Land of Enchantment 2006
Photo's - LOE 2006 Photo Gallery
Video - Sandi's Takeoff (Quicktime - 10meg)
Video - Flying On Top (Quicktime - 10meg)
Friday - Oct 13th
We've been monitoring the weather all week for El Paso and Kansas City as well. Forecast shows our trip down would be OK and the trip back on Monday should be OK but Saturday/Sunday was calling for rain. Certainly we didn't want to go if we were going to get rained on all weekend and potentially trapped in a hotel room. After attending the fly-in, our plans were to fly over to Tucson, AZ to visit Joe and Rhonda. They were pretty excited about having us come out, so that pushed us over the edge to make the trip. We decided we would push all the way to Tucson and then make the 1.2 hour flight back to LOE if the weather permitted.
We loaded up Friday morning and departed Ottawa around 11:00am. First stop was a short flight over to Miami County (K81) for some $3.10 gas. I filled it to the brim. We left Miami County fat and happy headed for our next stop of Borger, TX (KBGD). Uh-oh.. what's that.. ground speed of 111 kts. Ugh! It was going to be a long flight. 3.2 hours later we touched down at Borger. It wasn't surprising to see 3 RV-8's and an RV-4 at the ramp getting fuel. We took on 20 gallons ourselves which worked out to be about 6.5gals/hour burn rate. We departed right behind the flight of 4 RV's. We couldn't climb with them but we were keeping up with them pretty good until they leveled off and lost site of them. Center controllers kept calling unison traffic ahead 5 miles our altitude and same direction of flight. Told them it was a flight of 4 RV's going the same way. The controllers were pretty curious about all the RV's they were seeing and were pretty chatty with us. Another 3 hours or so and we touched down at Santa Theresa, NM (5T6), home of LOE 2006. Interestingly, we touched down right behind the flight of 4 and shut down at the same time they did. (Later I chatted with one of them who was pretty impressed we kept up with them.)
Following RV's out of Borger
Some of the hills we flew over.
Approach into Santa Theresa
Our intention was to stop here for a bit of fuel and push on to Tucson but a weather check for Saturday seemed to indicate we'd probably be able to get over to Tucson tomorrow afternoon, so we decided to stay. We unloaded and did a bit of socializing until the sun set. Local RV-9A'r, Nathan Larson had arrived a few hours before with his wife Tanya, so we hitched a ride into town with them. Had dinner at the Ranchers Grill and checked into the Red Roof Inn. (Pretty poor hotel.)
Saturday, October 14th
After a poor nights sleep, we woke up and headed next door to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. It was drizzling out, we didn't have a car and we were both a bit cranky. After a bit of discussion and several phone calls, we decided to rent a car and make a trip out to the El Paso Zoo before we headed to the airport for the afternoon. Right about that time, we got a call from some other RV'rs (David and Debbie) who had just missed getting a rental car after they arrived last night. They offered to share their rental and the cost with us. So they picked us up and we headed to the airport to get an umbrella and the camera.
Once we got to the airport, we couldn't get away from our airplane. Lots of builders and flyers coming up to ask us questions about the plane. The SJ cowl usually draws them in and the long range tanks usually keeps them around. :-) Even Sandi got tied up in conversation with another builder. So our trip to the zoo got canned. The weather was really bleary out and we knew there was no way we would get to Tucson in the afternoon, so we made arrangements for another nights hotel stay, this time at La Quinta Inn. We ran into town for a quick bite to eat, back to the airport we walked around and looked at the rest of the RV's on the field and chatting with various folks.
David and Debbie tracked us down and we headed back into town to clean up and for a quick nap before the evening banquet. La Quinta Inn wasn't much better than Red Roof. Our first room was absolutely unbearable with chemical deodorant spray. We changed rooms and rested a bit until we headed back to the airport.
We attended the evening banquet which had some pretty good TX BBQ. (We were interupted at the banquet with a phone call from Sandi's mom. Sandi's daughter Tenisha had just given birth!! That makes Sandi a grandma! Giana Alexis was born at 7:18pm and weighed in at 6lbs 12oz and 19" long) Lots of prizes were given away and a whole bunch of money was give to charity, over $14,000!! Back to the hotel for another poor nights sleep. Sandi was pretty much at wits end with the bad sleep and her worst fears of being trapped in a hotel for the weekend coming true.
Sunset at the airport
Sunday, October 15th
We awoke to rain yet again and pretty crummy weather. David and Debbie were trying to head east back to TX but that wasn't happening. Our trip to the west wasn't looking good either. We ate breakfast at CB again and then went for a walk. About 10:30 or so the weather was clearing up and we had somewhat blue skies overhead. A check of the weather along our route indicated we might be able to get to Tucson, it was supposedly better weather to the west. Weighing the option of yet another bad night in a hotel, we headed to the airport. Arriving at the airport, it appeared that just over the half the RV's had already departed. (Not sure which way the went though!) We said goodbye to David and Debbie and headed West. Cloud layer was at about 7,000 ft or so. We tried 6500ft MSL to stay under clouds. With the clouds being somewhat low, we followed the Interstate 10 West highway over to Tucson. This kept us from flying over several smaller ranges. We did have some light turbulence along the way. After zig-zagging around for 1.5 hrs, we finally arrived at Benson, AZ (E95) which was the closest and easiest GA airport for Joe to pick us up at.
