Airventure 2016 Day 1
No passenger this year so I had a little extra room for things like beer, water, and oxygen.
I worked today and we had originally planned to leave about 4pm. When I check the weather at lunch I saw that afternoon thunderstorms were forecasted in the cascades. "Oh crap we better get out of here!". So I left a little early and we mangaged to take off just before 2pm. You can't quite see him in the picture but Darin's friend Martin is riding with him.
Things were starting to build towards the South but our route still looked good.
Cruising along at 13,500ft...
with oxygen! I am smiling you just cant tell.
Helena, MT
Canyon Ferry Lake
Townsend
It ended up being a really nice first leg of our trip. We were so glad we left early because by the time we made it to Idaho they had issued a Convective Sigmet for the Cascades. (Convective Sigmets and flying don't go well together.) The Rockies ended up being pretty turbulant at times but were clear and a million.
$3.82 a gallon, what a deal!
The old Chevy van is still here so we drove it to dinner and the motel.
Dinner at the Mint.
This year instead of setting up the tents we thought we'd give the local Mustang Motel a whirl. It wasn't the best night of sleep that's for sure. Darin and Martin had a room in the front and heard trains all night. (Mine was a little quieter in the back.) That and they seemed to have shut off the "central" air conditioner about 11pm. Even though the rooms also had portable fans they just weren't enought and it was warm and stuffy. Oh well what do you expect for $42 a night. Not sure I would have slept great anyway with the trip on my mind.
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