vingt-huit
Spent a lovely day with Diane and Luke. They came over, had lunch, played around then went for a walk. Diane very graciously and generously cleaned the kitchen while I mowed the lawn. I think the kitchen is (quite literally) the cleanest it’s ever been.
I flew this morning around 9 a.m. The cloud bases were at pattern altitude (1500ft) and the coverage was somewhere between scattered and broken (I can fly VFR in scattered, but not broken). I took off from Sugar Valley and was overjoyed to find myself flying through wisps of clouds the sun was rapidly burning off. It’s always enjoyable to fly through scattered clouds because I get a sense of just how fast I’m traveling, shooting in and out of them at around 100 mph in the climb. It’s thrilling and I was grinning from ear to ear–until I got up to around 2500 ft, above the cloud tops. There I discovered that the clearing in the clouds above the airport was one of the few and if I flew anywhere else it would be unlikely that I would be able to find my way back to the airport. I circled around for a few minutes, keeping the Sugar Valley in sight, then decided to make a run to the nearby airport of Twin Lakes. I dove down through the clearing and skirted the cloud bellies until I found the airport and landed. I took off from there and returned to Sugar Valley. The flight alternately exhilarated me and produced within me a healthy respect for the weather conditions. I was certainly more keyed-up, more aware of my location and the landmarks and certainly exhibited more than usual of that healthy vigilance pilots need to avoid traffic. Educational flight.