A call to Joe to come and pick us up and we unloaded. While waiting for Joe, I wandered over to the hangars and met Robert who was working on a quick-build RV-7A. We chatted a bit before Joe arrived. We headed into town to pick up Rhonda and then to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner and then off to bed! Finally a decent bed to sleep in. :-)
Headed to Tuscon
Video - Sandi's Takeoff (Quicktime - 10meg)
Video - Flying On Top (Quicktime - 10meg)
Friday - Oct 13th
We've been monitoring the weather all week for El Paso and Kansas City as well. Forecast shows our trip down would be OK and the trip back on Monday should be OK but Saturday/Sunday was calling for rain. Certainly we didn't want to go if we were going to get rained on all weekend and potentially trapped in a hotel room. After attending the fly-in, our plans were to fly over to Tucson, AZ to visit Joe and Rhonda. They were pretty excited about having us come out, so that pushed us over the edge to make the trip. We decided we would push all the way to Tucson and then make the 1.2 hour flight back to LOE if the weather permitted.
We loaded up Friday morning and departed Ottawa around 11:00am. First stop was a short flight over to Miami County (K81) for some $3.10 gas. I filled it to the brim. We left Miami County fat and happy headed for our next stop of Borger, TX (KBGD). Uh-oh.. what's that.. ground speed of 111 kts. Ugh! It was going to be a long flight. 3.2 hours later we touched down at Borger. It wasn't surprising to see 3 RV-8's and an RV-4 at the ramp getting fuel. We took on 20 gallons ourselves which worked out to be about 6.5gals/hour burn rate. We departed right behind the flight of 4 RV's. We couldn't climb with them but we were keeping up with them pretty good until they leveled off and lost site of them. Center controllers kept calling unison traffic ahead 5 miles our altitude and same direction of flight. Told them it was a flight of 4 RV's going the same way. The controllers were pretty curious about all the RV's they were seeing and were pretty chatty with us. Another 3 hours or so and we touched down at Santa Theresa, NM (5T6), home of LOE 2006. Interestingly, we touched down right behind the flight of 4 and shut down at the same time they did. (Later I chatted with one of them who was pretty impressed we kept up with them.)
Our intention was to stop here for a bit of fuel and push on to Tucson but a weather check for Saturday seemed to indicate we'd probably be able to get over to Tucson tomorrow afternoon, so we decided to stay. We unloaded and did a bit of socializing until the sun set. Local RV-9A'r, Nathan Larson had arrived a few hours before with his wife Tanya, so we hitched a ride into town with them. Had dinner at the Ranchers Grill and checked into the Red Roof Inn. (Pretty poor hotel.)
Saturday, October 14th
After a poor nights sleep, we woke up and headed next door to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. It was drizzling out, we didn't have a car and we were both a bit cranky. After a bit of discussion and several phone calls, we decided to rent a car and make a trip out to the El Paso Zoo before we headed to the airport for the afternoon. Right about that time, we got a call from some other RV'rs (David and Debbie) who had just missed getting a rental car after they arrived last night. They offered to share their rental and the cost with us. So they picked us up and we headed to the airport to get an umbrella and the camera.
Once we got to the airport, we couldn't get away from our airplane. Lots of builders and flyers coming up to ask us questions about the plane. The SJ cowl usually draws them in and the long range tanks usually keeps them around. :-) Even Sandi got tied up in conversation with another builder. So our trip to the zoo got canned. The weather was really bleary out and we knew there was no way we would get to Tucson in the afternoon, so we made arrangements for another nights hotel stay, this time at La Quinta Inn. We ran into town for a quick bite to eat, back to the airport we walked around and looked at the rest of the RV's on the field and chatting with various folks.
David and Debbie tracked us down and we headed back into town to clean up and for a quick nap before the evening banquet. La Quinta Inn wasn't much better than Red Roof. Our first room was absolutely unbearable with chemical deodorant spray. We changed rooms and rested a bit until we headed back to the airport.
We attended the evening banquet which had some pretty good TX BBQ. (We were interupted at the banquet with a phone call from Sandi's mom. Sandi's daughter Tenisha had just given birth!! That makes Sandi a grandma! Giana Alexis was born at 7:18pm and weighed in at 6lbs 12oz and 19" long) Lots of prizes were given away and a whole bunch of money was give to charity, over $14,000!! Back to the hotel for another poor nights sleep. Sandi was pretty much at wits end with the bad sleep and her worst fears of being trapped in a hotel for the weekend coming true.
Sunday, October 15th
We awoke to rain yet again and pretty crummy weather. David and Debbie were trying to head east back to TX but that wasn't happening. Our trip to the west wasn't looking good either. We ate breakfast at CB again and then went for a walk. About 10:30 or so the weather was clearing up and we had somewhat blue skies overhead. A check of the weather along our route indicated we might be able to get to Tucson, it was supposedly better weather to the west. Weighing the option of yet another bad night in a hotel, we headed to the airport. Arriving at the airport, it appeared that just over the half the RV's had already departed. (Not sure which way the went though!) We said goodbye to David and Debbie and headed West. Cloud layer was at about 7,000 ft or so. We tried 6500ft MSL to stay under clouds. With the clouds being somewhat low, we followed the Interstate 10 West highway over to Tucson. This kept us from flying over several smaller ranges. We did have some light turbulence along the way. After zig-zagging around for 1.5 hrs, we finally arrived at Benson, AZ (E95) which was the closest and easiest GA airport for Joe to pick us up at.
A call to Joe to come and pick us up and we unloaded. While waiting for Joe, I wandered over to the hangars and met Robert who was working on a quick-build RV-7A. We chatted a bit before Joe arrived. We headed into town to pick up Rhonda and then to a local Mexican restaurant for dinner and then off to bed! Finally a decent bed to sleep in. :-)
posted by Matthew at 9:29 PM
1 Comments:
Congratulations Grandma Sandi! This is your cousin Debi (Manning) Luptak. I view your website from time to time and enjoy your journal.
Take care.
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