When we depart the clouds are around 1200 feet above the ground and there are plenty of holes between them.
I decide to stay below the clouds for a bit. This is not much of a risk since the holes between clouds very common leaving me plenty of options to get up and out of danger if necessary. The landscape is really amazing. Dry with lots of Mesas and small canyons along the way. For the first 50 miles we stay under the clouds at about 1500 feet. Normally I'd be guzzling fuel and going slow at 1500 above the ground but here the ground is a around 6000 above sea level so I'm in thin air at 7500 feet, air that my craft passes through easily, at normal fuel burn and good speed. Sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too!
After a while I can see ahead and it looks like the Bighorns are "obscured" as they say or in the clouds. We climb above them and to the north we can see that the 13,000 foot peaks are covered in snow despite the fact that it's September. We climb to 12,500 to get above the clouds that encapsulate the lower section of the Bighorns where we pass over. Because of the cloud cover we really don't even get to see them. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said it best:
"Navigating by compass in a sea of clouds over Spain is very well, it is very dashing, but -- you want to remember that below the sea of clouds lies eternity."
Eternity will be avoided on this trip!
After a sun drenched stint above the sea of clouds we descend between them into rough turbulent air. We land at Cody in another stiff breeze that is cheerfully down the runway and prepare for crossing the Rockies.
The first time I did it, crossing the Rockies was a big deal, really challenging. This time I'm not worried at all. Unlike the east coast the weather is great from Cody all the way to the Pacific. Preparation for the crossing amounts to a solid lunch and telling my dad how to use the portable oxygen that we end up not using on this flight.
Interestingly this flight take us over Yellowstone
, near the Grand Tetons, which I knew I was going to pass over. The thing I wasn't aware of was what my friend Mike calls the Saw Tooth Range. Idaho ends up having some of the most rugged terrain I've ever flown over. Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Wyoming all have very rugged terrain but most of the time there is always a flat area within gliding distance that would turn into an airport if my engine decides to stop turning money into noise. Well, in this area of Idaho there were 150 mile stretches with no suitable landing areas, nothing, nada! Steep mountains leading down to narrow valleys that have small stream at thier apex. No place to land. Unfortunately this area was also marked by continuous turbulence and we didn't get any pictures. As we passed over we saw many small back country air strips that even the idea of flying in an out of gave me the willies: Short runway(strips more like) at high altitude make for challenging flying. If anything goes wrong the options are few and unforgiving! We fly about 2 hours and land at a small airport in central Idaho, get some inexpensive fuel and motor another few hours to Aurora, Oregon. We get a great view of Mt 
Hood on the way to Aurora. We can first see it about 200 miles away which for the West is pretty standard. Mt hood is so enormous that it looms huge in the window, endlessly, seeming like we are sitting still. It is an awesome site. Further away but still in easy view are Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Jefferson, and Mt Ranier. Fantastic vista everywhere you look.Aurora happens to be where Vans Aircraft is located, the manufacturer of my airplane Kit. We landed well after they are closed but tomorrow we'll stop by and get a tour along with a little assistance in fixing my tail wheel which has been misbehaving. The fix turns out to be easy, we get a short tour and we are on our way to McMinnvile to see the Sprucegoose.
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