Onward, Upward, Westward... Guernsey, WY

We depart Clinton, Iowa, get a few shots of the Landing Ship on the Mississippi and point the nose West. The weather forecast for our route isn't particularly good. We are flying above an undercast for large portions of the flight. While tooling along above the clouds I got an eerie picture of a TV tower poking up through the clouds. This is why it is almost always better to fly high than grovel between the clouds and the ground. you can almost bet eventually the ground will rise up or the clouds will sink down leaving you no place to go but in the clouds or ground. This is a death sentence for a pilot who isn't trained to cope with cloud flying. I'm trained and ready for it but I avoid the clouds when I can, it just makes dealing with unexpected problems much easier. Dealing with a dead engine is difficult enough, dealing with it in the clouds is just no fun. Spend as little time as possible in the clouds and the chances of dealing with a failure in the clouds become minuscule.

The first leg takes us to Valentine, Nebraska where there is cheap fuel and not much else. This area is called the "Sand Hills" and it is sandy. We land, it is cold and starts to rain before dad finishes fueling the plane. I really want to make a go for Cody Wyoming. This is right on the eastern edge of Yellowstone Park. Unfortunately, as you can see in the picture, it's raining. Rain isn't an altogether show stopper but it's cold, between us and Cody are the Bighorn mountains(Heard of Custer anyone?) To get above the Bighorn's we'll have to fly high where it's colder which when there is lots of moisture means ice. Ice is bad!

I spend a bunch of time pouring over the Radar maps, automated reports from stations along the way and it doesn't look all that bad getting to a place about 80 miles north of Cheyenne called Camp Guernsey. The web page for the airport says great things:
Crew car
Cheap fuel
Oregon trail ruts

I call flight service and get a no, hell no from them on flying visually. Guernsey is on this side of the Bighorns and hence won't require me flying above the freezing level if I have to get in the clouds. I wait for a break in the weather, depart and manage to get to Guernsey in great weather. we land and it sure is windy. It took me by surprise and I had to take a second shot at landing. Ole' dad takes it in stride. The nice airport manager give us the crew car and we're on our way.

You have to wonder about any town that has an elevation far greater than population... two hotels and two restaurants and not much else. In many towns going and looking at ruts would seems pretty dull but in Guernsey this is prime time stuff. It turns out that the wagon trains actually wore through the rock and made incredibly deep ruts. I have no idea how the middle got cleared out but it did. The picture makes them look a lot narrower than they are. Weird.

By the time we decide to get some dinner we are limited to the local bar and each have a burger. It's actually pretty decent. head back to the Sage Brush Motel and get a good night sleep.