Well, it's either work, hang with my mother in-law, or babble about flying...I'll take flying babble.
This morning I managed to get Jen up at o-dark-thirty. We loaded our crap into the truck...3 small soft bags of clothes, a bag of water bottles & tupperwared fruit, the laptop, and a pasta maker (don't ask). I was extremely impressed with Jen's packing. Normally when she'd call out "OK, I'm ready," she'd be walking with a 40-pound castering mammoth Costco-size suitcase behind her. I had repeatedly given her the "briefing" that she needs to start thinking light and small...easier to load several small bags than one mondo suitcase. She actually took heed. And none of the bags weighed more than a few pounds. Sweet!
We got to the hangar around 7:55 and loaded 14D up. This was the first time Jen had travelled overnight in the RV, and after seeing how much baggage space we had left over, she made several comments to the tune of, "dammit, I could have brought twice as much!" For a 3-night little stint up at the in-laws' house, apparently she needs shoes up the wazoo. I will never understand... I got by with a rope tied around a few T-shirts and boxers...my style of packing. Jen insisted that I toss that into a duffle bag...ok, fine. Anyway, it wasn't deeper than a foot of bags back there...cool.
We took off into smooth, clear air at about 8:15 and climbed above the marine layer that covered most of the basin. We touched down at Agua Dulce about 20 minutes later. It was dead there other than the country music blasting over the P/A...and no line for fuel.
From there we took off (full fuel, baggage, still airborne before the threshold, love it) and climbed to 8500' direct Lake Hughes VOR -- my GPS is out for repair, so I used a relatively old fashioned method of getting around. The southeast end of the central valley was socked in with an overcast layer, tops around 6500'. As we got past Bakersfield and up toward Avenal, the tops climbed up to meet us at 8500'.
We played around, dodging around the tufts jutting upward from the cloud deck. Jen actually got a real kick out of this. Normally she's not into lots of turns in succession, but she was smiling the whole way through that. Cool! "Isn't this like a ride at Disneyland?" (I get brownie points for every mention of Dismaland)
Just northwest of Avenal the cloud deck ended in an abrupt line and it was clear below. The scenery was bizarre...the way a distant stratus stretched across from the east, and the way the haze played on the horizon with a smooth transition from grey to blue, it looked like the northern half of California had fallen into the ocean...it was weird.
A bit later, we descended for Harris Ranch -- following I-5 and laughing at the poor bastards driving below. We landed just after 9:30. Winds up there were whippin' pretty good. It was about 25 knots steady, just about right down the runway. We bopped over to the store and snagged a vaccuum packed bag full of filet, and hustled back to the warmth of the cockpit -- it was in the 50s up there, and the wind didn't exactly help. You know if you see me taxiing with the canopy closed, it must be nippy out.
We took off around 10:15 and climbed back up to 8500'. We headed to Panoche and then direct Livermore. Leaned to 50 lean-of-peak 14D was burning 8.2 gph. Indicated was 152 knots, but I'm not sure what the groundspeed was...the winds aloft were 40 knots out of the northwest, so we weren't getting anywhere in a hurry. The temp at that altitude was 38F, and my oil temp was happy-happy at 187 (for once). The heat was blasting but doing a pretty poor job of keeping the wife toasty...I need to throw some stainless scrubbing pads into the heat muff to slow down the air a bit. That and seal the canopy skirt sides better...all in due time. Anyway, we eventually descended into the Livermore area and landed just after 11. What is usually a 1:45 flight took about three hours because of the stops, but I can't complain about $1.99 fuel and fresh, tender cow meat. 8^)
Now the three generations of women in Jen's family are yapping, and all I'm doing is procrastinating until I get to fly again...gotta get some work done, I guess. Builders, keep cranking on your planes. There's nothing like cruising around in an aluminum contraption you built in your garage!