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Heading to The Mountain

Capt Sandy

Well Known Member
Starting our journey to Petit Jean! All this has to fit in the RV - no problem, right? (Can you tell I love packing cubes??) Can hardly wait to see our friends on the mountain :)

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To Get to the Mountain, Go Past the Mountains

The air was incredibly clear flying down the Willamette Valley. We named the volcanoes as we flew past: Black Butte, Mt. Adams, Three Finger Jack, Mt. Washington, Broken Top, Faith, Hope and Charity (The Sisters, which are the three closest together volcanoes in N. America), and Bachelor. We flew close enough to Shasta to get these photos

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The Trinity Alps out the other side of the plane
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Lake Shasta
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Lunch stop at Nancys Diner in Willows, KWLW
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Then, on to Rosamond to visit our friends Rosie and Tuppergal.
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A wonderful day made possible by our Time Machine. Tomorrow continuing our trek eastward. Pippa is helping navigate to her new home in Arizona (her person, my daughter, moved to Mesa a month ago.)
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Trek to Petit Jean - Finding food in the desert

We left Rosamond fairly early with the intention of getting fuel for the plane and fuel for the people at Apple Valley - KAPV. So nice to have smooth air over the desert. I?ll get desert pics tomorrow. I was getting ?hangry? so not at all pleased to find the Apple Valley diner closed. Roy filled the plane, and told me to hop in, breakfast was not far away. We flew to Hesperia L26. The restaurant there makes great food. Turns out, they are closing too... to move to Apple Valley! They open at KAPV in a couple weeks. Yay!!

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Mission to deliver grand-dog to daughter in Mesa completed. The plane will be a lot lighter without the bag of dog food, dog treats, dog dishes, dog coat, dog bed, dog car seat....

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Now... on toward Petit Jean. Where shall we stop tomorrow? What will the weather be? Every day is a new adventure.

(I will miss Pippa the Great and Terrible)
 
Whoop!!!

Boy do I know about the dog load. Who loves their doggie!!!?? <insert your own pic here>

Skylar in the tent completely pooped out at Petit Jean, WAY past her bed time.
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And on the way home (2017). This is the only pic I could find with her eyes open, not DOG Sleeping.
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I bet KMPJ will look nothing like this at all. Sometimes, it is a bit on the quiet side.
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Easting to the Mountain

Every day is a new adventure.

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Chandler, Az to E77, DMN, El Paso, then planned fuel stop at Wink, Texas. Climb to 7500ft.
Climb to 9500 for terrain. Probably cooler, smoother and have more terrain ahead so go ahead and climb to 11500ft.
Fly a little south to avoid MOA?s. Then back on course to DMN.
Notice we have a 25 knot tailwind! Yay!
54 mins after take off and we?re in New Mexico!

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We don?t really want to go as far south as El Paso, so put in waypoint for intersection WHOLE, which is east of intersection waypoint MOLEY. :)

Guadalupe National Park
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There?s a line of clouds at our altitude north of El Paso, so climb to 13,500ft.
Pass Guadalupe National Park whose spires always feel like the gateway to the west - or in this case, leaving the west. Then its downhill to Wink, Texas at 300ft/min.

Lunch stop at Wink - the less glamorous side of airplane travel
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Captured a photo of one of the Wink Sinks - a place where the earth has collapsed into a crater because water from fracking dissolved salt pockets. This one is about the size of 3 football fields.
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Today, onward to Petit Jean

P.S. This post is a day late. Catching up due to fun time visiting in Round Rock, Texas.
 
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