Date:      Saturday, August 2, 1997
States:    IA, MN, SD, ND, MT, WY, UT
Weather:   Fog! burning to clear, then 
           bumpy under the cumulus as 
           we fly westward
Altitude:  6,00 - 10,500 ft MSL
Dep Time:  9:55am CDT (1455 UTC)
Arr Time:  5:56pm MDT (2356 UTC)
Airtime:   7 hr 50 min
Distance:  985 nm
Avg Speed: 126 kts
Fuel Burn: 98 gal

    Whew! What a long day! We knew that it would be; we had decided to get all the way to Utah today. As we had planned, we left for the airport at 6:30am, with two other couples flying private planes, as it turns out. Well, there was fog so thick you couldn't see across the street! We all groaned and piled out of the van into the FBO. I called FSS and found that the fog also reached to our next destination, Worthington, Minnesota (OTG). The fog was expected to dissipate only as the day warmed up. We didn't want to launch in zero/zero conditions anyway. I checked in with FSS every 30 minutes and by 9am we had sudden improvement at Sioux City and at Worthington, Minnesota, so we all piled into our planes and went our various ways.

    One fellow Mooney pilot had experienced a real scare the night before while on final when a F-16 blew by for a photo shoot. He filed a complaint with the tower supervisor and he was still stinging from the unexpected appearance of an F-16 at 300 knots within a couple of hundred feet. Imagine the fright that they got!

    Anyway, we took off and climbed immediately out of the fog. It was only a few hundred feet thick. We flew over the fog layer all the way to Worthington, which was clear when we arrived. We landed and taxied in. I kept the engine running while Bill ran the envelope in with $5. We took off for Huron, South Dakota (HON).

    The flight to Huron was smooth and mostly clear with just a few remaining patches of fog below. When we arrived we had 10 miles of visibility and clear skies. We decided to stop and take fuel, and I filed IFR for Baker, MT since FSS was calling for convective activity in the vicinity. I figured that if we got to Hettinger, North Dakota (HEI) without any trouble we would cancel and land there, putting North Dakota in our adventure log. Well, we launched and that's exactly what happened. We got to Hettinger, with clouds and rain and lightning up ahead toward Baker, so we canceled and landed.

    We took fuel there, too, from an interesting guy; he only accepted cash. But that was okay, and he agreed to mail our envelope. I called FSS and discussed the weather ahead. It didn't look good over Baker, MT with some heavier activity there. So I filed to Sheridan, WY thinking that we would get back to MT on our Idaho trip. We launched and asked for our clearance in the air. Well, wouldn't you know it, ATC assigned a route that took us to Baker! At that point I declined the clearance and elected to remain VFR. We flew our direct line toward Sheridan, which took us south of the weather at Baker. As we went along, we passed a significant storm, and saw that the sky behind was pretty good, so Bill and I agreed to turn north toward Baker. We were happy we did, since Baker was in the clear and we were able to complete that part of the plan, getting Montana checked off the list. When we approached Baker we checked in with ASOS which was kind of funny giving an ‘unavailable' report for each component of the weather. We called unicom and got an altimeter setting from a woman, but when we landed, not a soul was around. Jared kept the engine running while Bill took the envelope into the office. Turns out that no one was there either so he left a note with $10 asking to mail the envelope. We hope it makes it home.

    We launched for Rock Springs, Wyoming (RKS), and once we climbed to altitude at 10,500 feet we began encountering light to moderate turbulence. It continued all the way to Rock Springs and we was getting pretty tired by the time we approached RKS. With a 15 knot headwind our ground speed was only about 135 knots and it took us 2 hours 30 minutes to get to RKS. In all the bumps it was tiresome.

    We were blessed with a break in the boredom, however, when at first a Virgin Airways plane checked in with center, then a moment later, another Virgin Airways flight did the same. At this point the first Virgin pilot asked the second to switch to a private frequency. Well, Bill being sharp as a tack, tuned our second radio in to eavesdrop. Imagine this... Here we are over the Middle-of-Nowhere, Wyoming with two Virgin pilots chatting in their 'King's English'! One was bound for Phoenix, the other to Los Angeles. And both had launched from London. No wonder they wanted a chat!

    We finally landed on runway 21 which had one end under construction but it was still 7000' long, so no problem. The lineman turned out to be a fireman, paramedic, everything jack-of-all-trades kind of guy and was wearing a nice blue fireman's uniform when he refueled the plane. Bill called FSS and found that the weather was to be the same for the trip to Provo which was high scattered cumulus and turbulence. We saw a couple of gliders over Heber, Utah and let down through Provo Canyon. Bill brought us along the east bench while we lost altitude, and we entered downwind for runway 13 and landed. Bill did a very nice landing and we were in! It was nice to be home and we looked forward to sleeping in our own beds.

    On the way home from the airport we made arrangements for the engine oil change and airplane wash on Monday. Now, it's just six states: WA, OR, ID and CA, NV, AZ. We'll do them on two separate day trips.