Ok, sorry, I'm getting off track again. Big surprise. Anyway, the "This is your warning" thing is pretty familiar to me. It's a system we came up with to let me know that Jen is really trying to enjoy something, and she's about to kick my ass if I say another word. So this time the one brain cell I had left fired, and I shut up. I tried my best for a minute to enjoy the movie. Nope, no joy. Not my thing. To make matters worse, Jen just kept the hits a-rollin' by going straight into "Anne of Avonlea" as soon as "Green Gables" was done. Cheese and rice! That's four friggin' VHS tapes. Put it this way...I got a LOT of wiring done that day. Probably better that I was in the garage than on the couch getting in trouble.
There was no breaking Jen's concentration on this experience. She was fully enmeshed in the story, transgressing the lines of reality and time and becoming Anne, or maybe one of her silly little prissy friends or something. "Jen, what do you want to do for dinner tonight?" I had to ask three times before I even got a "Huh?" It was more than obvious that Jen was pretty into it.
What's strange is that a long-term girlfriend before meeting Jen (I'd use the "B.J." before-Jen abbreviation, but that might conjure up bad imagery considering the context) was also a total friggin' "Anne" freak. It was from her that I learned years ago that there's this Prince Edward Island place way up in the middle of nowhere somewhere, where this whole Green Gables thing was supposed to have been set. Now normally, Jen is absolutely irritated whenever Robin's name comes up (oops, there, I said her name...to quote Jen, "That whole word is poison."), but I think in this case my involvement with Robin ended up being serendipitous in a weird way. Just having heard of "Prince Edward Island" was enough to eventually score me some huge brownie points. Late in the evening, while Jen was probably still in the midst of the marathon, most likely on the 4th never-ending tape, I looked at a map online to find this Prince Edward Island place.
Ah, there it is. Jeez, that's not too far from Boston. I plugged some numbers into some flight planner thing and found that at 175 knots (the unassuming conservative true airspeed goal I once harbored while building), I could get from the Boston area to PEI in about two and a half hours. Not bad! That's just a hop, skip, and a jump away. Hm....
This was about the time when Jen was not only pissed at me about my antics during terrible movies, but she also had a general feeling of resentment that had been unfortunately but unavoidably accumulating toward this whole plane project. Work every day on what seems like an endless project, and you can pretty much expect your supporting wife not to think you're so wonderful anymore. I think I needed a silver bullet, something to extend that slim and ever narrowing band of flexibliity. I think I've got it...
"Hey, honey... Next year for our anniversary I'm going to fly you to Prince Edward Island."
Let's just say that was an attention getter. "Really?!" At that moment it became clear that the plan had worked. I was back on her good side, and for at least a few minutes I think she forgot that I had insulted her taste in movies and stories. Sweet!
But it wasn't just a whim, and the goal was more than just the transient relief. I really did want to take her there. I could care less about the whole Anne thing, but the notion of taking Jen somewhere meaningful to her, and doing so in the plane I...no...WE built, would sort of consummate and validate all the effort that went into this crazy project. The fruits of our labor. It would give a little something back to Jen, who gave a lot for this cause. And there'd also be just a little teeny something in it for me, say, the pride? Transporting us across the continent in an aluminum contraption we built in our garage is no small feat, and having done that would definitely give me a sense of having conquered the challenge. It would turn the plane into more than just a flying contraption...it would become a real travelling flying contraption. Sure, we could just plop our bucks down and hop a commercial airline flight -- but where's the fun in that?!
So that's what I set my mind on. The plan actually came together nicely. I set out the map of North America and Jen and I identified lots of locations we'd love to stop and see. Of course Boston would be on the list, since that's where I grew up and learned to fly, and my buddies still live out there. But then there's Chicago, where Jen had never been, New Orleans, Savannah, San Antonio, Santa Fe, Mt. Rushmore, Niagara Falls....WAIT a second. We can't do it all. It was slightly painful to narrow it down to an itinerary that could fit inside of two weeks, or 16 days, rather. In the end we decided that the priorities were obviously PEI (Prince Edward Island) and Boston, with a stop in Chicago for some deep dish pizza. Let the flight planning begin...
Armed with this trip in mind, I was equipped with more than enough motivation to finish building the plane in time for summer...specifically late June and early July. As I may have mentioned before I really wanted to have it complete before Jen's birthday in April, so that I'd have time to wring it out a bit before the big trip. Who in their right mind would take a homebuilt across the continent with the ink on the airworthiness slip still wet? Anyway, the notion of making this trip in the summer of 2004 was plenty of mental fuel to keep going at a frantic pace, all the way to the end. And needless to say, I used the concept on my behalf at several stumbling points along the way when Jen's disdain for the project intensified. It was useful in staying focussed and retaining the license to continue as such.
Cut to March of 2004, when the plane was essentially "done." At this point I found myself with a couple of weeks of cool-off before the DAR was scheduled to come inspect the plane. It's not that I wasn't busy, but I had a lot more time for other things, that's for sure. One of those other things was the flight planning for this venture. I had been following AirNav, and I continuously monitored the route for cheap fuel stops. I now realize that AirNav is a blessing and a curse. While building the plane, I was doing a heck of a lot less flying than I used to (that's an understatement). Also, living out here in southern California has sheltered me to just about all but the absolute best weather conditions. You wake up, look outside, and it's either clear -- or it will be soon. I really took that for granted. Anyway, I naively went along with my original route planning, and I spent lots of time pinpointing the ideal stopping points. It all worked out perfectly....
The map above shows my preferred routing. I'll cut to the chase and show you what we ended up with...
Not exactly how I intended it to be! Tell you what...you've had enough of my dribble about the background of this trip. Let's just get right to it. We ended up flying over 7000 miles, and we had an absolute blast! Click one of the days below to get started...