It is Friday, June 15 and we are on our way. A storm system was predicted to move through St. Louis on Thursday night and Friday morning with two days of good weather to follow. We decided to leave today to take advantage of the prediction. Our day started out with the car breaking down on the way to the airport! Our daughter Maria rescued us. We managed to get into the air at 3:00pm, headed for Greenfield, Iowa. Headwinds kept our ground speed down to 85 mph for the first two hours. After that we were making 95 to 100 mph. Because we landed at Greenfield after normal hours we had to call the local police to get fuel. They arrived in no time and we were soon on our way. We headed for Piere, South Dakota. We had beautiful skies until north of Omaha, Nebraska. A line of thunderstorms were across our path. We diverted to Omaha and decided to call it a day. We have managed to make about 400 miles today. The great thing is that after all the waiting we are finally on our way. The plane performed great. We had light turbulance for the first 200 miles. The second leg was as smooth as glass. We got to view some beautiful farmland and forests. The visibility was better than 50 miles.
It is Sunday, June 17. We have been unable to get Internet access the last two days. Here is an update.
We left Omaha headed for Pierre, South Dakota. It was beautiful flying weather. Still had headwinds, though. I had a headache when I got up and it was getting worse. We decided to stop in Mitchell, South Dakota. I thought I could take some aspirin, have lunch and relax. Maybe that would cure my headache. As we were taxiing to the ramp a Bonanza driver radioed in that he was going to land in about ten munutes. He requested that they call CABELA'S for a ride to their store. For those of you that are not familiar with Cabela's, it is a mail order store for sportsmen. They have about five stores around the country. I suggested that we go along and have lunch and sightsee. What a store!!! It is packed with "big boy's toys." There are more fishing rods than you will ever see in one place. The place is beautiful and decorated with hundreds of mounted amimals. Rosemary and I had a fine lunch. She had a roast beef sandwich. Those who know me will understand that I was unable to resist the Smoked Ostrich Sandwich. Cabela's is were Rosemary and I order the exotic meats we serve around Christmas. My headache was gone so it was back to the airport and on to Pierre.
A quick stop at Pierre for fuel and we were on our way to Miles City, Montana for the night. All along the way the scenery has been beautiful. The headwinds give us plenty of time to look at it!
We won't be stopping at the Miles City Airport on our way back! I do not recommend it to any pilots!
On Sunday we left Miles City for Havre, via Glasgow, Montana. We had a TAILWIND for the first time! I actually saw ground speeds of 157 for a while! When we turned toward Havre our speed dwindled and we decided to make a stop in Glasgow. Everybody at Prairie Aviation was freindly and helpful. Steve and Scott Stanley of Prairie Aviation are hoping to own their late grandfather's 1957 Tri-Pacer. We gave them a brochure of the Short Wing Piper Club. Our next stop was Havre where we contacted Canada Customs and advised them we were on our way to Lethbridge. What a bumpy ride!!! We were delayed at customs for about an hour. They didn't know if my survival rifles were legal in Canada. I had checked months ago and knew they were. I was finally given the official "okee dokee" and allowed to proceed.
Due to the bumpy ride and the prediction of even worse, we decided to spend the night in Lethbridge. We have been hearing along the way that five fellow "Short Wingers" are proceeding us along the way. The front desk told us that another Anchorage bound "Short Winger" is staying here. We haven't met any of them yet.
June 18. Today was a great day. We flew about 600 miles. We started at Lethbridge. Our first stop was at Red Deer. After fueling we flew to Grande Prairie via Whitecourt. After fueling at Grande Prairie we flew on to Fort St. John. The weather started out with low clouds that kept us at only 2500 feet above the ground. As the flights progressed the weather got better and better. We still stayed fairly low because of the light headwinds which would probably get worse at higher altitudes. As there was still about four hours of daylight we wanted to go further. Unfortunately the storm clouds were building. Flight service reported that they would continue to build throughout the evening. We decided to check in at the local Ramada. Tomorrow we will head to Fort Nelson. According to my GPS (Global Positioning System) we are 1836 miles from Creve Coeur and 1092 miles from Anchorage. (That is direct.) Our course has covered 2142 miles in 23.2 flying hours. We have seen some beautiful country and more is to come. We had one bad encounter to day in Fort St. John. We were taking photos of some helicopters and met the North Country's ferocious mosquitos! They are relentless! Now we know why headnets and repellant are so highly recommended.
