My wife has her annual convention in Chicago McCormick Place from Saturday October 31 to Tuesday November 3. We decided to take the rest of the week off and visit west. Visiting Monument Valley is in our plan for a long time. Finally this is becoming a reality. I spent a lot of time collecting information and flight plan the trip. In this part of the country the terrain is high. A direct flight from Chicago will bring us over 14,500' peaks. I have flown my RV-9A over 14,500' several times and up to 17,500' at gross once. And, I have oxygen on board, that gives me a lot of confidence. With the consideration of fuel price, I finally decided to fly a little south (not much) to Lamar, CO before going straight to Monument Valley. Before departing, I ordered all the VFR charts and Grand Canyon chart and updated my GPS and Anywhere Map databases. The only problem is that my Garmin IFR GPS database is only for eastern USA. It ends at Kansas. But, my GRT instrument and Anywhere Map both have data for the entire country. I don't think I will use the paper charts in the cockpit but will keep them for reference and backup. Before we left for Chicago I did not book any hotel for the West trip. Although I am instrument rated, if there is a major weather system passing through I will not try to make such a long trip. We just don't have enough time to wait out the bad weather. I, therefore, defer the decision until we are in Chicago. Following is a diary of our trip.
A cold front is coming and is forecasted to be in between Cincinnati and Portsmouth on Saturday morning. We decided to fly to Indianapolis this evening to stay with our boys instead of flying on Saturday morning. Lucky for us we have good relationship with them, our visit is always welcomed. In the morning I went changing oil and prep the airplane for the trip. In the afternoon I took the advantage of the good weather blowing leaves and applying fertilizer and winterize the grass. My wife was busy finishing up her work before leaving for the week. Finally, she came home before 5 pm and we headed to the airport and departed at 5:30pm. At this time weather in our area was good but cold front has arrived at Indianapolis. METAR report KEYE to be MVFR. The green and yellow radar returns cover half of Indiana and moving to in between Indy and Cincy. The low overcast near Cincinnati forced us to stay below 4,000'. Near Centerville, IN, I called Indy Center and tried to get an IFR clearance. Unfortunately, I was not able to get hold of them due to the low altitude. Looking at the XM weather, I found an approach from the south east will get us through. So, here we go. We arrived at Eagle Creek with MVFR and landed under light rain. Only when I was tying down the airplane it began to rain hard. David, our older son treated us with a very nice dinner at a Mexican restaurant.
Click the picture to enlarge.
By Saturday morning the cold front has moved to Ohio. Other than some dark low clouds, Indianapolis looked pretty good. We departed at 8:30 am for Chicago Midway. Due to strong head wind, we again flew low. When we passed by Lafayette, Indiana we decided to divert a little to take a few shots of our good friend's house in University Farm. Both our boys were born in Lafayette and I spent 24 yrs working there. We arrived at Chicago with overcast sky. I called Midway approach 15 miles out and got my sqwark code and instruction to approach the airport from south. Since I was at 2,000' with all the building I did not have the airport in sight until 6 miles out. I was instructed to fly left base 31L while a 737 was on final 31C.
At Odyssey Aviation I was informed of a $60 parking fee (no tie down only ramp parking) or $100 hangar fee, plus $7.5 landing fee. I was surprised. I thought I paid $30 a night for parking just two years ago. Since wind was blowing hard, I decided to pay the $300 for three night stay. My airplane is worth much more than the $300. Nevertheless, I can assure you that I am not coming back to Midway.
While my wife went to meetings I stayed in the hotel room finishing my online CFI renewal course. I got it done in two days. While monitoring the weather I decided the west trip is a GO. First I booked Goulding Lodge in Monument Valley and Courtyard in Page, AZ. The rest of the hotel will be decided after we arrive at the airport. From Chicago we will stop by Memphis, MO and Concordia, KS for fuel. Memphis fuel is $3.36/g and Concordia $3.5. My last fuel was filled at Eagle Creek at $4.15.
My wife came back from the meeting around 11:00 am, we called a taxi. Upon arrival at Odyssey Aviation at Midway, they pulled my airplane out of the hangar. I paid the $307.5 fee and loaded the airplane. The departure includes a call to the Clearance Delivery, get a squawk code, get taxi clearance from ground and depart runway 31L while airlines land on 31C. After we were 10 miles out, Midway asked us to change frequency and squawk 1200. Now we are free. Low flight again due to head wind. We arrived at Memphis, MO in 1hr 50 min. Memphis airport has a very strange layout. Upon taxiing to the pump and found no credit card reader neither anyone around, we departed. Our next planned stop is Concordia, KS. Looking at the fuel quantity I determined that we have enough fuel to arrive at Concordia plus another half an hour reserve. Again there was nobody at the airport. However, the pump is self serve. We got the fuel and charged the camera battery before departing.
Click the picture to enlarge.
