky.

We also learned that Charles Lindbergh had once flown from Souther Field.  As a student pilot in 1923, at the controls of a Curtiss Jenny, Lindbergh performed his first solo flight at Souther.  It was a fascinating historical footnote.  Otherwise, we found Souther to be hot, humid, quiet, and littered with dead airplanes.

We stretched, snacked, drank water, and used the restrooms at Americus.  But we did not linger long.  When we entered the terminal building, several people were inside talking in the large, comfortable lobby.  They grew quiet as we strolled inside and looked at us as though we had interrupted something secret and important.  Usually, "airplane people" are quite friendly, but we did not feel welcome around this group.  Americus came to be known as "the place with the mean people and dead airplanes".

With Americus at our tail, we climbed back to cooler altitudes and soared into Florida.  We left the haze behind us in Georgia and the visibility was unlimited by the time we crossed the state line.  We looked for the big dotted line on the ground marking the boundary between Florida and Georgia, but were unable to spot it despite having a sectional chart and a GPS showing us exactly where it should have been (whimsy...remember?).

June 23, 2005: Thunderstorms

As we flew over scattered clouds, we observed a number of interesting things on the ground.  First and foremost was the Gulf of Mexico.  Upon seeing it, Kristy composed the "Gulf of Mexico" song right on the spot.  I don't recall any of the words, but it was great fun for at least a couple of minutes.

Frankly, the Gulf did not look significantly different from Lake Michigan; it was just another body of water too wide to see across.  The terrain along the shoreline was quite different, however.  In many places, the coastline of west Michigan features a sharp drop-off to the lake courtesy of the same glacier that created the lake in the first place.  Massive sand dunes along the water are also quite common.  Here, ocean and land tried to coexist at the same elevation, leading to a gradual transition from moist land to shallow ocean.

Florida roads appeared as white lines through the green vista, bleached manmade cuts across the land.  The most striking sight from the air was the Cross Florida Barge Canal, a razor-sharp swath of blue water across the green landscape, courtesy of the Army Corps of Engineers.  About eight miles inland from the gulf, the precisely-cut canal terminated into the amorphous shape of Lake Rousseau.  The strong contrast of blue against green combined with the geometric contrast between natural and fabricated waterways to make for a memorable sight.

Though only 1.5 hours from Fort Myers, we decided to land at Crystal River for lunch.  We landed on runway 9 and taxied to the ramp under the fierce midday sun.

The first thing that drew our attention upon entering the Crystal Aero Group's FBO building was the weather radar depicting vicious thunderstorms perched directly over Tampa.  The storm system formed a line completely across the Florida peninsula, effectively blocking us from our destination in Fort Myers.  On the bright side, this meant that there was plenty of time to get a decent lunch.

On the recommendation of the friendly FBO staff, we walked a short distance to the Olive Tree, a Greek-American restaurant that reminded me of one of our favorites in Kalamazoo.  We both ordered gyros.  For dessert, Kristy ordered baklava to go.  Expecting the usual small piece, she was surprised when the waitress returned with a couple of pounds worth in a small, Styrofoam container.  It was enough to quell her dessert cravings for the next two days!

We returned to the airport around 2:00 to find the airplane fueled and ready to go.  But the storm pummeling Tampa was still going strong.  To pass the time, we read, walked through a nearby park (getting slightly sunburned in the process), and talked with the locals.  From the FBO folks, we learned that a unique aspect of the Crystal River operation is that their flight school draws a large number of international students.  The school offers an on-site bungalow available as lodging, making it perfect for student pilots who are far from home.  Near the entrance to the FBO was a British flag and another I did not recognize (it's been a long time since that "Flags of the World" unit in elementary school).  The flags represented countries of origin for students currently staying with the flight school.

And still the storm raged south of Crystal River.  It was a strange feeling, being stranded under clear, beautiful skies.  But with flash flooding and 80 mph surface winds, the region around Tampa was best avoided.  As the afternoon wore on, the Crystal Aero Group lobby began accumulating waylaid occupants of southbound aircraft.

There was an older couple in a Cessna 182 bound for St Petersburg.  That airport had actually been closed to all traffic.  The woman was determined that they would get home that evening and fiddled petulantly with the weather radar computer as her husband looked on patiently.  Occasionally, she would brag to passersby about the new glass instrument panel installed in their Skylane, then she would sourly note that she was having a difficult time using it.

A well-dressed couple was also eager to depart in a V-tailed Bonanza.  The woman spent much of her time on the phone blaming the delay on their hired pilot, speaking at a volume sufficient for everyone in the room to hear.  The other pilots in the lobby remained quiet during this tirade, and merely looked at the woman with distaste for belittling her pilot's good decision-making.

