Weathered into Walla Walla

---

---

Ruth was already up when Judy headed down to the treadmill at 6:15 am, passing by Dick, who greeted her in the lobby. He looked like he'd been there for hours had already, having set up shop there with his laptop computer while his comrades slept. He was peering intently at displays from the ADDS aviation weather site, particularly the high- and low-level radar returns and the big picture of the satellite images for the Pacific moving into the Pacific northwest and upper midwest. Clearly Judy had time to fit in an hour in the gym, and Janice easy got in a swim in the afternoon.

There is a huge weather system powered by the Gulf Stream that's whirling a low pressure backward from Kansas and Oklahoma into Montana, which is the next place we need to go. On the weather channel you can see a bunch of tornadic activity down there...but it's also pushing SNOW into Billings Montana and some other scud towards us. We need to cross the Rockies.

If we'd left today, we might have had reasonable odds of getting a grand total of 60 miles, to Lewiston. However, after that it's over 100 miles of mountains with NO places to land before Missoula MT if the weather were to close in...AND we'd be leaving behind some awfully good accommodation in Walla Walla for who knows what in Lewiston at best. Sixty miles isn't worth the effort in these conditions.

We may be here a couple days before we can move further eastward. Fortunately, the talented staff of the Comfort Inn found a way to let us keep our rooms at a motel that is already fully booked for the memorial day weekend.

It's not clear whether the next big HI coming in from the pacific is going to just push all this stuff eastward and drive some of those theoretical prevailing westerlies -- nice idea -- or will just keep the LO swirling and stuck in place.

Several of the party went back for midmorning naps. Ruth went out to visit with yet another set of cousins, and the rest of us reconvened at Edgar's for a lunch version of the stuff we had for dinner last night.

It's chilly here, getting into the 50's this afternoon -- and we are nearly gleeful as we watch the clouds come in and see our decision to stay put vindicated. It's still good enough that Judy and Bob are going to do a bit of takeoff and landing practice just because they can...and because Judy needed to complete some recurrency practice that she hadn't been able to complete in late April because of poor weather in the DC area before the group left westbound. Rust: Busted! And with some nice landings, too. Just because Bob Gawler's never seen Judy make one doesn't mean she can't do them.

---

Photos

Dick already KNOWS the weather...
and has now finished checking all his receipts and accounting. SUCH a good boy!