Day 1 Home to Sunrise, ID

Crossing the Columbia River

Haze over Idaho


And so it begins.

After many years (too many) since I last wandered the world in my plane. I call these trips “Flyabout”, an allusion to the mystical walks of discovery by Australian aborigines, often considered a right of passage.

When I go out on these trips, I don’t have an itinerary or route. I have some places I would like to go, and some friends I would like to see, but no real plans. My mantra is that I am going where the winds and my credit cards can take me.

I had the airplane all ready to go this morning, I just needed to pack. Taking care of the little details always takes long than I plan. As a result, I took off at 1030, an hour later than I had hoped.

The entire country seems gripped by a heat wave, and I will be battling it the entire trip. Leaving Everett, it was already 80 when I lifted off, heading to visit Jim and Linda Price in Sunrise, ID, just a little south of Boise. Their runway is 2,850’ long, which combined with the heat and altitude meant it was too short, so I went to Caldwell instead.

The first part of the 2 1/2 hr flight was just trying to get “in the groove”. There is a rhythm to these long cross-country flights, from how I track my fuel use to how to lean out the engine to get maximum range. With gas averaging about $6.50 a gallon, saving a gallon an hour really adds up.

I climbed up to 9,500’ to find cooler air (every place east of the Cascade mountains was over 100F. The air was a little hazy, but no too bad. About 70 miles from Caldwell though, the haze thickened noticeably due to a forest fire nearby. Eventually, it got so thick that I climbed to 11,500’ to get above it.

I descended into the heat and haze to land at Caldwell around 3 local time, met by Jim and Linda. Jim is a longtime Canard pilot, having set the world altitude record for our weight class of over 35,000’ in a non-turbocharged Long-EZ.

We stopped to pick up a pizza on the way back to their place. Quite the shock for me leaving the verdant forests of the Puget Sound for the high desert pasture and crop lands of central Idaho. The 102F temp didn’t help much, either.

Over the course of the 18 hours I spent in Idaho, I drank 8 1-pint bottles of water, yet didn’t need to go to bathroom.

We spent a great evening chatting about traveling the world (Jim went to more countries in the last year than I have in my life - 47!!!). We talked about airplanes, people we know, those we’ve drifted away from.

I also got a lot of info of how Jim and Linda handle his wanderlust, with him traveling a lot independently, something that Kay and I will be doing at least until she retires, such as this trip that I am on.

Time to get some rest.

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