We arrived at Lamar, CO around 5:30 pm local time. It is already dark. 6 mile out I clicked mike 5 times and the runway lights lit up. As we get closer I saw something like an airplane taking off from the opposite runway. I kept looking at it until on base. Eventually I realized it was a car driving on a road parallel to the runway. From a distance it really looked like a taking off airplane. Upon tiedown, David at FBO gave us the key to the courtesy minvan. We drove into town and in the dark I saw all the motels in one area. When I spot "Crown Plaza" I told my wife that is the one we should stay and she agreed. Only when we were checking in, my wife pointed to a piece of paper saying "Cow Palace". Wow, your brain can really fool you. I expected C P to be Crown Plaza and I read as such. It turned out the "Cow Palace" was not bad, a little old but clean. The restaurant serves good juicy steaks too.
In the morning when we walked outside of the hotel we smelled strong cow manure smell. The smell is omni present thought out the town. One local told us that they always tell visitors it is the smell of money. It turns out there are two huge (see my photos) feed lots outside of the town, one east and one west. Wind always blow the smell over the town.
We topped of the fuel and departed. During the take off roll I noticed that it took almost 1,000' for the airplane (at gross) to lift off. It is not bad at all. We pointed the nose toward west. From distance we could see a few white peaks. From my prior reading of the chart I know those peaks are above 13,000'. We are flying in between and I climbed higher gradually so not to face the stronger headwind too early. It is wonderful that my flight instrument (GRT EFIS) has color coded terrain. I could look ahead and see how can I avoid high peaks. Eventually we climbed to 14,500'. Before reaching 12,500' we put on oxygen. Visibility was excellent, we have plenty of fuel and engine just purring away. We took the time enjoying the scenery. For me most of the cruising is spent looking out off the window for traffic and terrain. I also spend a lot of time monitoring engine parameters (CHT and oil temperatures, fuel remaining, etc) and adjusting engine mixture. After two hours we began to descend to 10,000' then 9,000'. From a distance we could see Monument Valley. After passing the last big hill, we dropped down to 7,000'. I decided to fly around rocks first before we land. Here you can see a few video segments showing our fun.
Click the picture to enlarge.
Monument Valley airport is a private field belonging to Goulding Trading Company and Lodge. Gouldings started the trading company in the 20s and when the economy tank, they went to Hollywood and convinced director John Ford to come and make motion pictures. The movies became the free advertisement for the Valley. The airport used to be gravel with the last 1,000' paved. A few years back Red Bull air race was hosted here and the organizer paved the rest of the runway. Since the runway is at the foot hill of a mesa, it is one way in and the other way out. After landing we parked on the gravel tie down area and tie it to the two steel cables on the ground. My cellphone worked and I called the lodge to pick us up. The airport is right besides the major highway and the lodge is 1/4 mile up hill from an access road off the highway. To the south of the airport are Goulding gas station and general store. I was surprised to see houses doted the valley. I will guess at least a few hundred people live there. This whole area belongs to Navajo nation. Gouldings were white man trading with Indians. The entire staff we met were Navajos.
Arrive Monument Valley
Soon we checked in the Lodge and had a wonderful meal at the Lodge restaurant. We signed up the four hour tour to the valley at 2 o'clock. After downloading all the picture and recharged the batteries we got on the "tour pickup". Our group consists only two couples: us and a couple from LA. The ride into the valley was very bumpy. The road is basically desert sand. Without big tires and four wheel drive you won't survive the drive. The driver stopped at a lot of points and let us take pictures. Toward the end of the tour he stopped at a spot not used by other trucks. After we finished taking pictures he could not back the truck out. The rare wheels (four of them) were half buried in the sands. We could not get truck out so he radioed for help. Half an hour later a pick up truck arrived and pulled us out. While waiting for the rescue the sun set down and we got photos of the changing colors. We got to know Steve and Gail, the history of Valley and a little bit of the Navajo culture.
In the morning the wind was blowing. We departed Monument Valley airport around 8:30 am. The quarterly tailing wind and the high elevation made the departure take off roll a little longer but still within the first third of the runway. We made a departure air tour over the area we toured on the ground. It took less than 10 minutes to fly over all the areas. Then, we headed toward the town of Mexican Hat. The San Juan river is winding and cut a very deep canyon just west of Mexican Hat. The area is called Goosenecks. After taking wonderful pictures we point our airplane toward Navajo mountain, a 10,000' peak. On the north west foot hill is the Rainbow Bridge National Monument off the San Juan river (Lake Powell). I found the Rainbow Bridge and circled for my wife to take pictures. I had to fly a thousand feet below the peak and very close to it. I can assure you that half of the time (when fly toward the mountain) my eye was on the mountain like flying formation.