June 19, 2001
It is Tuesday and we had a great day flying to Whitehorse, Yukon Territories, Canada. At our first stop, Fort Nelson, we met Ron and Trisha Enck from Oregon. They are going to the convention in their 150 horsepower Tri-Pacer. We had lunch with them and the four of us departed for our next stop, Watson Lake. Their airplane has 15 more horsepower and a climb prop. They were quickly up to 6500 feet while we were struggling through 4500 feet. The approach into Watson Lake, as well as the departure, is over the water. We don't have floats so I am happy to say that our little Lycoming did not let us down. Another quick fueling and we were on our way to Whitehorse. At the hotel in Fort St. John we had met two gentlemen, Ozzie and Al, who are flying a beautiful Bellanca Cruise-Aire to Alaska. They departed before us and fly faster. That proved to be very fortunate for us. While we were still 100 miles out of Whitehorse the Whitehorse Flight Service Station (FFS) called us on the radio. They told us a gentleman we had met in Fort St. John wanted us to know that hotel rooms were nearly unavailable in Whitehorse. He would make a reservation for us if we wanted to remain over night. We readily accepted his considerate offer. The desk clerk later told us that shortly after our reservations were made they had to start sending turning room requests away. You meet some kind and friendly people in our hobby. Ron and Tricia camped at the airport. The rest of us took a stroll around town and had a fine dinner.
June 20. 2001
It is Wednesday and we are going to try to make it to Anchorage. The Whitehorse FSS told us that it should be a beautiful day for a flight to Northway, Alaska. We should have a slight tailwind. They had one caution, however. We should be alert for roadway blasting in the area of Burwash, with "debris up to 8000 feet!" Luckily we made it over Burwash without getting any projectiles through our flying machine. On this trip I was at the advantage by having the slower airplane. The weather started to deteriorate. With Ron flying ahead he could report back on just how bad it was getting. Luckily we always had plenty of visibility and altitude. When we crossed the Alaskan border into the U.S. it was sunny and beautiful overhead but a rainstorm was building ahead. It was just to the right of our route to Northway. We managed to pass under the edge with the rain to our right and back out into the sunshine for a landing at a sunny Northway. The U.S. Customs agent asked us a few easy questions and we were legally back in the U.S. We pulled the plane over to the fuel pumps and got in line behind several planes. While we were talking someone shouted "Look, there's a moose crossing the runway." Sure enough, there was this big creature lumbering across the spot we had just touched down on. I don't think hitting it on landing would have done us, our airplane or Bullwinkle any good! We fueled the planes and tied them down. Thunderstorms were forming all around. We heard thunder and the temperature dropped noticably, but it remained sunny and no rain fell on Northway. The FSS reported that the storms would continue to build during the afternoon but it should improve later in the day. I was tired and decided it would be a nice time to take a nap. I spread a blanket under the wing, used a seat cushion to lay on, a rolled up jacket for a pillow and laid down. Several hours later the weather had cleared and I felt rested. We departed for Fairbanks. That's right, Fairbanks. We decided to go there so that we would have several days to sightsee without having to fly again to get to the Saturday barbeque. The flight was beautiful, smooth and cool. We were trying to see more moose or bears but from 3000 feet it is not easy. As we approached Fairbanks several forest fires were visible to the South. The smoke loomed high into the sky and extended over Fairbanks. It was impressive but didn't affect our flight. Fairbanks Approach Control was busy directing the firebomber aircraft to the fires and informing other pilots about the restrictions against flying in the area while firefighting was in progress. By the time we got settled into the hotel it was eleven p.m. and we were starving. The only choice we had was to have pizza delivered to our room. We had our "midnight snack" and went to sleep about one in the morning. It was still daylight. I awoke at 3:15 am and thought it was time to get up. The sun was STILL shining. I don't think it ever got dark last night. Hopefully tororrow will be a day to relax and sightsee. It has been a fantastic trip. The plane has performed great.
Updating the web site daily has been difficult. Most days it has been impossible to get internet access. Right now we are using the computer center at the University of Fairbanks. They have been very gracious.
WE HAVE BEEN HAVING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH THE PHOTOS. WE ARE TRYING TO CORRECT THEM. PLEASE STAND BY.
