2013 Cross-Country Trip Day 5: Erie to Little Rock
After a great few days with the Baers, it was time to keep going. The weather was nice once again as we were loading up in Erie.
Though I’ve flown over Kansas a couple times, I hadn’t landed there, so haven’t been able to “check it off” the list of states visited. Dodge City seemed like a good first stop, so we headed in that direction. There were still some low clouds to the east, so we filed an instrument flight plan and set off (picking up our clearance in the air).
Before the trip, we’d ordered a handlebar mount for our video camera. I decided now was a good time to install it while we had a few minutes of downtime.
As we approached Dodge City, there was a solid layer of low clouds. Everyone was still content, so rather than fly the instrument approach (which would take additional time), we decided to continue. About 30 minutes beyond Dodge City was West Woodward, Oklahoma, where I’d stopped last August on the way down to get the airplane painted. I knew they had cheap fuel and a good pilot lounge, and they were reporting clear skies, so we made that the plan.
We had a good stop in West Woodward, eating lunch and letting Cooper crawl around the massive open floor space in the pilot lounge. Tip: the room with the best air conditioning is the one facing the runway. We also chatted with a guy flying doctors around the state in a PC-12.
During the hour we were on the ground, the wind had really picked up, gusting to near 30 knots. Fortunately the gust factor was low and the winds were right down the runway, so it wasn’t an issue for departing.
It was hot, windy, and bumpy, so we were eager to get going and climb back up to altitude and toward Little Rock. There were some clouds and showers we’d need to negotiate, but nothing too bad. The rest of the flight was pretty unremarkable, crossing the rest of Oklahoma and into Little Rock.
On the ground, we got fantastic service from Supermarine: very friendly, found us a hotel, and drove us there, showing us some of the sites along the way. We stayed at the DoubleTree just west of the River Market area. Eager to move around after dropping off our bags, we walked along the river and got some dinner before heading back to the hotel for the evening.
Next: Day 6: Little Rock to Montgomery
Previous: Day 2: Boise to Erie