Departing Monument Valley
Long video on departing UT25 and fly around Monument Valley
After the picture taking we flew along Lake Powell toward Page. Wind was in favor of runway 15 so I setup for mid field left downwind for 15. When we were 6 miles out we saw a hot air balloon at downwind/base. Time to change to runway 33. As soon as we turned off the active two golf carts lead us to the tie down spot. They are from the two competing FBOs. Our rental car is already waiting at the terminal building. We picked up the car and drove to downtown for Antelope Canyon tour. Our tour guide is the son of a Navajo chief and a college student major in language and entrepreneurship. We had a wonderful tour of the canyon and learned a lot about Navajo people and its culture (we initiated the conversation). After the tour we talked about being a pilot and flying. It is likely that he will be a pilot in the future. He also told us about the overlook off highway 89 on the other side of Lake Powell, the horse shoe bend and Marble Canyon. After lunch we drove to all those places and had wonderful time. Being friendly to people paid off.
Click the picture to enlarge.
This morning at 8:00am the hot air balloon festival kicked off. On our way to the airport we saw balloons getting setup around town. Fortunately they did not draft over to the airport. We got our fuel topped off and oxygen bottle refilled and departed Page. We first fly over Lake Powell then turn south toward Grand Canyon. Enroute we flew over Horse Shoe Bend, Marble Canyon before reaching Grand Canyon. There are several routes over the Grand Canyon Flight-Free Zone. I picked east most route south bound so my wife can take picture from the right seat. We flew at 10,500' and monitor 120.5Mz. I heard and saw several copters flying at 7,500' in the canyon. After cleared off the flight-free zone we over fly Grand Canyon National Park airport and view the park from 10,500' (the airport class D airspace is below 9,5000'). Before we reach the flight-free zone again, we turn south toward Sedona, AZ. Our original plan was to land at Grand Canyon, take a taxi to the park, then stay at Sedona over night. Since Saturday is my wife's birthday, we decided to go to Indy to spent her birthday with our boys instead. Of course when we called, the boys were happy to receive us. Just for this we feel we are lucky and successful parents.
Click the picture to enlarge.
Sedona is a very unique city. It is not really our kind of city (we are too simple and traditional for this new age place). But the scenery is breath taking. The airport is on top of a mesa like a monster aircraft carrier. Coming from north and landing on 21 first we flew around a few hills then aim at a mountain. Before reaching the mountain we turn left downwind. On final before reaching the runway there is another hill. Those hills and mountains are all red with green trees. It is just gorgeous. Unfortunately my wife run out of her camera battery and she was not able to take picture neither video on final.
We landed to charge the battery and rest. After 40 minutes we took off and fly around the valley to take pictures. We came back to land and taxi back to take off again. This airport does not allow touch-n-goes. My wife did take video on final, but unfortunately, deleted it later by mistake.
We left Sedona around 12:30 local time and headed to Kansas. From Anywhere Map I decided to land at Hugoton for fuel ($3.50/gal). We climbed to 13,500' and put oxygen on. The strong tailwind helped us to cruise at 170 kts burning 6.5 gph. When we reached Angel Fire, NM I decided to land (elevation 8,800' in a narrow valley). As I was descending into the valley, suddenly we experienced severe turbulence. I changed my mind and climbed back over the mountain. From this point on we had bad turbulence over more than a hundred miles. It must be the mountain wave off the greater than 10,000' mountain range. Eventually the turbulence became lighter and we reached Kansas. Hugoton is a small farming town with a large airport. The surface wind was gusting 25 kts. We landed with one hour fuel left. The guys at the airport were extremely friendly. We ended chatting with them for more than half an hour. Before we departed they suggested that we stop by Wichita Mid-Continent airport, tie-down at Yingling Aviation and stay at airport Hilton. The Hilton charged us only $104 for the AAA rate and Yingling did not charge us any. We had a great meal and good rest.
The hotel gave us a quick ride to Yingling. While the lady at the counter check whether we owe anything, the line guy went out to tow the airplane over from the tie down. After she told us everything is free, we loaded the airplane and departed. Wichita departure did have me change my heading a few times before handed me off to Kansas Center for flight following (I did not even request). We climbed up to 9,500' to take advantage of the tailwind. At times we were doing 193 kts. Burning 6.7 gph we were doing 150 kts true air speed! Although we topped off 200 nm before landing at Wichita, we were able to make the 600 nm flight with more than an hour fuel left. We departed Wichita at 8:30 am central time and arrived at Indianapolis at 12:30 pm eastern time. The flight was smooth until reaching Indiana. It was just some light chops. Landing at Eagle Creek runway 21 with wind 230 at 17 and gust 21. Due to a waiting airplane, I landed long in order to get out of the way. Tie down made the airplane 90 degree to the wind. With the wind blowing, I asked my wife to step on the rudder paddle while I go put on the rudder lock. Before I get down I put the seat belt around the stick to hold ailerons centered and elevators up. After I got that done, I asked my wife to get down. While she was on the step, a strong gust hit and the wind pushed the elevator and the open canopy and the tail just drop. It surprised her and damaged the bottom of the rudder fairing. A lessen learned, in the future I better keep the back tie down ring on. Soon our boys showed up and we are off for a wonderful family time together.
Click the picture to enlarge.
All the fun has been had and now it is time to go home. No more pictures and video. We just want to say "what a wonderful life!" We were able to enjoy so much in such a short time. We are so lucky to live in such a great country, with beautiful land and friendly people.