Back on terra firma

Finally back from my week long excursion into the world of freight hauling. The previous week started with a bang. A cold front was sweeping through the area at the time of departure. The cold front brought cold air that was smashing into warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, and forcing the warm air to rise. That, of course, meant thunderstorms were in the area. This clash happens on a weekly basis in the Great Plains during the spring time. Some of us refer to it as the "mobile home relocation process" because the main threat here in the Great Plains is tornadoes. Oh sure there is hail and wind and such, but it's the tornadoes that get the attention.

So I had to navigate around these massive storms as I made my way south. I was able to stay in the clear as I went around them, which provided me the opportunity to see a spectacular light show. Some of the best lightning I've seen in several years, I witnessed on that first night. As the storms gathered strength they combined to form a nasty squall line. The lightning would seem to start in one cloud and end in another several miles ( 50 or more ) away. Nope, didn't want to be in the middle of that mess, but it sure was nice to look at.

The days went on to become mostly VFR for the next couple of days. Around Wednesday another cold front ushered in very cold air for this time of year. It snowed in Texas and Oklahoma at the end of the week, which is pretty rare for late April. As for my flight, all that cold air meant that I was flying in the clouds a lot. On Thursday morning I spent most of my flight in the soup. Flying without outside visual references is one of the coolest things that I do. It makes the flying intense and it can test your abilities. In short, it's challenging and beautiful. There's nothing like flying in and out of cloud layers and you make your way to the next destination.

I was going to discuss the aircraft I fly, but I will write about the mighty Cessna C-208B Caravan "Super Cargomaster"on the next posting.