June 22, 2001. Yesterday we rented a car so we could get around Fairbanks. We drove out to the airport to arrange to have the airplane fueled. When we had landed we had been too tired to do it. We then went to the airplane camping area to see who was there. There were about eight Short Wings but all the travelers were gone. (We returned later in the evening and socialized with them.) Being the Summer Solstice, Fairbanks was having a Midnight Sun festival. There was a car show, bands, food and crafts. The longest food line was for "Elephant Ears." They seem to be a HUGE deep fried pastry covered with cinnamon sugar. I guess they are the Fairbanks version of funnel cakes. You know the line is long if I didn't try one! I wish I could get the photos to work. We have one of Rosemary standing by a bank time and temperature sign. It says "12:00." That is MIDNIGHT and it is bright as day even though the sky is overcast and forest fire smoke is overhead. Tonight is the barbeque out at the Fairbanks International airplane campground and tomorrow we depart for Arctic Circle! I have really been looking forward to this portion of the trip.
June 23, 2001...Today was a highpoint on our trip. We flew North of the Arctic Circle to Bettles, Alaska. I have wanted to put such a flight in my log book since I thought of the idea a year ago. We took off for the 179 mile trip about 9 am. The flight was smooth and cool. We flew over rolling tundra and along the Alaska pipeline. Scenic clouds were off to our left the entire flight with the Brooks Range in the distance when we landed. The weather at Bettles was magnificent! It was about 75 degrees. It was impossible to tell that you were so far North from the weather. We ate halibut for lunch. (When someone asks me why I wanted to fly North of the Arctic Circle I can now answer: "Just for the halibut!") The flight back to Fairbanks was cool but a little bit bumpy. Fairbanks was easy to locate, just aim for the left of the forest fires. After fueling at Fairbanks we departed for Anchorage. We tried to go around the smoke from the fires but had to go through it. Airliners were reporting the smoke up to 13,000 feet, too high for our Tri-Pacer to go over. The visibility was terrible for about 35 miles and then abruptly cleared up. The remainder of the flight was more beautiful mountains with Denali looming on our right. Impressive is an understatement! We were worried about going through "Windy Pass." We had been told about how turbulent it can be. We got lucky. It was so smooth that we were still worrying about it when we were already through it. The descent into the Anchorage area took us over a beautiful valley and ocean inlets. We had also been warned numerous times about how busy this area is and to be on the lookout for other aircraft. Again we were lucky. Approach Control sent us directly to Merrill Field and the tower cleared us to land while we were still a long way out. After making one of the best landings on this trip, we taxied to the ramp. We got out of the plane and I kissed Rosemary and 8976C, in that order! I was still trying to contact ground control on the radio to close my flight plan when Will Schaffner walked up. He and Carl had just arrived in Anchorage on the TWA flight from St. Louis and were there to pick us up. What great timing! They drove us to the hotel and then we went out for a liesurely dinner. What a great day! I sure slept soundly that night.
June 24, 2001 After a night's rest we were ready to see the town. So far we have gone to Lake Hood and Lake Spenard seaplane bases and toured the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum. The museum has some nicely restored aircraft and numerous exibits. I especially liked the World War I and World War II exibits. They have some rare items on display. Can you sense my jealousy? We registered for the convention at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. UAA is where the convention is headquartered. At the seaplane bases we were impressed by the various types of seaplanes, singles, twins, turbines, etc. Tomorrow we are scheduled to take a DC-3 flight around Mount McKinley. We are looking forward to that. "Tune in Tomorrow." I am now going to try to upload more photos. Check out the "Our Scrapbook" page to see if I am successful. P.S. Still no Internet access at the hotel. University of Alaska is again letting us use their computers.
June 25, 2001. I forgot to mention yesterday that Rosemary and I attended mass at Holy Family Cathedral in downtown Anchorage. It is a beautiful church. The usher told us he was from Belleville, Illinois! Small world. At the end of mass the priest asked for a show of hands from any visitors. At least two thirds of the congreation raised their hands. Today we take the DC-3 flight around Mount McKinley. I will report on that tomorrow. This evening the convention starts off with an evening "icebreaker." I just put four more photos in the scrapbook. Check them out. Hello to everyone at 1HO. According to our GPS we have traveled 4,153 miles in 43 hours and fifty minutes. That includes the trip to the Arctic Circle. Our average speed has been 94.7 MPH.
