Yes, I believe!!
After two straight weekends of nothing but short hops in the local area (I'm sorry, Brenham is a wonderful place to go and get together with folks, but with continent-hopping capability, the Val doesn't consider that trip worthy of being called a cross-country), it was more than time to go and stretch our legs a bit! a little over an hour flying time isn't much, but it's better than the half-hour acro flights between thundershowers. (Houston has now had rain something like 37 of the past 40 days...)
I launched for Llano on the hopes of meeting up with Mark and his RV-10 out of Lockhart. My plan was to give Cooper's BBQ a try (can you Texans believe I'd never been there?!), and then drop by my Kestrel property north of San Antonio to see how it had reacted to all the rain. The cruise over was smooth and cool at 6500' - there was a high thin overcast over the Austin/San Antonio area, the remnants of anvils from the previous day's thundershowers. The area south of my course had a low broken layer of cumulus that was being kept from vertical development by the high layer, so it was actually helping keep the weather calmed down.
I landed at Llano about an hour and ten minutes after engine start at Pearland, once again proving the landscape-gulping nature of the RV. When I pulled up to the fuel pump, I was informed that they had been sucked dry by some big twins who came for the low price, and the tanks were empty! Good thing I still had half a load of fuel, and Kestrel tries to keep their prices lower than anyone around. Mark landed with Chuck and Tim aboard shortly after I did, and we grabbed one of the courtesy vans for the ride in to Cooper's. In the interest of peace among Texans, I am not going to compare Cooper's to any of the other BBQ destinations....but I will say it was Dang Good! The cobbler alone would be worth the trip!
The few echoes I had seen on the 396 on the trip up (light, low rain showers) had disappeared completely by the time we were ready to leave, and the short trip down to Kestrel was smooth. I was looking across the Hill Country for signs of all the recent flooding, and aside from the obviously swollen rivers and reservoirs, I was surprised to see little els. I know a lot of folks were flooded - I guess they were in more populous areas. I mentioned this to Louise, and said that to me, it seemed like the porous limestone of the Hills quickly absorbed the water. She said "yeah, and that means that all of the caves are flooded!" Well, yeah...I guess the sponge does get full....Fortunatley, the Kestrel Airpark is pretty high, and while a little mud was apparent in the low spots, there didn't appear to be anything the worse for wear, so I fueled up ($3.46/gallon), and headed home.
Fifty-five minutes later I was touching down at home base after a nice cruise at 7500' in the cool smooth air above the broken cumulus - no sign of showers in sight! I don't know how long this dry weather will last, but I hope it is at least a few more days....my lawn is getting long enough to hide a cat!
Another fine day of flying and BBQ made possible by the RV-8....
Paul
Blue Sky in Central Texas!!
. I found a little 20mi. hole that allowed me to go up to 5k' for a while and it was smooth indeed. It didn't last long for me though as my little hole moved outside my comfort zone. There is nothing worse than completing an RV in the middle of a freak Texas monsoon season. My opinion anyway. The sun was a welcome sight on this great Sunday.
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