Another pair emerged from a Cessna 150, looked at the radar, and nonchalantly decided to get dinner.  We decided we liked their attitude and heartily seconded the FBO's recommendation for the Olive Tree.  Overall, it was interesting to observe the varied reactions to the weather-imposed delay.

By 5:00, the storm showed no sign of relenting.  The man from the C-182 approached his wife with a local friend who offered to put them up for the night.  His wife refused at first, adamant that they would return to St Petersburg that evening.  "We'll cook steaks out on the grill," he cajoled with a smile.  "It will be fun."  Finally, she relented and they departed for the evening.

By now, the winds in Crystal River were increasing and the sky was darkening to the south.  The only decision that made sense was to stay the night.   On the advice of FBO personnel, we contacted the local Best Western.  The room was about $90 for the night and the hotel manager personally drove to the airport and picked us up.  Although I had bought 34 gallons of avgas from them, the Crystal Aero Group still charged us an $8 overnight tie-down fee.  This seemed a bit steep, but with the weather conditions deteriorating rapidly, we were captive customers.  

The Best Western Crystal River Resort was the nicest Best Western either of us had ever visited.  The resort sat directly on the bay in Crystal River and was a destination for people wanting to snorkel with manatees.  After freshening up with showers and clean clothes, we went to dinner at Charlie's Fish House and Seafood restaurant.  We had excellent meals of fresh shellfish from the Gulf.

June 24: Arrival at Page Field, Fort Myers

The next morning, I awoke at 6:00 am to get an early start, but a call to the Gainesville Flight Service Station for a weather briefing quickly rendered my early rising moot.  The briefer was quite helpful in giving a detailed picture of the weather in the area.  Unfortunately, current conditions in Florida primarily featured a lot of low ceilings and fog, with storms moving along the eastern side of the state.  The storms were forecast to arrive on the west side by early afternoon, making it clear that there would be a window of opportunity between the time the fog burned-off and the arrival of the storms.  By 8:00 that morning, it appeared that our window had arrived.  We checked out of the hotel and the manager promptly drove us back to the airport.

Most of the flight to Fort Myers was under sunny skies.  Our route avoided the busier airspace around Tampa by taking us over Lakeland.  I enjoyed seeing the Lakeland airport from above as I had spent several days there during Sun 'N' Fun 2005.  As we passed Lakeland, a menacing wall of clouds came into view miles to the east.  It was the remnants of the previous day's storms and, though we were far from them, the clouds were nonetheless disquieting.

The area immediately north of Fort Myers featured a 1600 foot cloud ceiling.  Afraid of getting caught above the clouds so close to our destination, we descended below the deck about 15 miles north of the airport.  We entered the Fort Myers area about 1100 feet above the ground.  I am not fond of flying this low and, on top of this general discomfort, I had additional cause for concern.  The charts depict a number of 1500 foot tall towers north of Page Field and Flight Service had warned me that several of them were unlighted.  I allowed us to drift west of our original course to give the towers a wide berth.  As we approached Fort Myers, the wisdom of this course correction was readily apparent.  When the towers came into sight well east of us, they completely spanned the gap between the earth and the cloud ceiling.  Five miles out of Fort Myers, the cloud ceiling disintegrated and Warrior 481 emerged into bright sunlight.

Page Field was busy that morning.  Per tower instructions, we slipped into the traffic flow for runway 5.  This was actually my second time to Page Field - the first time was shortly after I earned my certificate.  During a visit to Fort Myers, I rented a Cessna 172 with an instructor out of Page.  That previous experience on the field was invaluable for getting my bearings around the airport.  Regardless, of having been there before, it still felt strange to fly the pattern at 800 feet above sea level.  This put me about 75 feet below the field elevation of Kalamazoo such that the numbers I saw on my altimeter looked very wrong as we negotiated the pattern.

We landed reasonably short on runway 5 and comfortably made the A2 taxiway turnoff.  Crossing the hold-short line, I brought Warrior 481 to a stop and waited for instructions from the tower.  As we had approached Page Field, I noted that the tower controller was also handling ground operations.  However, no instructions came and the airspace around Page Field exploded with so much activity that the tower denied another aircraft's request to transition Page's airspace because it was just too congested.  I took advantage of a momentary lull on the tower frequency to remind them I was there.

"Warrior 481 on alpha 2 requesting taxi to the ramp."

The call went unheeded as the controller continued to juggle traffic in his airspace.  I had always been taught that it was inappropriate to switch to the ground control frequency without instructions from the tower, but after several minutes of idling on the taxiway, it was obvious that we had been forgotten.  Kristy and I exchanged "what now?" looks and I switched to the ground frequency.  The same tower controller was working this frequency as well.