June 26, 2001 Yesterday we were scheduled to take the flight around Mount McKinley in the vintage DC-3. We arrived at the airport only to be told that our flight had been canceled. Bummer! We would have made a total of six passengers. Their minimum for a flight is ten passengers. If they had informed us of this when we verified our reservations the day before, I am sure we could have talked enough Short Wing members into going along. Having some extra time on our hands we went back to the seaplane bases to watch more water takeoffs and landings. We then decided to take a drive into the mountains. The drive up to the Arctic Valley area gave us some scenic views of the Anchorage area and Cook Inlet. As we were reaching to top of the mountain we saw signs that read "Fee Area." Several police cars were stoped on the road with their emergency lights on. I pulled up to them thinking they wanted to collect some "fee" for traveling in this area. One of the officers asked me if we needed any help. I told him we were just tourists sightseeing. He politely asked me to contunue driving farther up the road as we were stopped in an area in which they were conducting an investigation. We never heard anything on the news about what they were doing. We can now claim to have seen some "bears" in the Alaska forests. We drove back to Anchorage just in time for the "icebreaker" at the University of Alaska Anchorage hangar at Merrill Field. It marks the start of the convention and is a good time to renew old friendships and meet new Short Wing members. After the icebreaker we did a short driving tour of downtown Anchorage, ending up at Cook Inlet. We watched fishermen and a great sunset. It made for a relaxing evening.
Today we attended some aviation seminars and the member luncheon at the UAA. The first two seminars were "Glacier Flying" and "Float Flying." They were very informative. We broke for lunch and a presentation by the guest speaker, Sean Farley. Mr. Farley is a research biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game studying moose, wolves, walrus and bears. He gave a very interesting talk and slide show about his research. It was especially interesting to learn how he tracks and studies bears using GPS technology. After lunch we attended a seminar about the Capstone Project by Leonard Kirk, Assistant Director of UAA's Aviation Technology Division. It is a project being tried in Alaska to enhance a pilot's situational awareness and prevent mid-air collisions or flight into terrain. Tonight we have an evening at the "Fly By Night Club." It is billed as "The club the tourism bureau doesn't want you to know about." They are supposed to have hilarious skits. I'll report on the show tomorrow.
June 28, 2001. The "Fly By Night Club", Tuesday night, was hilarious. The skits and songs poke fun at Alaskans and Alaska, politicians, SPAM, the weather, moose poop and much more. To say it is irreverant is an understatement. There are parodies on Elvis Presley, Bill Clinton, Martha Stewart, Ethyl Merman, etc. If you are ever in Anchorage it is something you will have to experience for yourself.
Yesterday we went on the flying poker run. I sat back and let Carl do the flying. He did a great job. We left Merrill Field for stops at Birchwood, Palmer, Talkeetna, Wassilla and Willow. The landing at Willow was especially difficult! At Willow we enjoyed a "fish feed" of Alaskan halibut and salmon. Delicious! We should stay away from the gambling boats. The four of us couldn't manage to get so much as a measly pair! The last leg of the day, back to Merrill, was delayed by a rain shower. We spent the time while we were waiting talking with other SWPC members. The short flight back to Merrill was around another shower with a landing at 10:00 PM with plenty of daylight remaining.
Today, June 28, we took a motor coach excursion (bus trip) to Portage Glacier. On the way we stopped at an Alaska big game habitat. They have bison, elk, caribou, Sitka black-tailed deer and a brown bear for viewing. The lake and glacier is breathtaking. An excursion boat takes you right up to the face of the glacier. There were icebergs floating in the lake but the glacier was not accomodating today. We did not get to see it "calve." On the way back from Portage we went to Alyeska, Alaska and rode the tram 2300 feet up to the restaurant. We ate lunch with a mountain, lake and glacier view. This evening was the banquet and awards ceremony which signals the end of the convention. We enjoyed a fine dinner. Carl won the only attendance prize of any of the four of us. A gift certificate for a hand-carved wooden desk model of his aircraft! It will be quite a nice addition to his office. Tomorrow we are going to see more glaciers. We will travel by Alaska Railroad to Prince William Sound. There we will board a boat for another glacier tour. The train brings us back to Anchorage in the evening.
Ooops! It is late and the management of the computer lab just informed me that we have to depart in five minutes. There will be no new photos tonight. Sorry. We are having a great time. More later.
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July 1, 2001. We are on the return trip. We made it to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. We landed at 10:30 PM local time. We are going to stay overnight at the Family Hotel. We have to get some sleep. "Talk" to you later.
It is Monday,July 2. We just went over to Flight Service to check on the weather. We could probably get to Watson Lake but no further. Pilots who went past Watson Lake have had to return due to weather. A lot aviators are staying there and Watson Lake is pretty isolated. We would probably have to camp. We decided to stay another night in Whitehorse. We have rented a car and will do some sightseeing.
