The Numbers are in!!!!

Rose showing Destynee and Jadelen the Mooney

Jadelen - our very enthusiastic adopted youth

Our Score Sheet

Wunder Women and Jadelen - doesn't she look cute in our team shirt

Our baby birds with their adopted youth

Jadelen and her sister Jasmine at the Battleship Award Ceremony

Jadelen and her sister and some more of the girls

Well as good as we thought we did - people did better.  We came in 24th.   But I don't think I could have done anything different and I didn't hurt the airplane.  I had the best co-pilot ever.

The Morning After :)

• I was leaving the hotel at 5:30 this morning to help finish the handicap run.  It was a beautiful morning and I got to fly in a C172 and a Beech Musketeer.  Rose got to sleep in and attend the first timer's briefing.  We finally had breakfast at 11:00AM this morning.  Here are some pictures from yesterday.  The knob on the camera must have gotten turned because we are missing a few pictures. 

THE RACE IS OVER!!!!

The forecast was not good for this morning and we really didn't fell like getting out of bed at the crack of dawn so we slept in a little bit but decided we needed to go.  We grabbed drinks and headed out to the airport about 7AM.  All the early birds had gone so we packed up and taxied down Runway 31 for our departure fly-by. It was so serene.  We had an uneventful flight to Mobile - what a great airport.  The controllers were nice to us except for the Mobile Approach guy who wanted us to climb to 2500 feet - NOT.

We got to meet our adopt a racer kids (Destynee and Jadelen) today and they made this very special poster for us and we had Wunder women team shirts and sling bags for them.  I heard the 4 of us were on the 5:00 news.  I think we have a few future women pilots in the making - they were so excited.  We left the airport because we were soaked and smelly. By the time we made it back to the airport the girls were gone for the day but we will hook up with them at the Battleship tomorrow.

It's all over but the celebrating and no matter who wins - I can guarantee there will be a lot of that.
It's bittersweet because the race was only half the distance and we missed going to all the stops and seeing all the people who put so much effort into it. We have a few more days of timing runs, airplane inspections and mandatory meetings but Rose and I will be on our way north EARLY Monday morning. 

Today was my girlfriend Terry's 50 birthday - so it wasn't really a meltdown party but Terry's birthday party :)  Happy Birthday!!!

Thanks for every one's support - we had a blast!!!

One More Leg

Departing Boger - this is where Av Gas comes from

Lined up at Norman

Classic 12 with some maintenance issue

Millwood Reservoir

Not quite sure what it was but it smelled bad

Rose and I were up at o dark thirty this morning and out at the airport by 6AM.  I think official sunrise was 6:30 so everyone that wants to depart at official sunrise takes off in RON (remain over night) order.  We were just a few minutes late getting ready and lost track of airplanes so I asked if we were just taking off and Bob the stop chair announced that we were taking off in order until after Classic 20.  Not knowing if I could depart without a penalty we taxied down the runway and departed after classic 20.  We landed at Norman at 8:19AM.  Because our little Mooney was so HOT yesterday we were just going to do the one leg but Rose and I being on the same page as we have been - Rose was going to tell me she thought we should leave and I was thinking the same thing.  Unfortunately, about another 20 racers had the same Epiphany and it was already 85 degrees.  Norman is a controlled airport and the guy was doing the best he could but we waited close to 40 minutes to depart.  We landed at El Dorado at 12:44PM  and we were pretty sure that we were staying.  We cleaned up the airplane, tied her down, signed the RON list and Grandma (Josh's Grandmom) took us to our hotel.  Being the control freaks that we are Rose went to get us a rental car and a good thing it was.  There is nothing close as far as restaurants go so we took a ride downtown when Linda Evans called to say they were stuck at a hotel with nothing close either.  We went to pick them up and went to dinner at Mel's Seafood Restaurant.  There was already a table of 10 racers and we joined them - what fun.  We took a ride out to the airport to check on the airplanes and the heat had started to subside.  We dropped them back off and are working on our plan for tomorrow.

Ladies - Start your engines

Well - today at noon was official race day.  We could not sleep so we were up early, had breakfast, got a ride to the airport to wait for the noon start.  Some people decided not to be in the gaggle but we  we were up for it so we taxied out in number order.  There was a bit of a crosswind - we were in Kansas after all - and the Maule wanted to depart into the wind - what a novel idea :)  What fun to watch her big tires.  There were great tailwinds and we debated if we wanted to fly-by to continue when we got to Great Bend  but decided it was prudent to stop and re-fuel rather than worry about landing with fumes.  It was a good decision because it was hot and the engine was not happy, so we gave her more fuel -  plus there was more wind than forecasted - imagine that.

It was so hot in Texas - a record high 105 degrees.  As green as Kansas was - Texas it that brown.  I think they had a quarter inch of rain since January and it shows.

We are here in Borger, Texas for the night with a pick-up at 5:30 AM to try to get out before things heat up - the overnight low is going to be 73 degrees.

We will keep you posted!!!

The airport puppies looking wistfully for a hand out

A few of the volunteers at Alliance, NE

Can we go yet???

Some last minute flight planning

One really big fan

WE HAVE ARRIVED - AGAIN

Flying through the Front - out the window

Flying through the Front - on the GPS - minus the fingers

The country side was so lush and green

A swollen river

A power plant

Flower Aviation at Salina Kansas

Straight Out Wind Sock - normal for Kansas

More topography

Weather off our left

It probably took us 6 hours to get from Leesburg (where I picked up Rose) to Iowa City for the start the Air Race and today it took us 6 hours to get from Iowa City to Alliance, Nebraska for the re-start of the Air Race.  The winds were howling (in excess of 30 knots) in Salina where we stopped for lunch - what a pleasant FBO. The crew car was out but they lent us a truck to go have lunch - they even offered to make us sandwiches. Everyone said they flew through a bunch of rain - we were actually hoping to get the plane washed off and hardly got a drop.  Carol Sutton greeted us when we arrived in Alliance - how fun to see her. We didn't realize the impact,  besides the disappointment of not having us go to the airports but the financial impact of these airports that bought gas in anticipation of us coming there :(

Ride um Cowgirl

Rose and I took off about 11:30 local and flew 3 hours to SLN - Salina Kansas.  We just had a wonderful lunch and probably will launch again by 5PM local to get to Alliance Nebraska before dark.  More later.  The wind is HOWLING.  All the girls are up - there was Rose and I, a woman in a Citation and a woman in a Hawker.