"Warrior 481 on alpha 2, requesting taxi to the ramp."  My call remained unanswered.

After another couple of minutes, I tried again.  This time, a new voice answered.  Obviously, reinforcements had arrived to assist the overwhelmed tower controller.

"Warrior 481, allow taxi traffic on alpha to pass, then taxi to the ramp."  I gratefully advanced the throttle and we made our way to the ramp outside the Page Field Aviation Center.  It was frustrating to have been stranded so long on the field, but it was also obvious that the tower controller had been completely saturated.

Before long, Warrior 481 was tied-down, covered, and her wings and cowling cleaned of bugs.  A man on a golf cart greeted us and offered a ride to the Aviation Center.  We declined, wanting to walk after an hour and a half spent in the airplane.  Upon learning that we were from Kalamazoo, he told us that he used to work at Summit Polymer in Kalamazoo, a facility located about two miles from where I work.  Now would probably be the ideal time to insert a "small world" comment were it not for the fact that so many Michiganders retire to Florida.

Lugging our baggage into the lobby of the Aviation Center, we were met by the rest of Kristy's family.  Kristy's sister Lisa asked about the cabin covers on several of the airplanes on the ramp, hypothesizing that airplanes were like horses and needed to be blindfolded to keep them from running off at night (yup, the whole family is whimsical).  The folks at the Aviation Center were quite friendly and saw to topping-off Warrior 481's fuel tanks.  Tie down fees were waived with the fuel purchase.

June 27, 2005: On the "Road" Again

After three days in Fort Myers, it was time to head northward.  Unfortunately, the moving truck had arrived late.  Although six of us had come to Fort Myers to help unpack, Kristy and I were the only ones remaining to help on Sunday, June 26 after the truck was finally unloaded.

Monday morning, current conditions in Fort Myers were ideal for VFR flight despite a high overcast ceiling.  However, the weather briefer warned me that northern Florida and Georgia were under IFR conditions.  Fortunately, visibility was expected to improve within the next two hours and it would take us at least that long to fly that far north.

Our return flight through Florida was a non-event.  Familiar landmarks passed under our wings: Lakeland, Crystal River, the Barge Canal, etc.  Our original plan had been to stop at Cross City, Florida but we decided to press further and eventually landed at Perry-Foley in northern Florida.

June 27, 2005:  The Stinky Place with the Dead Frog

During our descent into Perry-Foley, we passed above an industrial complex and near the peripheral edges of what I assumed to be steam issuing from a stack.  The "burning baby diaper" smell that assaulted us suggested otherwise.  The ramifications of this did not become clear until our return to South Haven when Kristy and I spent an entire afternoon washing Warrior 481 with a paint-safe degreaser to remove the tenacious grime from Perry that coated the airplane.  Lesson learned.

Perry-Foley was a large airport, featuring three large runways arranged in a triangle.  The largest structure on the field was a massive hangar reminiscent of the type built during World War II.  Though a Beechcraft landed ahead of us, the airport was otherwise deserted.  We taxied to the self-service fuel pump and waited for the guys in the Beech to finish refueling.  When it was our turn, we pulled Warrior 481 up to the pump only to discover that the guys ahead of us had forgotten their receipt.  I ran it over to the pilot, who thanked me and explained that they had just flown down from Tennessee.  When I  asked about the visibility through Georgia, he assured me that it was excellent.  Evidently, the fog and haze had dissipated as forecast.

Once refueled, we pushed the Warrior to a tie down spot and went in search of a bathroom.  The entrance to the terminal building was padlocked and Kristy reminded me that the information I had collected on the airport noted that it was irregularly attended.  A sign next to the padlock read, "For after hours entry, use IFF code for lost communications".  We deciphered the trivial aeronautical riddle, opened the lock, and stepped into the terminal.

The terminal building was cool and smelled damp and unused.  A dead, desiccated frog lay on the floor, belly up with its legs splayed.  This earned Perry-Foley the nickname of "the stinky place with the dead frog".  I peeked through a small window in the door that entered the large adjoining hangar and was surprised to see that the entire hangar was filled with Cobra attack helicopters!  This was an intriguing mystery - why would a hangar at a desolate airport in northern Florida be full of attack helicopters?

This may have remained a mystery had the door not opened a moment later.  A man stepped through and seated himself in a nearby chair to rest.  He was wearing a green flight suit emblazoned with the "Florida Division of Forestry" seal.

"Hi folks, what brings you to Perry?"

