. . . and they're off and running . . .

So morning is not so hot right off the bat, but it shows promising signs.  Mike says the low overcast we see from their kitchen window usually burns off after a few hours, and the land slopes downward toward Pueblo CO.  A cold front moved down over most of north and central Colorado, so heading for Phoenix by way of Alamosa CO is out.  We'll need to go further south in the vicinity of Las Vegas NM before making the big turn to the west.

Sure enough, by 0900 we've said goodbye to Deb and are headed for Meadow Lake and a relatively uneventful departure.  Mike's advice was good as the overcast rose consistently the farther south we go and we eventually get as high as 12,500 -- a chance to break out the new Oxygen system.

Everything is going well until shortly after passing Las Vegas NM.  As we cross a ridge south of Santa Fe and not far from Albuquerque, the ceiling drops as we lose sight of the terrain ahead and snow starts running past the wind screen.  This particular picture was off our right wing in the vicinity, but you can see how the valleys are clouding up.

After a few moments of looking for a way through, I finally turn around and head back to Las Vegas NM.  This is, like many small airports, very nice, but way out away from towns.  Flight Service says there is a bit of a ceiling right where we found it, but they were not showing any significant weather anywhere else.

So we launch again with a bit more fuel and do an end run to the south around the ceiling, then back up toward Albuquerque headed toward St Johns AZ at around 10,500.  I'm pretty sure that's I25 right ahead in the photo above.  There is some spectacular territory which is not done justice by the camera in many cases.

Of course, some of that spectacular scenery is only 18 holes long.

 Most, though, is simply beautiful.

As we get closer to St John's we're watching the radar ahead.  There seem to be a few thunder storms closing in from the north.

 

The radar picture confirms there are only scattered storms, but they need to be avoided even if small, and even if Ann wants to try to wash the bugs off the leading edges before we get to Phoenix.  We deviate to the south a bit more to miss the worst of it, and eventually cross into the last bit of mountain range before Chandler Airport, our final destination for this day's flying.

As we get closer, there are some great views which get progressively more difficult to snap because of late afternoon sun creating glare.  There must be some good pictures of the Theodore Roosevelt Lake somewhere out there on the net.  The lake was our final fix arriving at the Phoenix Class B airspace.  The Outlaw Military Operations Area was hot that day, so we followed the water until we could turn the corner, descend to 4,000 to remain clear of both Class B and C airspace, and eventually get to the airport.

After a long day of flying we were grateful to head off to Dave and Deb Boehm's home for a cookout before checking into our hotel for the weekend.