What do Minneapolis, Ankeny, IA, a baseball tournament, a funeral, a
kid at camp, and an RV-9A have in common? Well, this weekend they
all came together to allow my family make the best of a tough
situation.
My son Ryan had a baseball tourney in Ankeny, IA this weekend (Fri - Sun)
and my daughter Kate was at scout camp a few miles away in Boone, IA. We had planned to drive down to make a family weekend of it by staying at the Holiday Inn Express Ankeny (Woke up an expert on something this morning).
Things were going very well until we found out Thursday night that the father of my wife's best friend died and the funeral was Saturday morning. Time for plan B. I told my wife we could use the plane to make it work. So, my wife drove the minivan to Ankeny and I was "forced" to fly the RV down to KIKV with my son later on Friday afternoon.
The RV let me get in a full day of work and still make parent's night at the scout camp. It also allowed my wife and me to fly back to Minne for the funeral Sat morning, and then get back to Ankeny in time for the second game of the tourney.
I can name every little airport between Minne and Des Moines after flying over them 4 times in 2 days.
I also got to welcome Louise Hose to Anoka on the departure of my second trip to Iowa.
Oh, did I mention I had fun? One leg with my son, 2 legs with my wife and the home stretch with my favorite co-pilot, my younger daughter, Kate. We finished second in the the tournament and blissfully, baseball is over for the year.....
- 211 nm per leg = 844 nm total
- 6.8 on the hobbs, 35 gal 100LL = 27+ smpg
- saved nearly 5 hours on the round trip for the funeral
KIKV in Ankeny is a nice airport. Good tiedowns and an F-86 Sabre on the ramp. It ended up being walking dist from the Holiday Inn.
To Iowa and back - twice
Linear Mode