We explained that we were flying home to Michigan from Fort Myers, Florida.

"And you stopped here?"  There was no criticism in his tone, just surprise.

"We wanted to get fuel and use the bathroom," I explained.

"Well, we've got both of those here, but that's about it."

I asked about the airport and the Cobras.  He explained that Perry-Foley had been a military base in World War II and that P-47 Thunderbolts had been based there.  The large hangar did, indeed, date back to the war.  Now, Perry-Foley was used by the Florida Division of Forestry as a base for Huey helicopters employed for mosquito abatement.

"Those Cobras hopefully have enough spare parts to keep the Hueys running another 20 years."  From my docent role at the Air Zoo, I knew that Cobras were derived from Hueys such that the tail, rotors, and engines were interchangeable.

He invited me into the hangar and showed me some of the Cobras along with a recently-retired Huey painted white and bearing the green shield of the Division of Forestry.  This discovery made the stop in Perry completely worthwhile and once again reinforced what we discovered in Calhoun - that interesting discoveries can be made in obscure places.

June 27, 2005:  Back in Calhoun

The rest of the flight to Calhoun, Georgia was uneventful.  As the Tennessee pilot at Perry-Foley had assured me, the visibility was quite good through Georgia.  Unfortunately, the clouds began to build such that the last 45 minutes of the trip were spent bumping along underneath them at 3000 feet.  The turbulence was relatively minor, but tremendously inconvenient.  By the time we arrived in Calhoun, my shoulders were sore from the constant jolting.  For her part, Kristy weathered the bumps quite well, though she clearly did not enjoy them.

At the fuel pump, we were met by the older man with whom I had passed the morning chatting a few days prior.  He greeted us like we were old friends and, despite having injured his hand the day before, helped us with the self-serve fuel pump.  He was very interested in how our trip went and we gave him some of the details of our travels since we had left Calhoun four days earlier.

We tied Warrior 481 down at the same spot and, before long, Cheryl picked us up.  Back at their home, we talked, laughed, and watched movies.  Dinner that night was at an excellent restaurant called Appalachian Grill.  The food was wonderful and the atmosphere was, well, Appalachian.  As a result, the ambient banjo and fiddle music that suffused the place during dinner stayed lodged in my head with amazing tenacity.

June 28, 2005: Fog at Calhoun - Redux

The next morning was gratingly familiar.  Visibility was less than a mile at Calhoun and the surrounding areas.  I monitored METAR reports throughout the morning.  North of Chattanooga, the visibility improved steadily toward unrestricted, but improvements around Calhoun were proceeding at a far slower pace.

Rainfall the previous night was so severe that it beat its way through the cabin cover and gained entrance through the cabin door.  Because the doors in all Cherokees latch directly above the passenger seat, this left Kristy's seat damp the next morning.  Water had also leaked through the wing roots, dampening carpet on the floor in the back seat.  I was dismayed to find this, but the airplane survived several normal rain showers in Florida without any evidence of moisture in the cabin.  Though I blamed the leaking on the severity of the previous night's storm, I am in no hurry to subject my bird to unnecessary future stays out in the rain.

Finally, late in the morning, the ceiling was high enough for my comfort and the visibility rose to five miles.  Most of the locals opined that we should be able to fly north and into better weather, but I was uncomfortable because of my lack of familiarity with the terrain.  They assured me that, provided we flew north along I-75, there would be no conflicting terrain.

As we departed Calhoun, a wonderful thing happened.  A massive hole opened in the clouds directly over the airport.  We climbed through it in a lazy spiral and leveled off at 8500 feet in the clear.  To the east, the cloud deck was solid.  To the west, multiple breaks allowed occasional peeks of the ground.  Assured by weather broadcasts to the north that the skies were clear, we flew VFR over the top above a beautiful, serene bed of clouds.  As we expected from ATIS and AWOS reports from the north, the cloud cover disintegrated into a scattered layer within 20 minutes north of Calhoun.  We overflew Tennessee without landing and put down into Glasgow, Kentucky for a break.

June 28, 2005: Hazy Hoosier State

Glasgow was a very nice, single runway airport in the hills of Kentucky.  The FBO building had a wonderful, comfortable lobby and an exceptional flight planning area with internet weather availability.  We learned that a severe storm was developing in Illinois and was projected to reach central Indiana by later in the afternoon.  We also learned that Bloomington was surrounded by haze, dropping visibility to an uninspiring, though VFR-legal, four miles.

