Willows CA to Portland OR: Done. Outlook: East. Forecast...Well....

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Editor's Note

Once Judy arrived in Olympia, she began to collect post-action reports from Ruth and Geoff to catch up the entries. Right now, weather's not bad, but a front's headed in. Whether we try to get out ahead of it and let it chase us across the country, or wait for it to pass and hope for a big fat high driving some happy prevailing westerlies remains to be seen. In the meantime, here's the Sunday report. "You'd better tell people to pay attention to the blog again," intones Geoff, who's dictating to Judy, "or the club will think we left Gaithersburg and spent three weeks in a bar...")

Sunday 19 May

The day began at Willows, CA, in the Sacramento Valley. We breakfasted at the hotel and began our trip's two-week anniversary with extensive route planning, as whatever plans we THOUGHT we'd laid for our final northbound leg had been totally scrapped by this point. After much peering at the sectional charts, we plotted a northbound route to Portland through some significant mountain passes in the Trinity Mountains of northern California. The weather, fortunately, wasn't a factor this far inland --unlike the coast, which remained socked in.

The gang watched two crop dusters - "Those people are insane!" noted Geoff Hornseth -- do their thing. One was planting rice, not what you expect. "They were flying no more than 300 feet, but spent most of their time just BELOW the treeline" for a couple hours before takeoff.

The first plane -- the Cardinal -- left around 10:30 am local. The Piper, after pretending to have a dying battery that resulted in all kinds of diagnostic shenanigans and dark mutterings about the unfortunate un-fungible nature of automotive versus aviation batteries, turned out to be playing a delayed April Fool's joke: it just need its battery terminals scrubbed off and then started sweetly, to be airborne around 12:30. The 172, with Bob Hawkins and Janice Templeman, made a precautionary landing shortly after takeoff and determined that all was well, and re-launched.

The day began with a nearly three-hour leg, refueling at a small airport, Roseburg OR, between Lake Shasta and Lake Trinity, was in a heat wave but featured a welcome green climate that was a great treat after days and days of dry desert locales. That route brought impressive views of two major volcanoes -- Mount Shasta and Mount Lassen. The gang also contributed valuable PIREPS to the system, reporting some small forest fires near Meadford and Grant's Pass, en route.

All three planes had caught up with each other for the final trip leg of the day; it took another 1:15 or so to reach the Portland area. "We did see Mount Adams, to the south, and Mount Hood to the east of Portland. Mount St Helens was lost in the haze north of Portland. The group landed Aurora State airport just to the southeast of the city. "It was the only place we could find a rental car on a Sunday!"

Ruth and the third plane landed in Portland around 6 pm Sunday. Alex had decided to return home commercial from Seattle, and Gashaw not to come west after all. Judy finally departed her Seattle holding pattern to head southbound via ground shuttle and ended up getting to Ruth's cousin Margie Taylor's place in Olympia before Ruth and Geoff, northbound in a rental car from Portland, did!

At this point, a few small repairs are in order --
- pumping up a leaky strut and fixing the left outboard fuel drain on 624
- fixing the left side door latch on the 172
- and a lot of R+R+R -- rest, relaxation and rehydration.

Until/unless we get a "hustle your butts" phone call!

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Photos

Typical northern CA terrain
Agricultural territory over the Sacramento valley

CIMG2888
Volcano in the distance