Let me bring you up to date on our travels since my last detailed update. On Friday we took the Alaska Railroad trip to Whittier and Prince William Sound. The train ride was relaxing and gave us time to get away from the hustle and bustle of the long flight and convention events that had kept us so busy for the last several weeks. The glacier tour on the ship "Emerald Sea" was also relaxing. We dined on more salmon and halibut while watching the scenery. Once the captain brought the ship within touching distance of a waterfall on shore! We saw sea otters, eagles, seals, a beluga whale and a lot more. The glaciers we saw were much more active than at Portage. We got to see them calve. Not the spectacular ones you see in movies, but still dynamic. The sounds of the glacier groaning and popping were exciting. At times it sounded like guns or cannons firing. Another relaxing train ride brought us back to Anchorage at about 9:30 PM. We ate at a nice restaurant we found in downtown Anchorage. I ordered the Red Salmon Chowder. It was unbelievably good! We did the typical tourist walk around the souvenir shops and it was time for bed.
Saturday we drove to the Kenai Peninsula area and the town of Homer. As you near Homer you see snow covered volcanos across Cook inlet. It is beautiful country. We ate on the "spit" that extends from Homer out into Cook Inlet. It is basically a sand bar about two miles wide and five miles long. It is a tourist haven. Besides the eateries and gift shops there are numerous businesses offering fishing tours. We watched the fishing boats bringing in the catches. One halibut weighed in at 139 pounds! We ate on the spit and drove around to see the sights. One sight was a Piper Aztec on floats. On the trip to the peninsula we saw a moose grazing on the side of the road. On the return trip a moose and two small calves were grazing right on the edge of the road. They were almost in the small town.
I hope the weather is better tomorrow. We would like to get on with our trip.
July 2, 2001. We rented a car and did some sightseeing in Whitehorse. We went to Miles Canyon. The Yukon River cut the canyon out of the rock. We walked accross a suspension bridge over the river. We also toured the world's largest wooden fish ladder. The ladder lets the trout get upstream, past the hydro-electric plant, to spawn. We didn't get to see any fish using the ladder because they usually don't head upstream until late July. Another nice halibut dinner and we were ready for bed.
July 3, 2001. We woke up this morning to overcast skies. After breakfast we checked the forecast. Flight Service predicted the weather would clear about noon. We checked out of the hotel and went to load 76C. When we got to our airplane Ron & Trisha's plane was parked nearby. We had last seen them at the convention banquet. After the banquet everyone had gone their seperate ways. We had not given our new friends an "official" goodbye. We found them and ended up flying with them to Watson Lake. They decided to stay overnight at Watson Lake to do some fishing. Ron can't seem to pass a damp spot on the highway without wanting to throw a hook into it! We said our formal goodbyes and told them we hoped to see them in Odessa, Texas next year. That is were the 2002 SWPC convention will be. While we were standing on the ramp a beautiful Bellanca landed. It was Ozzie and Al. We had not seen them since our dinner together in Whitehorse on the way North. Flying seems to be a catalyst to make friends fast. We flew with them as far as Ft. Nelson were they decided to spend the night. The weather was beautiful so we decided to take advantage of it to fly another 200 miles. We bade them goodbye, hoping to see them again sometime, and flew on. The predicted weather deteriorated and we flew through some of the worst weather of the trip. The landing at Fort St. John was a welcome event.
July 4, 2001. Happy Fourth of July to everyone!!! It looks like we will be spending Independence Day in Canada. The skies look good. We will try to make some more progress toward home. I will keep you posted. Eat some barbecue and light a sparkler for us.
There is now a "Photo Page 3." Check out the new photos.
Today is July 5, 2001. Yesterday we left Fort St. John, British Columbia. We stopped at Whitecourt, British Columbia for a quick fuel stop and continued on to Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. This area of Canada was having record heat. Temperatures were in the 85 to 90 degree range. Due to headwinds we did not climb into cooler air. This leg of the journey was uncomfortable. It was late when we landed so we went directly to the Ramada, had a quick sandwich and went to bed. Some of the Canadians we met during the day made it a point to wish us a happy Independence Day. Very thoughtful of them.
Today we departed Lethbridge for the U.S. We crossed the border and cleared customs at Havre, Montana. To avoid another unpleasant stop at Miles City we flew 350 miles to Dickinson, North Dakota. Our GPS tells us we have 836 miles left to go to get back to Creve Coeur. If the weather is accommodating we may get back tomorrow. We have had a great time but will be happy to get back home. We have lots to tell you and many great photos.