After a snack, we departed Glasgow and took comfort in knowing that it would be a nice place to return should the weather exceed our comfort level.  Upon reaching the Ohio River, we dove beneath a thickening cloud ceiling and into the haze.  The ride under the clouds was relatively smooth at 3000 feet until we emerged under the occasional hole in the clouds through which the sun's energy was free to work on the ground.  The bumpy thermal activity would cease once we crossed back under the murky ceiling.

As we proceeded northward, the clouds grew darker.  We decided to divert a few miles to the west of our course to French Lick, Indiana.  On our way there, we flew through a scattered rain shower.  At our speed, it was very brief, lasting less than a minute.  Within five miles of French Lick, it was obvious that we had skirted the scattered showers and the way to Bloomington now lay in the (more-or-less) clear.  We changed course again and proceeded to Bloomington.

Before long we were back at BMG on the field at Bloomington.  A check of the weather revealed that the nasty storms from Illinois were nearly to Indianapolis and lay directly in our path.  We decided it was time for a leisurely lunch.

Kristy's friend Kevin from the music department at Indiana University picked us up and we had a nice lunch while getting caught up on each other's lives.  Back at the airport, it was decision time again.  The forecast indicated storms throughout the evening while the next day's forecast showed no sign of thunderstorm activity.  It was time for another overnight stay.

When I asked about the rental house on the field, we were immediately gratified: it was $60 a night, they would include the keys to a car, and it was available.  We took it.

The rental house was a modular home right at the base of the control tower.  The moment we entered and looked around, Kristy commented, "we need to come back here sometime."

It was spectacular inside!  It featured a huge living room with comfy leather sofas and a TV with DVD and VHS movies.  There was an office with a computer and broadband internet access.  There were two bedrooms, three bathrooms, a laundry room, and a full kitchen stocked with food.  Of course, there were some oddities.  The cheap TV in one of the bedrooms received broadcasts from the control tower on all channels.  Kristy was quite amused the next morning while watching the news to hear a booming voice interrupt CNN with, "the Bloomington control tower is now back in service.  All traffic in the area please announce intentions."  For both Kristy and I, the stay in Bloomington was one of the highlights of the trip.

That night we had nice dinner with old friends from the chemistry department.  Afterward, we returned to "our house" for some much needed sleep.

June 29, 2005: Home... Home Again

Though there were no storms predicted for Wednesday, June 29, haze was once again the order of the day.  We took our time leaving Bloomington, driving a courtesy car into town for a solid breakfast.  The morning's excitement revolved around an older man in a pickup truck that tried to drive through us to get into another lane.  It brought back many not-so-fond memories of driving in Bloomington during the five years we lived there.

We departed around 10:00 am, profusely thanking Bob, the owner of BMG, for such a wonderful stay.  Despite the haze, we hoped to get some aerial photographs of Indiana University.  The tower granted permission to circle in their airspace, requesting us to stay at or below 2000 feet to accommodate air traffic coming into Bloomington.

We circled campus a few times, snapping photographs.  The tower carefully kept tabs on us until we departed to the north.  We climbed to 7500 feet, where the haze layer finally dissipated.  Indianapolis approach provided VFR flight following until we reached Kokomo.

Once above South Bend, we were in the home stretch.   At the northern edge of South Bend's airspace, we began a cruise descent toward South Haven.  As the nose pitched down, the attitude indicator began to tumble wildly.  I had suspected that it was on its last legs since buying the airplane in March 2004, but I was nonetheless happy that it failed ten minutes from home rather than in the heavy Georgia haze during our trip south.

I lined up for final approach on Runway 32, the grass runway almost always in line with the winds coming off of nearby Lake Michigan.  Passing into ground effect, I misjudged the flare and Warrior 481 thumped down onto the turf like a brick.  After having made excellent landings at multiple unfamiliar airports over the past week, I was more than a little chagrined to mark our arrival home with a crummy landing.  Fortunately, there were no spectators except for the guys at Robertson's crop dusting.  But considering the precision with which John and Danny handle their Piper Pawnee spray planes, I suspect that even my best landings are beneath their notice.

Overall, the round trip required 21 hours of flight time and a lot of faith from my wife in  my piloting and decision-making skills.  We saw the country from a perspective few ever attain and successfully faced a number of perils: thunderstorms, dead frogs, overworked air traffic controllers, airplane purgatory, cobras, and overnight parking fees.  We visited some interesting places and met some great people in true "road trip" fashion.

On the return flight, Kristy jokingly suggested that she should start a website to rate airports from the perspective of pilot spouses.  "Hand lotion and lint rollers in the bathrooms are far better amenities than dead frogs," she observed, laughing.

But most important was Kristy's answer to the question I posed to her at journey's end:

"Now that the trip is done, are you more or less likely to want to do it again?"

"More," was her immediately reply.

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