Trip Journals
We’ve flown ourselves all over the U.S. and a little bit in Canada and written about them in our Trip Journals.
This a map of some of our bigger flights. The green lines have links to stories about those trips; the orange lines are trips that don't have stories written.
Here are links to each of the trip journals (click the green title to read about the trip).
Western US Loop
Since we’re both pilots, a week-long flying trip seemed like the perfect idea for our honeymoon. Go ahead and take a look, there’s nothing mushy.
Our non-pilot families voiced a concern with our trip and this journal allowed them to check on us and know that we were safe and having fun. That was a much better option than calling Mom from each stop. This trip journal was really the start of our practice of capturing our flying adventures in this form.
Boise to Boston
This was our first big trip across the width of the U.S., crossing the Rocky Mountains and then into the much lower altitudes of the central and eastern parts of the country.
We made a few fun detours on the trip. First was a visit to Sandusky, OH and Cedar Point Amusement Park to ride the famous roller coasters there. Then we flew to Niagara Falls and spent a few days enjoying the sights there.
This trip was done way back in the days of paper charts. We carried a lot of them with us to have enough maps to cover our trip.
Calgary and Denver
Our big trip for the summer in 2004 was up to Calgary, exploring Banff National Park, then down to Denver for a Mooney-specific mountain flying course, then back to Boise.
Glacier National Park
We flew up to Glacier National Park to escape the hot summer temperatures in Boise. We had beautiful flights there and back, and got to really explore the park.
Sunriver, Oregon
My brother Abraham, who lives in Texas, called on a Sunday morning and asked, “Is Oregon near Idaho?” After I informed him that Idaho borders Oregon he let me know that he was on his way to a conference in Sunriver, Oregon and wondered if Nancy and I could fly out and join him and his family there. They had reserved a two-bedroom condo, so there would be plenty of room for us to stay.
San Francisco Airshow
We flew from Nampa, Idaho to the San Francisco area to see the airshow for the U.S. Navy’s Fleet Week. The Blue Angels were the headliners for the airshow, but this was our first time seeing the Red Bull Air Races. That was even more exciting than the famous Blue Angels.
This would be our first long trip after getting our Garmin 396 which has the unique ability to display live weather information on a portable aviation GPS unit. I didn’t want any really bad weather, but I was hoping there would be something interesting about the weather that the new GPS would help us with.
San Antonio
In hindsight canceling this flight should have been a no-brainer. Although the weather was beautiful and the airplane was in perfect mechanical condition to make the trip, cancelling was still the right thing to do. On the day of the planned flight it took both of us a lot longer than it should have to come to that conclusion, which is what prompted us to write up the events of Christmas morning 2005.
One of the things we generally gloss over in our other trip journals is the amount of work we do in planning a long flying trip. This is a good chance for us to share a bit more about our planning process.
Oshkosh and Beyond (2006)
In the summer of 2006 we flew to EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh. This was our first time attending the biggest aviation event in the world. After Oshkosh, we continued further east and spent a few days exploring Washington, D.C.
We tackled several interesting challenges including weather, mechanical difficulties, and navigating the highly protected airspace near our nation’s capitol.