GA TO PA 3.0

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I just completed my third annual trip from Perry, Georgia (PXE) to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (MDT). 571 nm each way. This year it was my 13 year-old-son, Bruce's turn to go along. Goals for the trip included:

• See how well my new Garmin 396 with XM weather worked.
• Get together with my brother's family to do yard work at my mother's house.
• Show my son Dale's Drum Shop and go to Guitar Center.
• Visit friends, eat some great food, and enjoy the beautiful weather.

We left PXE on Saturday the 19th just ahead of all the rain which inundated Georgia a few hours later. We were VFR above a mostly solid overcast which abruptly ended around central Virginia. Then it was "severe clear" and absolutely gorgeous! We made a precautionary fuel stop in Frederick, Md. (FDK) even though we only had another thirty minutes and enough fuel with reserves. It tickled me that we could have made it non-stop due to the tail winds and my aggressive leaning enroute.

We had lunch at the airport restaurant, fueled up, and departed for MDT. With the outstanding visibility we could see Harrisburg soon after departing FDK and enjoyed a leisurely flight over the bucolic Maryland farmland.
The rest of our trip was spent doing yard work, eating, visiting friends, and looking at drums and guitars. Hopefully next year we will visit Dale's Drum Shop again with a shopping list for the dream set of drums which I could never seem to afford. We will spend an entire day picking out the drums, cymbals, stands, etc. and Dale will have them shipped to my home in Ga. http://www.dalesdrumshop.com/

The flight back to PXE on Tuesday the 22nd started out much like our flight on Saturday, crappy weather to depart - beautiful weather for arrival. MDT was "few at 4000 and overcast at 9000”. We departed and had to go through a little light precip - shown on the 396. Going past the DC area was a little dicey - had to stay clear of the Class B to our left and moderate precip to our right. Throw in a 757 and 737 on approach to Dulles. It was interesting. Past DC we had significant precip to our left but no precip and a scattered layer to our right (west) so we stayed on course just to the right of the GPS track.

Making our way towards Charlotte, NC we could see the sun and clear skies ahead which would be our reward for coming through the clag further north. I elected to make a fuel stop at Union County (35A) which turned out to be a good decision - $3.50 fuel. We topped off with 27 gallons then departed into an absolutely stupendous late afternoon southern sky. We had another hour to go and killed time by listening to The Boneyard on the XM radio. It's fantastic to be able to talk with your son about music and the bands we were listening to: "Hey Brucie I had that record when I was your age" or "I saw that band in concert when I was 15". Great father/son bonding - priceless.

After over 400 hrs in my RV9 I am still amazed how well my little time machine works. It has never let me down and is always a source of great pride and satisfaction.

P.S: While we were gone, my daughter mentioned to a friend that her father and brother were in Pennsylvania. "My dad has an airplane and they flew up for the weekend."
"Really? That is sooo cool."